ELeave - Electronic Recording of Leave Project

About ELeave

What is Electronic Recording of Leave?

It is a method for requesting and approving leave using CorePortal, which is the same software you use to access your payslip..

What will be included?

The Core system will record all types of leave, the most common being annual leave and sick leave.

It can also be used to record other types of leave such as maternity, paternity, parental leave, force majeure, jury service, study leave, and many others.

What is not included?

There is no requirement for anyone to register their attendance.

Attendance in work is assumed unless you are on leave, which will have been approved by your manager.

Benefits of this system

As we embrace technology, there will be many benefits from this system.  It will help both employees and managers and some of these benefits are as follows.

Employees

• Can book leave requests via CorePortal at any time
• Can view their annual leave entitlement and balance in real time
• All information is stored electronically and securely

Managers

• Can easily view leave requests from their team and approve these via CorePortal
• Have an overview of the people in their team who have taken leave or have requested leave.
• All information is stored electronically and securely

Roles and Responsibilities

Employees

It is an employee responsibility to familiarise themselves with relevant leave policies.

All staff are entitled to avail of their annual leave subject to arrangements agreed with their line managers. Employees should record their leave requests through ELeave.

Employees should notify their manager of any absence arising from an illness at the earliest opportunity, and if possible, they may record their sick leave absences through ELeave (more details on sick leave related responsibilities and procedure can be found in the Sick Leave Absence Management Policy).

ELeave system also allows employees to book exam leave, and if they are academics – an academic leave of absence.

Employees should inform their managers of any other type of leave they expect to take (e.g. jury duty, antenatal appointment) or they plan to apply for (e.g. career break, parental leave etc.).

If a staff member notices any errors or inconsistencies in their leave records and balances, they should contact the ELeave administrator at ELeave@tcd.ie as soon as they can, so any issues can be fixed quickly.

Line Managers

Managers are required to keep accurate and up to date leave records for all employees for whom they are responsible. That includes reviewing annual leave arrangements, tracking sick leave absences and retaining medical certificates, or reviewing requests for some of other types of absence employees may be entitled to.

Relevant leave policies should be considered by managers as first point of reference regarding entitlements, sick and other absence pay benefits (e.g. when a staff member exhausts their full sick pay and enters into half pay benefit), or general principles of managing absences.

Managers are also to notify Employee Relations of an employee’s sick leave absence if it is greater than two weeks or immediately if the medical certificate states 'stress', work related or otherwise, when an employee's full and half sick pay benefit will exhaust. More on managers’ responsibilities and procedure on managing sick leave related can be found in the Sick Leave Absence Management Policy.

It is the line manager's responsibility to review their employees' requests for annual or sick leave on the ELeave system. All requests need to be responded to in a timely manner, and any rejected requests need to be justified and explained to the employee.

Any absences subject to the line manager’s approval need to be recorded on the employee's ELeave profile by the manager.

Leave Approvers

Line managers can nominate a person who temporarily can approve leave on their behalf (if they go on leave, for example). Such Leave approver can receive and review leave requests submitted by the staff members delegated to them by the main manager.

Leave approvers can approve or reject a leave request, as well as review employee's relevant leave balance (but only when reviewing a request). However, they are also responsible for following appropriate policies and leave management principles.

Leave Administrator and HR

The Leave Administrator is responsible for maintaining and administering the ELeave system as well as providing ongoing support to its users. That includes ensuring all users have appropriate access to and understanding of the ELeave system.

When rolling out the system to new areas, Leave Administrator will:

• contact managers to collect data necessary to onboard their employees on the new platform,
• use the collected data to upload work patterns and leave balances to personnel records in CorePortal
• provide necessary training to employees and managers
• respond to queries and address any arising issues, and other.

Once the system is operational, Leave Administrator will be providing ongoing technical and data support and advice on policy related matters. Also, they will perform system maintenance tasks allowing for smooth use of the ELeave system for all users.

Leave Types

User Guides and supporting documents

Below you will find our training and supporting materials for anyone using ELeave. We may be adding new materials here, so we recommend you check our page every once in a while.

• Employee Quick Guide Quick Guide for employees requesting leave
• Manager Quick Guide Quick Guide for managers approving leave
• Employee User Guide Guide for employees requesting leave
• Manager User Guide Guide for managers approving leave

Leave Types and Policies

In line with the relevant legislation, there are various types of leave staff of Trinity College may be entitled to. Here you will find all relevant leave policies operating in TCD.

• Annual Leave
• Sick Leave
• Sick Leave absence management
• Maternity Leave
• Adoptive Leave
• Parental Leave
• Parents Leave
• Paternity Leave Policy
• Paternity Leave Procedure
• Carers Leave
• Bereavement Leave
• Leave of Absence (Compassionate, Jury Service, etc.)
• Exam and Study Leave
• Force Majeure

About the Roll-Out project

Why are we doing this now?

This is a way of automating in one central platform all of the activity regarding requesting and approval of leave for the university.

• All employees avail of annual leave and there is a legal requirement for the university to record this.
• Many employees avail of sick leave and various other types of leave during the course of their employment. There is an onus on the university to record these also.
• The system will help to reduce the risk of errors that may occur in using a manual process.
• Electronic recording of leave will allow us to run up to date reports on the various leave types and these reports will show accurate and meaningful information to users.
• It will also help us identify the many types of leave staff are availing of, which we need to be able to do accurately for our Athena Swan submissions.

When is this happening and how will I find out about it?

We have now completed the configuration of the CoreHR system for Electronic Recording of Leave as well as the initial Pilot stage.

The system is now ready to go live, and from 1st April 2022 we will start rolling out this system on gradual basis to the whole University. We will be communicating in advance with every area we wish to invite next to the roll out. We will hold information sessions for staff and managers, as well as communication via email, through our website, and support documents and training materials. Our HR service centre will assist with any issues regarding logging into CorePortal or with any queries you may have once the system is live.

What will be involved in the roll out?

A dedicated project team in HR will contact local line managers to gather data on the work patterns of their staff, their annual leave entitlements and current leave cycles. A work pattern is an employee's contracted working hours. E.g. Monday to Friday 9.00- 5.30.

We need to gather this data to ensure that the system will correctly calculate the different types of leave for each employee and that an employee's leave balance is correct.

The project team is also requesting data on annual leave entitlements for each employee to ensure the system is set up accurately and that any leave carried forward from last year is included.

Please note that we are seeking the standard working week as if on campus. Any temporary alternative arrangements whilst working from home are not needed.

It is important to note that there will be no change to any employee's work patterns or annual leave status arising from this exercise, it is only a means to record the data in a more efficient way.

Change of annual leave cycle to January-December

To date there were various annual leave arrangements across the University. With the new system being currently brought in, all staff will now fall under one cycle – from January to December each year.

• For those areas that already operated in January to December cycle, the only change will be in the way their leave will be recorded.
• Departments that followed other annual leave cycle, e.g. October to September, or September to August, when onboarding to the new platform, will be aligned with the January to December cycle.

If an area is to be transitioned into the January-December cycle that they were not using before, they will be granted additional allowance of annual leave entitlement for the transition period bringing them over to the new cycle.

For example, staff that followed October to September annual leave period, will be granted additional 3-month entitlement for the October to December 3-month period. That way there will be created a transition period of 15 months where all staff received a 15 months’ worth entitlement that will bring them over to a new January to December annual leave cycle.

Please only note that within that extended transition period Christmas Break will be included twice, but please be assured that all calculations will be carried away in a manner ensuring no loss of annual leave entitlement.

Any details of transition to the January-December cycle will be discussed and explained to all staff members at the time of rolling out the new system to their school or department.

Clocking system

For any staff who currently clock in and out, you will continue to do this in the same way you are currently doing it.