Q I guess I can log absence by type (sickness, late, authorised etc) and then a regular report detailing this but can I set parameters – say four Mondays off - and have these flagged up?
A Many companies set parameters for triggers or alerts, so yes it would be possible to be alerted once an employee had taken four Mondays off work. You can also decide who you would like this information to be sent to – HR plus the employee’s line manager for example. The information stored in Kronos is 100% accurate and often used as support material in disciplinary meetings if it’s needed.


Q We merged with another company last year and the result is that staff have differing contracts for sickness and leave entitlement Does that mean we can’t implement a system until all staff are on the same contracts?
A Not at all. A system like Kronos is what we’d call ‘rules based’ meaning that you could set up individual contract and pay rules for every individual in your organisation. We have customers who regularly grow by acquisition and who are required to TUPE all staff. The system would therefore cope with staff working side by side on different pay scales, with different holiday entitlement and different sick leave entitlement. The most important thing when thinking about a new system is to be clear about the contractual obligations for each employee so that you are in a position to input the new rules once the system is in place.


Q So many of the questions staff ask are routine and just need looking up – such as how much sick leave have I taken? How much holiday do I have left? Can staff access this themselves? It would really reduce the number of calls our HR department and managers take.
A Employee Self Service facilities are becoming commonplace in the workplace and significantly reduce both the number of calls to HR and the cost of handling these calls. Organisations can decide how much information they want employees to access, but typically employers give access to holiday entitlement, sickness entitlement, leave requests, shift swapping, overtime checking etc.


Q We have a phone line for employees to call if they are going to be absent. Could we link this to a Kronos system?
A Yes. Kronos can be integrated with your automated Absence Line. The absence codes from the absence phone line are dropped automatically into the Kronos system to save re-keying the data. Absence reporting can then be handled entirely by the Kronos system.