Admin

It’s important to assign initials to each user, as this allows you to see who made certain changes.
In several modules, you’ll notice a “Modified by” column. This column displays the initials of the last user who made modifications, allowing you to have a more accurate record of changes.

To add or edit initials:

1. Go to Settings > Users.

2. Find the user in the list and click the Edit button (paper/pencil icon).

3. Add the initials in the appropriate field.

4. Click Save.

Important

The system does not validate whether the initials are already used by another user.
Make sure that each user’s initials are unique to easily identify who performed an action.

The customization of standards for each employee is a key element in aligning individual goals with the company’s requirements. This guide provides a detailed procedure for effectively updating these standards in your management system.

1. Go to Company > Norms and select the employees tab.

2. Click on Edit.

3. Locate your employee in the list.

4. Locate the column of the norm you wish to configure.

5. Add the norm related to the employee.

   ✏️ To make a change that will impact everybody, enter your values in the table header All Employees to apply a standard to your entire staff all at once.

6. Click on Save Data.

7. A confirmation window will appear, asking if you want to save. If you are satisfied with the changes click on OK.

It is possible to create public holidays and link them to each province. This way, the holiday will appear in the absence request, vacation, overtime, timesheet, and calendar modules for each employee—according to the province of residence indicated in their profile.

To set this up in Folks:

1. Navigate to Company > Norms > Organizational.

2. Click Edit Public Holidays.

3. A window will open. Click Add.

4. Enter the holiday name, date, and the province to which it applies.

5. You can also edit an existing holiday by updating its information.

6. Click Save.

💡 Tip: Since some holidays do not fall on the same date every year, make sure to update them at the beginning of each new year.

It is possible to change the supervisor for all employees within a department. This is managed through an automatic rule in your organization’s structure.

Steps to Follow

1. Go to Company > Organizational Structure > Departments.

2. Locate the department in the list and click the edit button (pen & paper icon).

3. A window will appear. Select the supervisor from the Employee Supervisor dropdown menu, or [Site name] Supervisor if multiple sites are configured.

4. Click Save.

Important

The change will apply to all employees linked to this department.
However, employees whose supervisor has been manually modified in their profile will not be affected by this update.
To learn how to reapply the automated supervisor assignment rule for an employee, refer to the article Default Supervisor Assignment

Do you have several users to create? Follow the instructions below to do it quickly.

First, make sure that each employee profile contains at least one valid email address (personal or corporate). To see all the addresses at once, go to Employees > Employee List and then View Summary. Scroll right until you see the email columns.

1. Generate users
   Go to Settings > Users and click on + Add (generate users). 
   Note, only the account administrator has the option to add users in bulk.
2. Select corporate email and choose the role with the lowest access level from the list. This ensures that no additional access is granted by mistake during user creation. Once the creation is complete, you can modify the roles of the users for whom you want to expand access. 
3. A loading process should occur, and the number of users created will be displayed.

👉Important: as soon as a user is created, they receive an email inviting them to join Folks and choose their password. This email is valid for 7 days only. As long as the employee has not chosen their password, their user account will remain inactive.

⚠️Attention: for users who will have a role with more permissions (for example, manager or supervisor), it is important to add initials to their user account. This helps to know who made changes/adjustments, approvals, etc. 

How to - Create a user

1. Access user creation

From the left menu, click on Settings > Users. This page allows you to view and manage all users in your system.

To create a new user, click on + Add at the top right, then select Add a user.

2. Link user to employee profile

Select the employee’s name from the dropdown list. This step is crucial so the user can make requests or view their profile.

Important: Do not skip this step if the user needs access to their personal information.

3. Enter the user's information

In this section, you’ll need to fill out the following fields:

First Name

Last Name

Email – This will serve as the username. The password setup link will also be sent to this address.

Initials – Used to quickly identify who made certain changes on the platform.

4. Assign a role

Choose a security role for the user from the dropdown list. This role determines the user’s permissions and access to different sections of the platform.

Warning: If no role is assigned, you will need to manually configure permissions one by one.

5. Restrict user access

If the user should only have access to their own information, make sure to select "Restrict information to the selected employee". If not, you can give more access by selecting "Visibility of all employees or by structure" and restricting access by working sites and/or departments.

6. Save

Once all information has been entered and verified, click Save Data to finalize the user creation.

Note: The user will receive an email with a link to set their password as soon as you click Save Data. The link in the email is valid for 7 days only.

⚠️ It is important not to manually activate the user, as this will prevent them from setting their password.

Employee Custom Field

It is not possible to add custom fields directly in the employee profile. However, you can create custom fields in the Employees > Employee List. Then, click on the gear icon to access employees profile configuration. Don't forget to save.

How to edit the individual sick leave standards:

1. Go to Company > Norms > Employees 
2. Click on Edit.
3. Find the employee in the list.
4. Edit the amount of hours or days in the absence/sick column for this employee. 
5. Adjust the absence standard by balancing the number of hours or days in the Absences column to reflect the updated sick-leave bank.
6. Save your changes by clicking on Save data at the top right. Do not forget this step or any modification will be lost. 

How to edit the individual vacation standards:

1. Go to Company > Norms > Employees 
2. Click on Edit.
3. Find the employee in the list.
4. Edit the amount of hours or days in the vacation column for this employee. 
5. Save your changes by clicking on Save data at the top right. Do not forget this step or any modification will be lost. 

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of security when logging in. In addition to the password, a verification code is required to confirm the user’s identity.

🔒 Enabling Two-Factor Authentication

Here’s how to enable 2FA for all of your employees:

1. Go to Settings > Security.

2. Turn on the toggle for Enforce two-factor authentication for all user.

🔓 Disabling Two-Factor Authentication

To disable this feature for a single user:

1. Go to Settings > Users.

2. Click the pencil icon to edit the user.

3. In the User information section, uncheck the 2FA authentication box.

4. Save your changes.

⚠️ Important: If you do not enforce two-factor authentication for all employees through the Company module, users will be able to enable or disable this feature themselves via the Account Management module by clicking their profile picture in the top right corner.

Vacation Accrual Calculation

In the Folks HRIS, an employee's vacation balance is calculated using the standard annual Vacation accrual rate. This rate is adjusted by adding any carry-over from the previous year and subtracting any taken vacation days. The formula used is: Standard Rate + Previous Year's Carryover - Vacation Taken = Current Balance.

Early Use of Accrued Vacation

This calculation is tailored for companies following standard labor practices for annual vacation accrual. However, many companies allow employees to use their accrued vacation immediately. If this applies to your company, here are three solutions to manage this:

1. Allow Negative Balances in the Vacation Norm:
   This method requires less manual intervention but shows employees when they are using anticipated vacation time. It's crucial to ensure that the requested amount does not exceed what is available (accrued in the current year) in the payroll software. This method illustrates that the balance reflects last year's accrual, but the company still allows the use of vacation time accrued in the current year (anticipated vacation). In this case, verify that the employee has enough vacation dollars in their anticipated vacation account before approving the request.
    
2. Adjust Employee Norms at Required Intervals and Add the Amount Accrued During the Period:
   For example, if Daniel has 8 vacation days at the beginning of the year, this is the amount to be set in his norm. If he accrues 1.25 days in the first month, modify his norm to reflect 9.25 days. This method requires ongoing adjustments at each interval, which can be burdensome depending on the size of your company.
    
3. Set the Expected Yearly Accrual Amount at the Beginning of the Year:
   This method gives employees insight into the total vacation time they will accrue throughout the year, allowing them to plan their vacation weeks accordingly. However, if a request is made at the beginning of the year or depletes the employee's vacation bank, this method may require a check on the available amount if negative balances are not allowed. For example, if you offer 3 weeks of vacation per year, an employee starts the year with no available days but will accrue these 3 weeks over the year. You can set 15 days as the norm at the beginning of the year to manage their vacation bank. Typically, by the end of the year, they would have used their 15 days, bringing their balance back to zero.

These solutions don't provide an exact vacation bank balance but offer a clear view of the available quantity for the employee, aiding in the decision to approve or deny vacation requests.

Changing the start of the month of your HR reference year in Folks can have significant implications for the management of your HR standards and data. Before initiating this change, it is essential to understand all the potential impacts to ensure a safe transition.

Impacts and consequences of the change

Moving Standards: Changing the start of the reference year may result in all standards for the current year, located in the Company > Norms under the Organizational Standards and Employee Standards tabs, being moved to another year.

Backing Up Standards: It is strongly recommended that you copy and paste all information in the standards tables into an Excel file. This step applies to both organizational and employee standards, ensuring that this vital data is preserved.

Restoring Standards: After the change, you will need to locate where the standards have been moved and reintegrate them into the current year. This task is your responsibility and requires special attention to restore the information correctly.

Exporting Absence and Vacation Requests: To preserve the history of requests, export all absences and vacations recorded since you started using Folks. Go to Time > Absences or Vacation > View Summaries. Enter the start date of your period at Folks, then click Export.

Impact on Sick Leave: If sick leave spans two different years, the balance of these leaves may be affected by the change in the reference year. A manual review of these balances may be necessary to ensure their accuracy.
 

Preparing for the Change

Before proceeding with this significant change, ensure that all essential data is backed up and that you fully understand the steps required to reintegrate the information correctly. This preparation will minimize the risk of disruption to your HR operations.

Contact us

Once you have taken all the necessary precautions and are ready to proceed, please contact us at support@folkshr.com. Our team will be happy to assist you with the change in the HR reference year to ensure a smooth transition.

In order to perform monthly vacation accrual for your employees, you must ensure that your system is set up to do so. If the options shown in this article are not available, contact technical support or your Customer Success Manager to adjust your settings.

Once the setting is activated in your account, when looking at employee norms, you will now have a new column called Monthly Accrual. This new norm will allow you to add the amount of vacation to be accrued to each employee every month. This field can be modified at any time to adjust an employee's accrual as his or her accrual rate increases, or to manage a particular situation.

You'll also notice that there's now a 2nd vacation norm called Accrued Vacation. This norm represents the amount your employee has accumulated since the beginning of the year. 

It is in this norm that the Monthly Accrual amount will be added each last day of the month at midnight. This field can be modified to add an initial bank to an employee, or to adjust the total if monthly accruals were not as expected.

Vacation accrued this way will be visible when a request is made, when an entry is made, in the employee's KPIs and in the vacation summary.

Here is how to manage important notifications. Discover how to add users who should receive additional emails.

By default, the supervisor receives notifications for absences, vacations, overtime requests, etc. However, it is possible to receive emails for all requests made on the platform, even if you are not the supervisor. To access the module, go to Settings > Notification Management.

For each category, please select the user(s) you'd like to add from the dropdown list. In addition to requests, it is possible to receive notifications for changes made by the employee from their profile by adding the user(s) to the corresponding category.

Before configuring holidays in your employees' timesheets, make sure that the holidays have been added initially. For further information, please refer to the article Add or Edit Holidays.

Once the holidays have been added to your platform, it’s now time to configure them for the timesheet.

1. Go to Time > Timesheets and click on the gear icon ⚙️in the top right corner to access the settings.

2. You can enable the automatic calculation of the 1/20 rule as stated in the Quebec's Act respecting labour standards. In the Holidays tab, click the button to enable the rule in the 1/20 column for all employees or for specific employees.

   👉The 1/20 rule is calculated as follows:
   The system calculates the hours worked during the four weeks preceding the pay period that includes the holiday, for a maximum of 20 worked days. The total number of hours worked over the four weeks is divided by 20 working days.
    

3. You can also set a custom number of hours in the Custom column.
   To assign the same number of hours to all employees, click the box under the Custom header and enter the desired number of hours in the field that appears.
   To assign different hours for each employee, locate the employee in the list and enter the number of hours in the designated field.
4. If you do not want holidays to be calculated, check the box in the Do not calculate column to prevent any automatic time entry for a holiday.

5. To assign a province to an employee, check the box next to the dropdown menu under the Province column. Click the dropdown to select the employee’s province.
   You can also click the box under the Province header to apply the same province to all employees at once.

   ⚠️ If the box is not checked, the employee’s residence province (as set in their employee profile) will be used to assign holidays.

6. Finally, click Save Data.

In Folks, go to the bank transfer page: Company > Norms, Select the Transfer of banks tab.

To transfer all banks, select the year and click the first Transfer button.

To transfer one bank at a time, select the year and click the transfer button for each bank.

Employee standards in Folks allow you to set the thresholds that your employees must meet.

In this article, we provide an overview of the actions and options available on the employee standards page. We will also give you tips and tricks for managing your data and the best timing for setting up standards.

Actions

To access the employee standards page, in the main menu, click on Company > Norms and click on the Employees tab.

• Edit and Save data - Use the edit button to enable modification of employee standards (see Add norms to an employee). Remember to save your work when you are finished.
• Use Previous Year - This button allows you to copy your previous year's data into the current year.
• Print summary - It is possible to print or export the page's content by clicking the print button.

Types of Standards

Among employee standards, you can find banks, goals, and limits. See the definitions below to learn more.

Definitions

Absences

The Absences standard is defined as the absenteeism goal for this employee. This standard triggers a warning when an employee meets or exceeds the standard so that you can review their file and decide if it is problematic or not. It is important to note that illnesses are included in this goal.

Absence/Sickness

The Absence/Sickness standard is for the bank of sick hours or days that you offer your employees. It is important to understand that the standard represents the initial balance/bank at the start of your HR year. Subsequently, the balance will adjust based on the various entries made throughout the year. Absences/sickness count towards this employee's absenteeism and the rates calculated by your Folks.

Accidents

The Accidents standard is defined as the goal for the number of accidents or near-accidents for this employee. This standard triggers a warning when an employee meets or exceeds the standard so that you can review their file and decide if it is problematic or not. It is important to note that occupational illnesses are managed in this module and included in this goal.

Accumulated Time

The Accumulated Time standard is the maximum number of hours employees can have in their bank. This is not the number of overtime hours worked, but rather the maximum accumulated in the bank at a given time.

Overtime Starting From

Useful if you use the timesheet

The Overtime standard is used only when the basic or project timesheet is enabled. It is the limit between hours considered regular and those that will fall into the overtime section and can be accumulated at regular or premium time or paid at regular or premium time.

Vacations

The Vacations standard is the bank of vacation hours or days that your employees accumulate. It is important to understand that this standard represents the initial balance/bank at the start of your vacation year.

The reference year for vacations is not necessarily the same as the HR year. Furthermore, year after year, you will be able to transfer balances from previous years to adjust what was really accumulated the previous year and retain only the equivalent percentage of vacation accumulation (4% = 10 days, 6% = 15 days, etc.). The total here is the amount of time you allow your employee to take based on what they worked the previous year. See the labour law applicable to your place of employment for more details.

Personal/Mobile

The Personal/Mobile standard is the bank of personal/mobile hours or days you offer your employees. It is important to understand that this standard represents the initial balance/bank at the start of your vacation year. The reference year for personal/mobile days is the same as for vacations and is not necessarily the same as the HR year.

💡Tip: However, if your personal/mobile days reset according to the HR year and you want them calculated in the absenteeism rate, you can leave the Personal/Mobile column empty and include them in the Absence/Sickness column. To differentiate them, you can have the list of absence reasons modified.

Discipline

The Discipline standard is defined as the goal for the number of disciplinary notices for each employee. This standard triggers a warning when an employee meets or exceeds the standard so that you can review their file and decide if it is problematic or not.

💡Tip: It is important to note that we suggest including verbal warnings in the discipline module (Employees > Disciplines). This allows them to be included in this goal.

Here is a review of how organizational standards work, particularly the business objectives that you can track on the detailed analysis page of the dashboard. You will also see how to plan your objectives based on your current situation.

You can adjust these objectives throughout the year according to your needs.

Actions

To access the organizational standards page, in the main menu, go to Company > Norms. By default, you should already be in the organizational tab. 

• Edit public holidays - This button allows you to enter your organization's holidays (see Set up holidays and Set up holiday calculation for the timesheet).
• Edit and Save - Use the edit button to enable modification of organizational standards. Don’t forget to save your work when you’re done. The annual total is calculated based on the average of the cells.
• Print - It is possible to print or export the page content by clicking the print button.

Configuration

If you are at the end of your year, you can enter data for the beginning of next year, as it will be more realistic regarding your KPI statistics. Remember that for this section, you can leave fields empty, if you currently have no data,

It is crucial to take your HR year into consideration when setting up your objectives.

Employee Absences

This standard is the absenteeism target for your employees. If you don’t have an absenteeism target, we suggest calculating absenteeism rates in your organization as follows:

• For the entire organization: The total allowed sick absences for all employees in your organization multiplied by the total number of employees in your organization.
• By working site: The total allowed sick absences for all your employees based on their working site multiplied by the number of employees at this working site.

It is important to leave yourself some leeway, so add a figure higher than the calculation you just made.

Workplace Accidents

What is your target for the number of workplace accidents this year? Don’t forget that occupational illnesses are also included in the calculation, for example, burnout or fatigue.

Training Budget

What is your training budget this year? Simply enter the budget you have planned for training this year.

Training Hours

What is the target number of hours you want to allocate to training this year? This will ultimately indicate how many hours employees will spend in training instead of production.

Number of Departures

How many departures do you expect to have within your company this year?

Complaints

If you use a complaint system, how many customer complaints do you expect to have during the year?

Discipline Issues

What is the target number of disciplinary cases in the organization this year?

Accumulated Time

What is the target number of overtime hours in the organization this year?