Employee development

The career development module allows you to document employee certificates and training costs, and receive automated reminders for renewals, if applicable.

A career management page also allows you to view the certificates of all employees, including training requirements, as well as the goals and career plan defined when associating certificates to employees.

Features and benefits

Careers and certificates

Create certificates to track obtain and/or renewal dates for each employee.

You will then be able to see the certificates to be renewed in the next 30 or 90 days on the home page. Expired certificates will also be visible on the home page.

An employee can also access the list of certificates to print or export it.

Training

Create trainings for one or more employees, entering all the information you need to calculate training costs and keep a record of the documentation received (receipts, documents, proof of assistance, etc.)

An employee can also send a training request to their manager for approval.

When adding or requesting a training, you can select the associated certificate or create a training without a certificate.

You can add certificates you want to keep track of in Folks, such as work permits or first aid courses, and associate them with each employee.

You can also use certificates to create a task with renewal, for example, background check validation.

Adding a Certificate

1. In Folks, navigate to the certificate creation form by going to Career Development > Careers and Certifications. Make sure you are in the certificates tab and click on the + Add button. 

2. On this new page, click on add a new certificate (just below the existing certificates). In the certificate creation form, complete the required information. Mandatory fields are marked with an asterisk. The other fields allow you to fill in and standardize the information in certificates and training.

   Certificate Field	Description
   Certificate*	Enter the name of the certificate.
   Recurrence*	Specify the frequency (days, months, or years) for certificate renewal or check the No renewal box. You may want to keep track of a certificate that does not require renewal.
   Training Fields
   Type of training	Add a category for reference (examples: Safety, Compliance).
   Required Hours	Enter the number of hours required to obtain the certificate.
   Eligibility	Eligibility refers to whether or not it is eligible for the 1% law or another law depending on your province. Folks HR will allow you to generate detailed reports on training that is eligible or not eligible for this law.
   Internal or External Instructor?	If a trainer is external, you can enter the trainer's name as well as the company providing the certificate, if you always do business with the same company or trainer.
   Instructor Cost	The trainer cost is the total amount of the invoice for the trainer, including all eligible expenses.

3. When you are finished, click Save at the bottom of the page. The certificate will be available to be associated with all employees (see Linking a Certificate with an Employee).

To edit or delete a certificate, simply click the pencil-paper icon to access editing for each certificate.

Calculating Costs Related to the Certificate

A certificate allows you to track the date of acquisition and/or renewal and to specify the trainer cost. You can calculate all costs related to a certificate by adding a training (you will need to select the associated certificate).

On the certificate creation page (Career Development > Careers and Certifications > + Add), select the employee from the dropdown menu and then check the certificates you want to associate with this employee.

• To add a certificate to an employee's file, you must check the box for the certificate and enter the date it was obtained. If the template for this certificate has a renewal period, the renewal date will be automatically adjusted when you click outside the field. If the certificate does not have a renewal, it will not be possible to enter a date as the note no renewal will be displayed.
• If you do not know the renewal date (or do not want to enter one), simply enter the date the certificate was obtained and delete the renewal date.
• You can also simply check the certificate without adding a date to specify that the employee must have the certificate but you do not know when they will obtain it. It is also possible to enter only a renewal date.

💡Tip: You can select the date by clicking on the calendar. The renewal date can be changed if the renewal period does not reflect the desired date.

When associating a certificate with an employee, the sections on the right allow you to add required courses, set career goals, and a career plan.

You can also attach a file such as a certificate or a career plan. However, we recommend adding the career plan on the career management page and the certificate in the training or the employee's profile to keep your attachments organized.

Certificates Summary Page

The certificate summary page (Career Development > Careers and Certifications) allows you to see all employee's certificates, when they were obtained, and when they need to be renewed. It also provides an overview of all employees requiring certifications.

You can use the search functions to filter the list or click on the column names to sort them. To display inactive employees, check the box above the table.

• By sorting this table by renewal date, part of your training plan is displayed. This allows you to plan the training to be given to each employee requiring a certificate.
• You can also search by certificate name, department, working site, position, and supervisor to see all employees who have received this certificate.

As an employee, you may have access to your list of certificates. Here are the possible actions on the page.

• Export
• Show/Hide

To access certificate attachments, go to the employee files or the training module.

Career Summary Page

The careers page (Career Development > Careers and Certifications, careers tab) provides an overview of certificates for all employees. If needed, you can quickly add certificates as attachments for each employee here, but we recommend adding them directly in the employee files.

To display inactive employees, check the box above the table.

This page provides a global view of all your employees, including their future aspirations within the company, their plan to achieve that aspiration, and which training and certifications they will need to obtain to reach that goal. 

• By hovering over the certificates required box, the name of each certificate required to achieve the objective appears. 
• By hovering over the certificates obtained box, you can see each certificate obtained and the date it will need to be renewed. 
• The courses needed column contains the training the employee needs to complete in order to achieve their career objective. This may include academic or professional training.
• The career goals column contains the goal the employee aims to achieve in the coming years. 
• The career Plan column contains the steps the employee needs to accomplish to achieve their career objectives. 
• The paperclip icon allows you to add or view attachments related to career management.

Here are the possible actions on the page.

• Print summary
• Export
• Show/Hide

You can submit a training request by following these steps:

1. In the header, click on the + Make a Request button and select Training.

2. On the request page, fill in the required information. Refer to your system administrator to find out what information should be entered in this form.

   Field	Description
   Name of Training	You have the option to select a certificate or create a training if it does not lead to a certificate. Select a certificate if the training you wish to take leads to a certification that your company tracks for renewal. Click on Create a Training to enter the training title when it is a training without certification.
   Type of Training	Enter the training category.
   Identification Number	Enter the identification number. Leave this field blank if you do not have this information.
   Eligibility	Specify whether you are eligible or not. Leave this field blank if you do not have this information.
   Start and End Date	Enter the start date and end date manually or display the calendar. You can also use the Add a Date Range button to add series of non-consecutive dates. The last end date will be used as the certificate acquisition date, if the training is linked to a certificate.
   Required Hours	Enter the number of training hours.
   Internal or External Instructor	Specify whether it is an internal or external instructor. If you select an external instructor, additional fields will be required.
   Instructor Cost	Enter the instructor's cost. Leave this field blank if the instructor is internal.
   Travel Cost	Enter the travel cost. Leave this field at 0 if this information is not yet available.
   Other Costs	Enter any other costs related to the training.

3. If desired, you can add comments and attach files to your request. Refer to your organization's requirements.
4. When you are finished, click Save Data.

You will be able to edit your request if it has not yet been approved, or simply view your requests from the home page.

Once submitted, your request will automatically send an email to your immediate supervisor and other relevant individuals to notify them of your request. When your request has been processed, you will receive an email indicating whether it has been approved or denied.

You can add the different trainings that employees have completed, whether or not they are linked to a certificate, in order to calculate all associated costs.

1. Navigate to the training creation form by going to Career Development > Training. Click on the + Add button. 

2. In the training creation form, fill in the necessary information, making sure to select the employee(s) from the employees list on the right. If you do not know some information, you can always come back to it later.

   💡Tip: To select multiple employees, hold down the Ctrl key.

   Field	Description
   Name of Training	Select the associated certificate or enter the training title. If a training is linked to a certificate, some information previously entered during the certificate creation will be automatically added when the certificate is selected from the list of available certificates. You can modify this information as needed, for example to adjust costs according to the number of selected employees.
   Type of training	Add a category for reference in order to generate reports (examples: OHS, Onboarding, Compliance, Other).
   Identification number	Optional, but useful for generating reports by training. Trainings become easier to identify and find with sorting.
   Eligibility	Eligibility refers to whether or not it is eligible for the 1% law. Folks HR will allow you to generate detailed reports on trainings that are eligible and not eligible for this law. This option is only available for companies with Quebec as the province in their company file.
   Department	Used to filter employees in the employee list on the right. Attention! You cannot select an employee in one department, change department, and then select a second one. The employee selection is cancelled when changing departments.
   Start and end date	Enter the start date and end date manually or display the calendar. You can also use the Add a Date Range button to add series of non-consecutive dates. The last end date will be used as the certificate acquisition date, if the training is linked to a certificate.
   Required hours	What is the duration of the training in hours? This is used to calculate the wage cost of the trainer and participating employees.
   Internal or external instructor?	Specify whether it is an internal or external instructor. If you select an external instructor, additional fields will be required.
   Instructor cost	Divided cost (15 hours at $20 = $300 divided by the number of participants (e.g., 3) = $100 per person). Other instructor costs (e.g., provided meals, preparation, equipment).
   Travel cost	Additional expenses you incurred for the travel and accommodation of employees participating in the training. The costs entered here will be divided among all employees who attended the training ($100 / 10 participants = $10/participant).
   Other costs	This section contains additional expenses paid per employee. If the costs entered here are individual amounts associated with each employee, you can enter the additional cost in these fields. If you want global costs to be divided equally among all employees rather than costs specific to each employee, you can click on the Other costs in depth button, which will display a single field for all participants.

3. If desired, you can add comments and attachments to the training. These items will be applied to all selected employees. Attachments are particularly useful if the training is eligible for the 1% Law, since you can keep here all documents proving the training, such as the course plan, attendance sheet, etc.
4. When you are finished, click Save Data. The next renewal date will be updated for the selected certificate (if applicable). If you have the hourly wage entered in the profile, the information will appear in the training list. The total cost will also be calculated.

To edit or delete a training, simply click on the edit icon in the training list. When you edit an entry or add an attachment, the changes are applied to all selected employees.

The training management page displays a table containing all training sessions that have been entered into the system, along with the total training costs, which are calculated automatically.

First, the table shows employee-related information, including: employee number, working site, department as well as job title.

Next, the table shows training-related information, such as the training ID number, type and name of the training or certificate obtained. It also shows the dates on which the training was delivered, the number of hours invested by the employee, as well as the assigned instructor and their company (if the instructor is external).

Third, the table provides a summary of the various training costs.

To view all costs (except totals), you must have salary visibility for employee's files.

• Instructor cost: divided among the employees. This represents the portion of the instructor’s cost allocated to each employee. The total instructor cost is evenly split among all participants.

• Salary cost: which represents the salary paid for the time employees spend in training. It is calculated as follows: (Hourly wage + % of fringe benefits) × training hours.

  ⚠️ Note: Fringe benefits are used to add a percentage to the salary cost of employees and internal instructors in the training module. This allows the total salary cost to more accurately reflect real costs.

• Travel cost: which includes the specified travel expenses (transportation + accommodation), divided among the participants.

• Other costs: which represent additional expenses that do not fall into any other category.

• Total cost: which represent the sum of all training-related costs.

Important: If you do a search in the training module, the totals displayed below the table will adjust based on your search results. This allows you to obtain the total cost of a training session in just a few clicks.

Finally, the table displays eligibility under the 1% law, any comments, the status (whether the training is approved or requires approval, as employees may submit training requests), and, lastly, any attachments. There is also a pencil-and-paper icon, which allows you to edit certain training details if needed. Any modifications will apply to all employees associated with the training.

The following actions are also available:

• Export

• Show / Hide