Leave Status code VS benefits employee group

I agree - way too many statuses! I added a User Field that I built into the employee groups for benefits plan criteria. It helps because when someone is on leave, they person that keys the transaction immediately updates the user field to the status that had been on the employee's record. It's less confusing for our business partners, because they know they can look at the user field "Leave Benefit Status" to know what this person is normally classified as. We can also use that info if we need to include/exclude leave employees on queries and reports.

So, if someone in my organization is a status 10 (Full Time, benefits eligible) and they go on leave, the status field is updated to 80 for FMLA (or 82 for company LOA) and the user field is updated to status 10. It helps keep the benefits (and time accruals if you use that function) in tact.

Hope this helps some.

Maybe I was overly simplistic - but I just built my status codes (including leave statuses) into the eligibility group along with FTE so that putting them in leave status doesn't affect benefits & LP unless I want them to (termination or military active duty leave).

I've been working on a best approach to leave processing for years, with a variety of organizations, and the set up I like best is this one, assuming your temporary/interns/etc are not eligible for benefits or leave.  I found that keeping the focus of the codes on the two critical business processes driven by these codes: pay and benefits eligibilty reduced confusion and improved data accuracy.

Status Codes:

• Active Regular - PB (versus Temporary, Intern, etc)
• Paid Leave - PB (assumes beneits continue if on paid leave)
• Unpaid Leave with Benefits -NB (FMLA)
• Unpaid Leave without Benefits - NN (beyond FMLA)

Benefit groups are defined using these status codes and the FTE field to establish full/part-time status (e.g., Active Regular AND FTE >= 0.5).  Using the FTE eliminated the need for data entry person to remember to change the status code when an employee goes from < .05 to > .5 or vice-versa - which in industries like K-12 education is common.

The new Attendance module can keep info on the type of leave, so we no longer have to do that in the status code.

I also recommend creating a "long-term-leave" position code if you have a policy that allows an employee to stay on extended leave, but you release the postion to be filled - with the understanding that the person on leave will be placed into a "like position" when/if they return.  That way you can keep them on your books as an employee for employment purposes, but free up the position's FTE for position control purposes.

Thank you to Yvonne, Mary and Karen. Very informative. After the group discussion, I guess we will eliminate the leave status to two. Paid leave and unpaid leave.  We will have to use some user field to identify our grandfather groups. Thanks again for your time and help.