Introduction
Empeon's Request & Approvals is a feature that allows employers to implement the ability for their employees to use their ESS Hub portal to administrate some of their own information, attendance, and payroll related needs in Empeon Workforce. Examples of Requests & Approvals that Workforce administrators can activate for their employees in ESS Hub include submitting reimbursement requests and editing their personal information like their address. This feature helps HR and Payroll staff save time by allowing employees to take part in some administration needs for themselves where appropriate.
Some request types that the employee can make must be approved by a Workforce Administrator, while there are others that can be set up to be automatically approved by the system. The ESS Hub provides employees with useful tools to manage their work-related needs & information, while their employer can use the Request & Approvals feature to maintain an approval process that supports their internal policies.
This article details the array of employee requests that Workforce Administrators can activate using the company level setup of Request & Approvals. For more information about how Requests & Approvals activations impact what employees can see and do within their actual ESS Hub portal, review Empeon's ESS Additional Features article. For more information on how to review and approve requests as an "Assignee" Workforce user, refer to Empeon's Reviewing Requests article.
Employee Requests
To set up or make changes to Request & Approvals, navigate to the Request & Approvals Card within the company settings: Company tab -> Rules & Alerts -> Request & Approvals.
Within the Requests & Approvals module the first screen displays the tab for all Employee Requests confirming what the employee can view or edit in ESS; these can be customized per your organization's preference. There is also a tab for User Requests which are request setting options not for employees, but for other Users of Empeon Workforce.
Activating Access For Employee Change Requests through ESS
To grant employees access to edit their information in Empeon using ESS, click the "pencil" icon located along the row of the respective request type.
Once you click the Edit pencil, you will be prompted with the following fields:
- Permission - Change the permission from "View only" to "Allow edit".
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Assignee - Upon changing the employee's permissions to "Allow edit", a prompt will appear to determine the "Assignee". There are two options for how to set up the approval process for when employees make changes:
- Auto Approve - Activating this option means that Empeon will automatically change the system record per the employee request. For certain straight forward items like Emergency Contact and Address info, it is often ok for the employee's edit request to be applied in system automatically.
- Selecting Assignee - For employee requests that need review and approval from the employer's Payroll or HR, a primary Workforce Administrator needs to apply other Workforce Users as assignees. Assignees can be specific User Roles, the assigned Manager of the employee requesting the change, or specific Users of Empeon Workforce. A multi-step approval can be created in order to have multiple people approve of the change being made by the employee. The key functionality of multi-step approvals lies in its ability to define the sequence in which each Assignee should review the request. Once the initial Assignee approves the request, it seamlessly progresses to the next assignee for further review, and so forth.
- Only assignees can approve - An optional setting that will enforce only the Assignee(s) to be able to approve the employee request. Please Note: This assignee approval restriction only applies to other restricted (custom) Users and Roles not assigned to approve. It does not apply to any system level Administrators of Empeon Workforce such as a Company or Organizational Admin.
Employee HR Related Change Requests
The first set of Employee Requests are basic demographic related requests. All five request types within this section—Personal, Address, Contact, Emergency Contact, and Direct Deposit—pertain to the different categories of personal information found within the employee's ESS Hub Profile.
Personal
When employee edit for this section is activated, employees will only be able to edit their name, not their date of birth or social security number. This is because changes to the date of birth or social security number will require proof to the employer in order to ensure the changes being made are valid and accurate.
Address
Allowing employees to be able to edit their address helps ensure that an employer has their employees' current home location in Empeon Workforce. Empeon uses this address for the sending of checks or stubs directly to employees by mail and for the mailing of physical year-end tax forms.
Employee Contact & Emergency Contact Information
Employee contact and emergency contact info often changes after employees are onboarded. Allowing employees to edit and add their own contact info and emergency contact info helps ensure that the current and correct parties can be contacted when needed. It's usually ok to allow employees to edit this information without Empeon administrator having to approve the request.
Direct Deposit
Direct deposit change impacts whether or not employees can add, edit and delete their bank accounts on file for direct deposit within their ESS Hub portal. Empowering your employees to manage their direct deposit bank account information provides them with greater autonomy to control how they would like to receive their pay. To help mitigate the risk of employees inputting incorrect bank account information, there is an optional feature available to require the upload of a document such as a bank statement or a voided check to verify the bank account being added or changed is correct.
Employee Payroll Related Change Requests
Reimbursement
Employers have the option to activate the ability for employees to submit reimbursement requests through their ESS Hub for business expenses like supplies and travel. Upon activation, there will be a Reimbursement tab on the left-hand menu on their ESS Hub.
From this screen in the ESS Hub, employees will have the ability to submit reimbursement requests, while also having a dashboard where they can view pending, approved, and denied reimbursement requests that they have already made.
Unique to this request type is an Expenses section where you can configure the types of reimbursements available for request. When configuring the reimbursement expense you would like to make available, you will be prompted with the following fields:
- Payroll Code - From the dropdown, link the appropriate Deduction Code to the reimbursement type. All expense types must have an associated "Add" type deduction code. For more information on how to add deduction codes review Empeon's Company Deductions Setup article.
- Allowed Requesters - Choose from the dropdown which group of employees can request this reimbursement type. The options available are set up with Empeon's Filter Groups tool. If the reimbursement request is allowed for all employees, select the "All Employees" option.
- Require Receipt - When activated this will require employees to upload a receipt before submitting this reimbursement request.
The Mileage category has an additional field to identify the rate per mile. Please note that Empeon doesn't have an option to upload a receipt within this feature, but this need could be handled by utilizing Empeon's Paths feature.
Taxes
If granted the ability to edit their tax information, employees can modify their tax filing status and items like dependents, credits, and additional withholdings for both federal and state within their ESS portal.
There can be many reasons why an employee might need to edit their tax information, such as getting married or taking on a second job. Allowing employees to adjust their own tax filing in ESS means that HR and Payroll Administrators don't have to spend the time to address these employee profile changes themselves. Additionally, whenever an employee makes a change to their tax information, they will be prompted to electronically sign an updated W-4 which will be on saved within the employee's Workforce profile.
Time Off
The next category of Employee Requests is the Benefits requests which currently has one request type: Time Off. Allowing this request type will give employees the ability to request time off using their ESS Hub portal. Automatic approving of Time Off requests is not available in Empeon, an Assignee for approval must be applied.
The Time Off request setup has a unique "Banks" section to identify which accrual bank policy can be used in association with time off requests. When configuring the time off requests utilizing ESS Hub, following fields need to be identified:
- Earning Code - From the dropdown, choose the appropriate Earning Code that should be applied in Empeon Workforce for the hours that are requested off. In almost all scenarios, the earning code chosen should be the same one that is set to reduce the balance of the accrual policy bank(s).
- Allowed Requesters - Establish which group of employees should have access to request time off via ESS Hub. Like the reimbursement requests, the dropdown options available is based on the Filter Groups that are set up in Empeon.
Missed Punch
The final category of Employee Requests pertains to Attendance, and these requests are relevant only if you are using Empeon's Time and Attendance module. The first request type is "Missed Punch" and activating this request will allow for employees to review their Timecards in ESS and request a fix for missed or inaccurate punch records.
If this request is set to "No access," employees will still be able to view their timecard and clock in and out if their Web Clock feature is enabled. However, the "Fix" option will not be available to the employee.
Granting employees access to request punch fixes through ESS have to be approved by an assignee. There is no option to Auto-Approve as any missing punches or override to existing punches must require manager or administrator approval. Notifications can also be sent to assignees via email when an employee missed punch request is submitted.
Call Out
The last request type in this category is "Call Out," which allows employees to submit a Call Out request through their ESS Hub if they need to miss their scheduled shift. This request type is only pertinent if you are utilizing our Schedules feature.
If this request type is turned on, employees can click the three-dot menu next to their scheduled shift within their ESS Hub and select "Call Out" to initiate their request. From there, they will be prompted with a dropdown to select the reason for needing to call out. The options available within this dropdown can be customized in Empeon Workforce within the Company Menu under the Attendance tab's "Callout Reasons."
Once an employee requests a call out, the employer will then be notified via email and can approve or deny the request within Empeon Workforce. Unlike other request types, Call Out requests cannot be auto-approved and require an Empeon User's review.
User Requests
While Request & Approvals are primarily used for employee requests within the ESS Hub, there is one request available specifically for Users of the Empeon Workforce system.
Rate Change
The Rate Change request allows Restricted/Custom Role Workforce Users to request a rate change for an employee however, the actual rate change must be approved and activated by a higher-level Workforce User. This request is one part of a two-pronged approach to allowing Users within Empeon Workforce to be able to make these requests.
Before using this request feature, confirm the permissions of the custom User Roles responsible for requesting rate changes have access to "Request Rate Change" activated.
Any Empeon system level Administrator can approve rate change requests. A primary Administrator can also create a custom role that can "Review Rate Change Requests". The rate change will apply once the reviewer approves.