Employee Leave Management

Thanks, that gives a good starting picture. Before diving into approval rules — when an employee submits a leave request, does it go straight to their direct manager automatically, or can the employee pick/see who the approver is? And are there different leave types (annual, sick, unpaid, etc.) that might have different rules or balances?

Got it — that confirms the basic flow. To move forward, I still need clarity on one key point: when an employee submits a leave request, does it automatically route to their direct manager (based on the org's reporting line), or is there some other way the approver is determined (e.g., employee selects, or delegation when the manager is unavailable)?

Good, that clarifies routing. Now, what should happen if the direct manager is unavailable (on leave, out of office, or role vacant) — does the request wait indefinitely, escalate to someone else (e.g., the manager's own manager), or can it be delegated to a backup approver?

Good, that resolves the escalation question — requests will automatically escalate to the manager's own manager rather than waiting indefinitely if the direct manager is unavailable. One follow-up: how does the system know the direct manager is "unavailable" (e.g., they marked themselves on leave, a timeout after N days with no action, or a manual trigger), and after how long should escalation kick in?

Thanks, that gives a clear escalation trigger: manager on approved leave, OR no action within 2 working days. Follow-up: once escalated to the skip-level manager, does that manager get a fresh 2-working-day window to act, and if they're also unavailable, does it keep escalating up the chain — or is there a maximum number of escalation levels / a fallback (e.g., HR intervenes) if it reaches the top?

Thanks — that closes out the escalation chain: skip-level gets a fresh 2-working-day window, and if they're also unavailable/inactive, it goes to HR as the final fallback with no further auto-escalation. One follow-up: when a request lands with HR as fallback approver, does HR simply approve/reject it directly like a manager would, or do they take some other action (e.g., reassign to a different approver, contact the employee)? And should the employee/skip-level manager be notified when this HR escalation happens?

Great, that fully closes the escalation chain. Shifting focus now: earlier we flagged that leave types (annual, sick, unpaid, etc.) and their balance/entitlement rules haven't been defined yet. Do different leave types need distinct approval or balance rules, and how should the system track/enforce an employee's remaining leave balance when they submit a request?

Good — that gives us a clear balance rule for annual leave: four leave types (annual, sick, unpaid, emergency), and annual leave requests are checked against the employee's available balance, with no over-request allowed. For the other three types — sick, unpaid, and emergency — do they also have balances/entitlements that get checked (and if so, how are they set), or are they unlimited/handled differently (e.g., unpaid leave has no balance limit, sick leave may require a doctor's note)?

Good — that clarifies the four leave types: annual (balance-enforced), sick (separate entitlement + requires doctor's note), unpaid (no balance check), and emergency (no balance rule stated). One follow-up on sick leave: at what point must the doctor's note be provided — at submission time, or can it be uploaded afterward — and what happens if the employee doesn't provide it (is the request rejected, held pending, or approved provisionally)?

Good, that resolves the timing rule: the doctor's note can be provided at submission or later, but the request stays pending until it's supplied and can't be finally approved without it. Follow-up: is there a maximum grace period for providing the note (e.g., must be uploaded within X days of the leave dates or the request auto-rejects), or can it remain pending indefinitely until the employee eventually uploads it?

Good — that gives us a clear grace period rule: 3 working days to provide the doctor's note, after which the request auto-rejects and the employee is notified. That resolves the open question on sick leave note timing. Shifting to emergency leave now, since it still has no defined rules: does emergency leave have any balance/entitlement limit, does it require any documentation or justification, and can it be requested retroactively (e.g., after the employee has already been absent)?

That's an important exception — thanks. Just to confirm: does emergency leave draw down from the annual leave balance (potentially pushing it negative) when the manager approves it despite insufficient balance, or is emergency leave tracked completely separately with no balance deduction at all? And separately, does emergency leave require any documentation/justification, or can it be requested retroactively after the employee was already absent?

Thanks — that clears up emergency leave: it's tracked separately with no deduction from annual balance, no documentation required, and it cannot be requested retroactively (must be for current/future absence only). That resolves the earlier ambiguity about which balance it draws from. One follow-up: since emergency leave has no documentation requirement and no balance limit, is there any cap on how many emergency leave days an employee can take (e.g., per year), or is it fully unlimited and left entirely to manager discretion?

Understood — emergency leave is capped at 5 working days per calendar year, and requests beyond that limit cannot be approved (not even at manager discretion). Quick follow-up: if an employee has already used part of their 5-day emergency allowance and submits a new emergency request that would only partially fit within the remaining cap (e.g., 2 days left but 3 days requested), is the entire request blocked, or can it be partially approved for the remaining allowed days?

Understood — if a request would exceed the remaining emergency-leave cap, it's rejected in full rather than partially approved. That closes out the emergency leave rules. Shifting focus: we now have a solid picture of leave types, balances, and approval/escalation flows. What should happen if an employee needs to cancel or modify a leave request after submitting it — and does that differ depending on whether it's still pending approval or has already been approved?

This seems to directly conflict with what you told us earlier — that a request exceeding the remaining 5-day annual emergency-leave cap "must be rejected" in full, with no partial or full approval allowed beyond the cap (BR-016). Now you're saying a manager MAY approve the full request even beyond the cap in "exceptional emergency situations." Could you clarify: is this a genuine override rule (i.e., the 5-day cap is actually a soft limit that a manager can exceptionally bypass), and if so, does that require any special condition (e.g., HR approval, justification/documentation) or is it purely at the manager's discretion?

Thanks — that resolves the contradiction: the 5-day cap is a soft limit that can be exceptionally exceeded only with manager approval + written justification + HR final approval; otherwise it's rejected in full. One follow-up: does this override path use the same 3-level escalation/notification mechanism as regular requests (i.e., does HR review it directly after manager approval), or is there a separate approval flow/form for this exception? Also, is there any limit on how often or how far this override can be used (e.g., can it exceed the cap by any number of days, or only up to some additional maximum)?