What are Leave Policies


Leave Policies are the types of leaves that an admin can create for employees to apply for. Each of these policies can have different settings, depending on the Type of Leave Policy being set up. 


Types of Leave Policies 

  1. Annual leave policy - It is set up to allow all or a certain group of employees to be able to submit annual leave requests. This Leave Policy Type includes Pro-Rata and Carry Forward Settings.

  2. Generic leave policy - Leave policies that fall outside of the annual leave and emergency leave category. For example, medical leave, unpaid leave and study leave. Admins are able to select different pay types for this leave policy type.

  3. Emergency leave policy - It is set up to allow all or a certain group of employees to be able to submit emergency leave requests. An emergency leave policy comes attached to an annual leave policy. 

  4. Special leave policy - Special leave policies are umbrella leave policies. It sets one leave balance that can be used across or drawn from multiple leave policies. 

  5. Replacement credit policy - This allows employees to request for replacement leaves. When  requests are approved, it adds the number of days requested to the employees’ leave balance.

How to set Up Unpaid Leave Policy 


An Unpaid Leave can be created from a Generic Leave Policy.
Note: This function Does NOT Automatically deduct pay from the employee's payroll in altHR. Read here for How to set and configure pay items


  1. On your admin dashboard, head to the left panel.

  2. Click Leaves > Policies.

  3. Click Create Leave Policy.

  4. Select Generic Leave .

  5. Click Create Policy.


  6. Fill in the required fields. Refer to the paragraphs below for more details.

  7. Confirm by clicking Confirm. 

  8. Click Leaves > Policies. 

  9. On the right of the policy, under Status, slide ON.  

  10. Confirm by clicking OK to activate the policy. This will allow employees to view and submit a leave request for this policy.


What to fill in 


Section 1: Policy Information

  1. Select leave category as Generic Leave

  2. Enter leave policy name for internal purposes. In this case Unpaid Leave

  3. Tick the display name box and enter a display name. This is what your employees will see.

  4. If you require your employees to provide attachments and description, tick the relevant boxes.

  5. Open Advance Settings, select the Pay Type as Unpaid. 

    Note: This function Does NOT Automatically deduct pay from the employee's payroll in altHR. Continue reading for How to set and configure pay items



Section 2: Eligibility


  1. Select Yes, if all employees are eligible to submit a leave request on this policy. 

  2. Select No, and choose the relevant criteria for the group of employees that are allowed to submit a leave request for this policy . For example, you only want contract employees to be able to submit a request for this policy; select contract type and uncheck the permanent box. This allows only employees tagged as Contract to view this leave policy in their app and apply for this leave request.


Section 3: Entitlement


  1. Enter the default entitlement days. For example, 20 (days sick leave).

  2. Advanced Settings allows you to choose your leave cycle date, half days setting, mandatory consecutive leave setting, a different entitlement for all or a group of selected employees.

Section 4: Approval Routing


  1. Select Yes, if you would like to use the default approval routing as set in Leaves > Settings.
  2. Select No, to set specific approval routings.
  3. Click Add Approval Routing. 
  4. Choose Group, Select Approval Routing.
  5. Click Confirm. 
  6. Repeat this step to add multiple groups of employees.
  7. Tick Auto Approved to auto-approve a leave request after receiving no response from the employee’s manager after a chosen number of days.