The Human Resources module provides you with a suite of tools for managing your employee records, statutory HR requirements, and day-to-day HR administration. It offers simple customisable forms that allow you to ensure that employee information is consistently captured, and that all relevant details are included within your records. In addition, it allows you to create individual file libraries for each employee, assisting you in tracking and maintaining important documents such as contracts, certificates, and formal letters. Dedicated areas are available for managing appraisals and training, and additional areas allow you to track employee holidays, absences, and lateness, and to generate reports on overall attendance.
For optimum security, access to the module is controlled by a set of permission areas instead of a single global ‘HR’ permission, allowing you to set user access to each part of the module independently. This makes it simple to specify precisely what a given manager can and cannot view, allowing you to grant them access to relevant details without compromising sensitive information. In addition, Activ gives you the option to grant employees access to select areas within their own HR file, allowing them to review information such as their emergency contacts, to complete their own appraisals, and to submit holiday requests or manage their own training records. The module is also fully integrated with the Teams module, if Teams is active in your system, allowing you to further enhance HR security (see the Teams user guide for more information).
For convenience, the Knowledgebase for this module has been split into five sections, each with its own user guide. These are:
- General, which contains a collection of articles that are relevant to the entire module.
- Personnel Management, which concerns the key files and information related to your employees. This guide covers the People, HR Notes, Employee Libraries, Confidential Libraries, and Personnel Record tabs and their related settings.
- Training, which concerns your employees’ skills and qualifications. This guide covers the Training tab and its related settings.
- Appraisals, which concerns the assessment of your employees’ performance. This guide covers the Appraisals tab and its related settings.
- Holidays, Absences, and Lateness, which concerns any absence from work (approved or otherwise). This guide covers the Absences, Holidays, and Lateness tabs and their related settings.
See below for a summary of each tab’s features.
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The Human Resources module includes 10 global tabs, and your system permissions will determine which ones you are able to see. The available tabs are:
People – provides a register of all employees recorded in your system, and acts as the gateway into the personnel records of individual employees. This tab also provides a report to help you monitor your workforce’s equal opportunities statistics, and, if enabled, an additional report to help you report on your workforce’s religion statistics. Note that the Religion Report is only enabled where you are required by law to report on your workforce’s religion, and that you will need to contact our support team to have the feature switched on.
Holidays – assists you with all aspects of your organisation’s holiday administration. This tab allows you to set company-wide holiday policy parameters, individual holiday allowances, and working week patterns. In addition, it provides tools for managing holiday requests and a month-by-month overview of booked holidays.
Absences – provides configurable reports and graphs to help you view and analyse recorded absences and gain an overview of your employee’s long-term attendance. This tab also includes an automatically calculated Bradford Factor for each employee, and a PDF report that shows today’s/this week’s absences to help you track which employees are absent at any given time.
Lateness – allows you to record and track how often individual employees are late for their shifts, and the total amount of worktime lost as a result of their lateness. This tab also includes reports and graphs to help you identify long-term trends and determine when action might need to be taken.
Training – allows you to maintain an accurate database of skills and training records and to set up automated reminders of when training is due.
Appraisals – allows you to design appraisal templates for use throughout your organisation, helping you to ensure that their structure and content remains consistent. Once your templates have been created, this module can be used to schedule and tailor appraisals for individual employees, fill in appraisals, and store the results.
HR Notes – provides you with the ability to record HR Notes against individual employees, and to quickly review those notes at a later date.
Employee Libraries – only available if you have the File Manager module and acts as a gateway into the individual Libraries of your employees. Each Library provides you with a space to store and maintain the employee’s key documents, which can optionally be managed by the employee as well as their manager.
Confidential Libraries – only available if you have the File Manager module and acts as a gateway into the individual Confidential Libraries of your employees. Each Library provides you with a secure space in which to store and maintain sensitive documents related to your employees. Note that employees cannot be given access to their own Confidential Libraries.
Settings – this tab is available to administrators only, and is used to configure drop-down menus and checklists throughout the Human Resources module.
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Enabling the Human Resources module additionally expands your employee’s Personnel Files to allow relevant HR information to be viewed against each individual’s record. These files can be accessed by clicking on any employee within any global tab, and include 11 tabs that house all information relating to the employee. If the employee has an Activ user licence, then you additionally have the option to allow them to view and manage some aspects of their own Personnel File via the My Details area (see Control Employee Access to their Personnel File – System Permissions for My Details).
The tabs included within individual Personnel Files are:
Login Permissions – this tab is available regardless of whether you have the Human Resources module, and access is controlled via My Details – My Personal Details for the employee themselves (see Control Employee Access to their Personnel File – System Permissions for My Details), and System Administration – Administrator for all other users. The tab displays the employee’s basic details (e.g. name, contacts details, managers, etc) and will include their Activ login details and permissions if they have an Activ user licence.
Notifications – this tab is only available if the employee has their own Activ user licence, and is present regardless of whether you have the Human Resources module. It allows you to view and configure the automated alerts and reminders that Activ sends to each employee (e.g. about booked/expiring training, appointments etc).
Personnel Record – houses each employee’s personal and employment details, including their basic job details (e.g. title, start date, salary, etc), address, and emergency contacts. If you are required by law to record your workforce’s religion then this tab will also include the Religion field, which can be switched on by contacting our support team.
Holidays – used to set the employee’s annual holiday allowance and to view and manage their booked holidays. This tab can allow users to book their own holidays if they are given the appropriate permissions to My Details – My Holidays (see Control Employee Access to their Personnel File – System Permissions for My Details).
Absences – allows you to record the employee’s non-holiday absences and the reasons for those absences. This tab also includes reports and graphs to help you identify any long-term trends and determine when action might need to be taken.
Lateness – allows you to record any instances of the employee being late for work, and view and analyse their punctuality over time.
Training – view and manage the employee’s personal training record, including booked training and the expiry date of any credentials. Employees can also manage their own training from this tab if they have the appropriate permissions to My Details – My Training (see Control Employee Access to their Personnel File – System Permissions for My Details).
Appraisals – allows you to set appraisals against individual employees, and view and manage upcoming and previous appraisals for the employee. Employees can also complete their own Appraisals form this tab if they have appropriate permissions to My Details – My Appraisals (see Control Employee Access to their Personnel File – System Permissions for My Details).
HR Notes – provides you with the facility to record any human resource management-related events and notes (e.g. a record that a new employment contract has been issued, or notice of a new rate of pay). If necessary you can include attachments or link to an item stored elsewhere in Activ (e.g in the Employee’s Library).
Employee Library – this tab functions similarly to your main File Manager libraries (see the File Manager user guide) and provides you with a dedicated library for each employee. It provides you with the facility to store any files that are associated with the employee (e.g. training certificates) within their personnel record, and to manage those files directly from their record. In addition, each Employee Library can be viewed by the employee themselves (via My Details; see Control Employee Access to their Personnel File – System Permissions for My Details), a nominated HR Libraries Manager (optional), and any users with ‘Admin’ permissions for Human Resources – Employee Libraries.
Confidential Library – this tab functions similarly to your main File Manager libraries (see the File Manager user guide) and provides you with a dedicated library for each employee. It provides you with the facility to store any confidential files that are associated with the employee within their personnel record, and to keep those files secure from the employee themselves and from any other unauthorised system users. Confidential Libraries can only be accessed by the employee’s named HR Libraries Manager and users with permissions for Human Resources – Confidential Libraries. By default, Employees cannot access their own Confidential Library, and this area is not included in My Details. The only circumstance in which an employee can see their own Confidential Library is if they have permissions for Human Resources – Confidential Libraries. See Control Access to the Human Resources Module – System Permissions.
