By default, an employee’s time off request will be sent to the employee’s Manager, who can then approve or reject it.
However, if you’re an Admin or an HR Manager, TalentHR lets you assign one or more additional people in your organization as approvers for a specific employee’s leave requests.
This way, you can freely delegate the employee’s time off requests according to your organizational structure, and depending on your company’s specific needs.
You can also create a two-step approval system, where the requester's manager will need to wait for another approver's final approval.
| Note: There can be up to 3 Approvers per employee. All approvers will be notified by email when the employee submits their request, including required and non-required approvers. |
To assign (or edit) an employee's time off Approvers:
1. Sign in to your TalentHR account as an Admin or an HR Manager, go to People (1) and open the profile of the employee you wish to update.
2. Click the Actions (2) button below the employee's profile image.
3. Select the Time off approvers (3) option from the list.
4. The employee’s Manager is always an approver. Click + Other employee (4) to assign an additional approver to your employee.
5. Choose (5) an approver.
| Note: Repeat steps 3 and 4 to add a third approver. |
6. (Optional) Toggle Required (6) next to each approver (including the Manager) to define whether that person’s approval is necessary (read below for more information on the Required setting).
7. Click Save (7) to update your employee’s list of approvers.
| Note: Follow the same flow to edit settings or remove approvers when needed. |
What “Required” means
If the Required option isn't enabled for any approvers, then the employee's request can be approved by any one of them.
However, if no approvers are marked as Required, then all assigned approvers must reject the request before it is considered rejected. This prevents a single non-required approver from rejecting a request that another approver might have approved.
If the Required option is enabled for one or more of the assigned approvers, then the request must ultimately be approved by them.
If multiple approvers are set to Required, then all of them must approve the request. If one or more Required approvers don't approve the request, it will remain pending even if another Required approver did approve it.
Non-required approvers can weigh in by suggesting approval or rejection, but they won't be able to approve a request on their own when one or more Required approvers are assigned. In that case, the request will remain pending until the Required approver(s) review it and choose to approve or reject it.
This also allows you to create a multi-level approval process. You can even set the employee's Manager to Not required.
| Note: Rejection behavior depends on the combination of Required and Not required approvers assigned to the employee. Refer to the examples below for the exact approval and rejection rules for each configuration. |
Approval and rejection examples
| Setup | Approval | Rejection |
| All approvers are Not required | Any approver can approve the request | All approvers must reject the request |
| All approvers are Required | All approvers must approve the request | Any approver can reject the request |
| One Required approver and one or more Not required approvers | The Required approver's decision determines the outcome | The Required approver's decision determines the outcome |
| Multiple Required approvers and one or more Not required approvers | All Required approvers must approve the request | Any Required approver can reject the request |
Note: In addition to the above, an Admin or an HR Manager can always approve or reject any employee's time off request directly from the employee's Time off tab). However, an Admin or HR Manager who isn't the employee's Manager and isn't assigned as an approver for that employee won't receive notifications about the employee's time off requests, unless at least one of the assigned approvers is out of office. If the employee's Manager or any assigned approvers (Required or Not required) are out of office, TalentHR will also notify the Admin(s) and HR Manager(s). |