In this article, we’ll explain how to manage key moments in the employee life cycle, such as long-term absence, maternity, paternity, secondment, and jury service. During a period of extended absence (such as for the reasons listed above), it is often required that an individual not be assigned - or expected to complete- any mandatory training, and they should also be excluded from the overall compliance stats for the organisation.
However, during a period of extended absence, it is often desirable for an employee to retain access to Learn LMS. For example to get access to 'Wellbeing', 'Return to work', or other optional content. It may also be desirable to give employees the option to access and complete mandatory learning should they wish to, in order to get a head start on their return to work.
This can be achieved in Learn LMS by adding an 'absent from work' field to your People data. In this article we'll show how to:
- Identify when a User is Long Term Absent from the business
- Share optional learning with Users while they are long-term absent
- Exclude from training assignment, any Users who are absent from work
- Exclude from compliance reporting, any Users who are absent from work
Note: If it is not necessary for those on long-term absence to retain access to Learn LMS, the automated People data feed can be configured to auto-unenable a User account when they are identified as being Long Term Absent. However, please note that if the absent User is a People-manager then the senior manager view will no longer apply. If you’d like to set this up, speak to the support team.
Identify when a User is Long Term Absent from the business
The first step is to add a User information field to identify in Learn LMS any Users who are 'Out of the business' for an extended period. Up to 20 User Information fields are available in each Learn LMS site in which to record information about your people. For example; where they work, what they do, and any responsibilities they have.
One of these 20 fields can therefore be used to identify when an individual is absent from the business for an extended period of time. This can be automatically updated in Learn LMS via the People Data Feed, or manually updated by a Learn LMS administrator.
What to do if you have an Automated People Data Feed
This is the easiest way to add and manage User information. A field must be added to your source people data that identifies when an employee is absent. The automated People Data feed takes care of the rest. Whenever the HR team identifies that an individual is 'Long Term Absent', the User profile in Learn LMS will get automatically updated by the People Data feed.
What to do if you don’t have an Automated People Data Feed
Where an automated People data feed does not exist, an LMS administrator must manually add and manage a User information field to identify Users as being 'Long Term Absent' from work.
To set up a new, or amend an existing automated People data feed, contact the Support team.
What could an ‘absent from work’ field look like?
The field could simply identify when an employee is ‘Out of the business’ with the options of either 'Yes' or 'No':
Alternatively, if more detail is required for reporting, you may instead choose to have a more detailed list of options, including for example ‘Long term illness’, ‘maternity leave’, or ‘paternity leave':
Share optional learning with Users while they are long-term absent
While it is typically necessary to exclude Long Term Absent employees from mandatory training assignment and compliance reporting, many customers wish to continue sharing optional learning with colleagues while they are long-term absent. For example, you might assign a Catalogue called ‘Return to work’ with relevant procedural and wellbeing content.
This can be achieved by organising any Long Term Absent employees into a Group, and assigning optional learning to that Group.
What to do if you have an Automated People Data Feed
The People Data feed can be configured to automatically create an 'Out of business' Group - based on the 'Out of business' User Information field - and populate the Group with any Long term absent Users.
What to do if you don’t have an Automated People Data Feed
Where an automated People data feed does not exist, an LMS administrator must create a new Group titled 'Out of the business'. Then, add a Group rule that excludes Users from the Group where the ‘Out of Business’ flag appears in their profile. Based on the simpler Y/N field, a rule might look like this:
Exclude from training assignment any Users who are absent from work
It’s common for LMS administrators to create a Group called ‘All Company’ (or similar) to which all mandatory training is assigned. We recommend that you rename this Group to reflect those who are excluded, for example as ‘All Company – except OOB’. A Group rule can then be added (as described above) that excludes Users from the Group where they are identified as being ‘Out of Business’. For example:
When mandatory Courses are assigned to this Group, anyone identified as being absent from the business will therefore not be assigned the training. When an individual returns to work, the User Information field is updated, and they are added back into the 'All Company - except OOB' Group. At which point they will see any mandatory learning assigned to the group.
Give Long Term Absent employees the choice to complete mandatory training ahead of returning to work
This option can help smooth an employees return to work, giving them the option to keep up to date with mandatory learning should they wish to. This learning might then be completed on a 'keeping in touch' day, for example.
To achieve this, add to a Catalogue (with no deadline specified) any mandatory learning that any Long Term Absent individuals have not been assigned while absent (and will need to complete on their return). The Catalogue can then be assigned to the Long Term Absent Group (see above).
- Power BI reporting: Use the Learning progress report to find the mandatory Course completion rate for a Group of Users
- Business Objects reporting: Non-mandatory Courses are excluded from the Course Compliance Report therefore, this learning will not be included in overall compliance stats. As soon as the employee returns to work, they will become a member of the 'All Company - except OOB' Group, and assigned all mandatory learning.
Exclude from compliance reporting, any Users who are absent from work
- Power BI reporting: Use the Learning progress report to see the number of mandatory assignments for a Course, and who is not compliant?
- Business Objects reporting: For reporting Compliance we recommend the Course Compliance report. This is the only report that includes both mandatory and repeat training. The Course Compliance report will include only Users with assigned mandatory training, therefore by following the steps above, anyone identified as ‘Out of the business’ will not be included.
Note that the steps described above rely on your internal processes to move people in and out of the ‘Out of the business’ Group. Automation is the key here, and the best way to do that is via the People data feed. It may also be helpful to schedule a report to the HR team that identifies any User who is specified as 'Out of the business' in Learn LMS so that they can check that their source records are up to date.
Learn more in The Academy
- View the 'Big picture: people' to see how Learn LMS handles new starters, leavers and anyone who needs temporary access to Learn LMS
- View Big picture: assign training to see how training is assigned in Learn LMS
- For more information on how the People data feed and Group rules can be used to automate training assignment, take a look at Automate learning assignment
- View 'Managing data and processes in Learn' to see how the People Data feed is essential for training deployment, continued development, and reporting, and how to keep on top of things when your data changes, and your uses for it evolves
- For more detail on Compliance reporting view Forecast and report Compliance.