Within Natural HR, any changes which are made within the 'Change' or 'Benefits' module on the employee file can be tracked with a reason; change reasons allow the organisation to keep track of why certain job roles are amended. 

When making a change on either of these pages, users will be required to select the change reason from a drop-down list and select a date using the date-picker tool:

Populating the change reason list

As a HR or an admin level user, to create your list of change reasons you will need to go to:

Administration -> HR -> Data Management -> Change reasons

Then, by selecting 'Add', you will be able to populate the list of change reasons. 

You will need to complete at least:

• Change code - a short code used to identify the change reason.
• Change name - the change reason.
• User Groups - which user groups are able to access/use this change reason.  Choose any combination of Admin, HR and Manager user groups using the checkboxes.

You can also optionally enter a change description and choose whether the change records a history record.  Finally, choosing the status "Active" will cause the change reason to appear in the drop-down for selection.

Once completed, a green banner will confirm that the change reason has been added.

If you then return to either the 'Change' or 'Benefits' page under the employee file, your new change reason will be displayed in the drop-down list. 

Change reasons and workflows

In addition to the above, when setting up a change reason you have the option to link this to a workflow.

Administration -> HR -> Data Management -> Change reasons

Select an existing change reason and go to the workflow field:

If you put your mouse cursor into the workflow field it will generate a drop-down list with all the workflows you could trigger when this change reason is used. Please note you can only link approval workflow types to change reasons.

i.e. change reason is Salary change and we link it to a salary change approval workflow which goes to the Head of Department to approve before it takes effect.

Change Dates

Alongside the change reasons, a change date can be allocated to a change to employee's work information to keep track of when this change took place. 

The change date field can be used in three different ways:

Back-dated change date - If a change date is back-dated, the system will make the change immediately but mark the change as having taken place on the entered date. 

Current date - If the current date is entered (or the field is left blank) the change will be made immediately and the date marked as the current date. 

Future date - If a future change date is entered, this will be stored as a 'Pending Change'.  The system will store the information and make the change when the date is reached. 

Any fields which have a pending change will be marked with a red circular icon:

A full list of pending changes can be viewed under:

Administration -> HR -> History -> Pending Changes 

Mandatory change dates and reasons

There is the option to make change dates and reasons mandatory within the system.  If enabled, when a change is being made to an employee's file the submission will be blocked if the change date and reason have not been populated. 

To make these fields mandatory, as an administrator, you will need to go to:

Administration -> Company -> Settings -> Company Settings 

The option can be found under 'General Settings' heading, labelled 'Mandatory fields'. Check any fields that you wish to become mandatory.