Attendance Specific Policies and Grace Periods - Zoho People

What is Specific Policies feature in Attendance Service of Zoho People?

As the name suggests, this feature lets you customize attendance service-related configuration specifically for employees or for employees belonging to a specific shift.

Configuring Specific Policies

Navigate to Settings > Attendance > Configuration > Specific Policies tab. Click on Add Specific Policy.
Enter a name for the Specific Policy setting.
Set the applicability for the specific policy. You can choose either User, Employment Type, Department, designation or Shift.

Some of the setting that can be configured within specific policy are identical to those in the General Attendance Policy, Default access permissions, Location Tracking with the key difference being that additionally grace periods can be configured as outlined below.

If an employee is eligible for multiple attendance policies, the applicable policy is determined based on the following order of priority: user-specific policies, employment type-based policies, department-based policies, designation-based policies, shift-based policies, and finally, the general attendance policy.

Grace Period

As mentioned above, Grace Period is a unique feature that is available when configuring specific attendance policies.

What is Grace Period in Attendance Service?

Grace period allows you to define the number of permitted deviations when an employee arrives late, leaves early, or works fewer hours.
You can also track deviations from core working hours separately. If the allowed number of deviations is exceeded, you can specify the type of leave to be deducted.

Configuring Grace Period

Navigate to Settings > Attendance > Configuration > Specific Policies tab. Click on Add Specific Policy scroll down and enable Grace period policy.
Enter the allowed grace time for first check-in, last check-out, working hours, core working hours as required.
Enter the number of deviations allowed and select the period within which it is allowed - week, month, or pay period.
You can also consider deviations that occur on the multiples of the input number (example: 2 = 2, 4, 6, 8..nth deviation).
Select how much leave is to be deducted (options include 0.25, 0.5, and 1) once the allowed deviation exceeds the allowed limit.
Select the leave type from which leave is to be deducted.
Enable Apply the highest absence penalty for multiple deviations setting to apply only the highest absence penalty when multiple attendance deviations occur on the same day.
If an employee has multiple attendance deviations on the same day that result in both a 0.5-day absence under strict mode and a 0.25-day absence under the grace period policy, only the 0.5-day absence penalty will be applied.
Attendance Policy: Highest Absence Penalty Example
Shift Timing: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Grace Period: Employees can check in up to 1 hour late. This is allowed only once per month.
Strict Mode (Based on Worked Hours):
Full Day: Work hours ≥ 9 hours
Half Day: Work hours ≥ 4 hours 30 minutes and < 9 hours
Absent: Work hours < 4 hours 30 minutes
Day 1
Check-in: 10:15 AM
Check-out: 04:00 PM
Worked Hours: 5 hours 45 minutes
Late Check-in: 1st deviation
Grace Period Penalty: None
Strict Mode Penalty: 0.5-day absence
Highest Penalty: 0.5-day absence
Attendance Status: 0.5 day Present, 0.5 day Absent
Day 2
Check-in: 10:30 AM
Check-out: 05:00 PM
Worked Hours: 6 hours 30 mins
Late Check-in: 2nd deviation (grace limit exceeded)
Grace Period Penalty: 0.25-day absence
Strict Mode Penalty: 0.5-day absence
Highest Penalty Applied: 0.5-day absence
Attendance Status: 0.5 day Present, 0.5 day Absent
Enable Notify by Email to automatically send email notifications to employees when leave is deducted or an absence is recorded. The notification email can be customized as needed.

Watch our help video on grace period in Zoho People:

Grace period configuration examples (use cases)

Example 1

An organization has enabled the grace period policy with the following configurations:

Based on the above configuration, more than two combined occurrences will lead to a leave deduction.

Day	Attendance entry	Rule implication
Monday	Check-in late by 15 minutes	1st deviation
Tuesday	Check-out early by 30 minutes	2nd deviation
Wednesday	Total working hours less than 06 hours	0.25 days of casual leave deducted
Friday	Check-out early by 20 minutes	Marked as Absent (casual leave balance lapsed)

Example 2

An organization has enabled a grace period policy with the following configuration:

Based on the above configurations, Rule 1 and Rule 2 will work independently.

Rule 1:

Day	Attendance entry	Rule implication
Monday	Check-in late by 15 minutes	1st deviation
Tuesday	Check-in late by 30 minutes	0.5 days of casual leave deducted.

Rule 2:

Day	Attendance entry	Rule implication
Monday	Working hours less by 15 minutes	1st deviation
Tuesday	Working hours less by 30 minutes	2nd deviation
Wednesday	Working hours less by 20 minutes	0.5 days of casual leave deducted

Example 3

An organization has enabled a grace period policy with the following configurations:

Rule 1:

Day	Attendance entry	Rule implication
Monday	Check-in late by 15 minutes	1st deviation
Tuesday	Check-out early by 30 minutes	0.5 days of casual leave deducted
Thursday	Check-in late by 20 minutes	0.5 days of vacation leave deducted (casual leave balance lapsed)

Rule 2:

Day	Attendance entry	Rule implication
Monday	Working hours less by 25 minutes	1st deviation
Tuesday	Working hours less by 30 minutes	2nd deviation
Wednesday	Working hours less by 20 minutes	1 day of casual leave deducted

> The grace period set will be applicable in the following cases:

While importing check-in or check-out entries of employees

Manual attendance entries were added by the administrator.

> During attendance regularization:

If an employee has applied for leave either for the first half of the day, the first quarter of the day, or an hour-based leave within the range of the configured grace period, then the check-in policy grace period will not be applied.

If an employee has applied for either the second half of the day, the last quarter of the day, or an hour-based leave within the range of the configured grace period, then the check-out policy grace period will not be applied.