Personal leaves, fitness for duty, Admin visibility into even more leave details, and a new pay education hub. Here’s what’s new in Cocoon.
Our momentum shows no signs of slowing down in Q2 2024 as we release more updates that take work off the plates of People teams and leave-takers alike. We’re particularly excited about these recent launches because they represent several top requests we’ve gotten from partners and our broader community over the past year. First up: hot off the heels of ADA accommodation leaves, our long-awaited product experience to support personal leaves is here—further empowering leaders everywhere to create more compassionate workplaces.
Keep reading for details about personal leaves, revamped Pay Dashboards, our new seamless fitness for duty process, and even more granular Admin visibility into denied leaves and FMLA balances.
Today, we're thrilled to announce that Cocoon is expanding beyond FMLA and ADA-covered leave types with our new product experience for planning and managing personal leaves. Many companies offer personal leave (or they take it a step further with compassionate leave) policies to encourage employees to take time away from work for a reason that doesn’t fit into “traditional'' leave types, whether it be bereavement, caregiving for someone that doesn't fall under FMLA’s caregiver definition, or any number of other reasons.
Employees can now easily request a personal leave and track their progress right in Cocoon. We streamline communications and collect information from employees so that Admins can review each leave request, and track it alongside all others in one place. We talk a lot about how Cocoon differs from the traditional rep-based leave solution, and this launch is no different: we believe no one knows your employees and policy nuances like you do, so we give you control over the highly subjective and sensitive approval decision, while automating the little pieces of the puzzle to take as much off your plate as possible.
Facilitating medical leaves is notoriously complex (that’s why we had a whole webinar on the topic), so we’re using software to take even more off your plate. Our new product experience makes collecting fitness for duty (FFD) forms easy:
Step 1: Cocoon automatically reminds employees to complete their certifications
Step 2: Employees upload the forms right in Cocoon
Step 3: Admins stay looped in every step of the way, automatically
No more juggling clunky PDF attachments or missing key information.
At Cocoon, we’re all about giving People teams easy access to leave details that help them support employees quickly and with confidence. This time we’re adding visibility into leave balances and denied leaves because employees often want to know how much leave time they have left at any given moment. On the Eligibility details tab, you can now view each employee’s latest balances for FMLA and any applicable state laws to give them immediate answers. You can see:
Cocoon Admins can also now view any planned medical leaves that were denied for missing or incomplete serious health condition forms right in their Dashboards. Medical leaves are not just complicated to administer—they are complicated for employees to navigate, too. This latest update will ensure you have full context to help employees get the right documentation to take the time they need to recover.
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Last quarter we told you about our new in-depth Pay Trackers for both employees and Cocoon Admins. Today, we’re excited to share even more updates to our Pay Dashboards with the addition of new tooltips, explainers, and extensive resource libraries (with videos like this one) to help answer the most common pay questions—before they come up. Admins and employees can navigate to their dedicated resource libraries right in their Dashboards.
From giving more peace of mind around pay to to expanding the traditional meaning of a reason for leave, our team is laser-focused on building solutions that truly make life with leave easier. Stay tuned for more Cocoon release notes like this one as the year continues!
We can’t wait another 30 years for a solution that only works for some Americans. It’s time to shape the conversations and decisions that will finally give US citizens access to paid leave to afford the time and cost to take care of themselves, their families, and loved ones.
