Introducing Cocoon for employees with variable schedules

Leave is never an easy, one-size-fits-all plan—and that’s especially true for employees whose schedules fall outside a typical nine-to-five. Yet here at Cocoon, when we see leave complexities, we lean into them so we can simplify them for leave takers and ultimately build a leave management system that doesn’t just work for some customers and People Ops teams, but one that is truly built for you. That’s why we’re pleased to start supporting employees with variable schedules in Cocoon, with all the automation, compliance, and proactive communication our platform offers.

Here, you’ll see why this update is crucial for teams like yours, how it works in Cocoon, and what makes our approach to leave for employees with varied schedules different. Want to see how our variable schedule support works first hand? Try our clickthrough demo or go more in-depth with a demo from our team.

What are employees with variable schedules and why does that matter for a leave of absence?

We define “employees with variable schedules” or “variable employees” as employees whose work schedules vary week to week, who might only know their work schedule a few days or weeks in advance. Some examples:

• A floor manager who works five eight-hour shifts during the week, but the dates and times of those shifts vary.
• A nurse who only receives their weekly schedule on the Sunday before their work week.
• A staff member who works Monday through Thursday every week, but their shift durations vary.

This is in contrast to a fixed schedule worker, who works the same schedule and hours each week, and isn’t reliant upon shift scheduling to know when to come in.

Work schedules impact the calculations to determine leave eligibility (whether it’s for FMLA or your own organization’s policies), leave compliance, how time is tracked towards a leave, and how pay is calculated. For example, FMLA eligibility requires that an employee has worked at least 1,250 hours for their employer during the 12 months preceding their leave (among other requirements). Eligible employees are also entitled to up to twelve work weeks—but for variable employees, a “work week” can vary week-to-week. 

How Cocoon supports employees with variable schedules

With millions of employees with variable schedules, it’s important to get this right while not overburdening them with manual work and calculations. That’s why we built variable employee leave support with the same automated but personalized touches that set Cocoon leave management apart, including:

Flexibility and guidance tailored to each leave taker

When you first implement Cocoon, we ask about the types of schedules your employees have to ensure everybody gets the right guidance and planning options based on their situation. When an employee starts planning leave, we help them map out their schedule, even if it entails some guesstimating or changes later on. Taking their varying schedule into account also ensures we don’t make assumptions that need to be corrected later, like not giving them the option to track time on Saturdays and Sundays.

Compliance and time-tracking accuracy 

We base our calculations for variable employees on a work week basis—not days or hours, because not all work hours or days are the same for them. Employees will always be able to know the amount of leave time taken and available to them, and can’t submit more leave time than the work schedule they submitted. Proportional time calculations ensure fairness and accuracy whether it’s a continuous or intermittent leave, or if a leave begins or ends mid-week. Here’s an example:

Ethan plans on taking an intermittent medical leave over a two week period, and has 0.5 weeks of total leave allotted based on his doctor’s recommendation and what was approved. 

• Week 1 schedule = Monday-Friday, 8-hour shifts, and he takes 5 hours on Wednesday → He’s used ⅛ of a week
• Week 2 schedule =  Monday-Thursday, 4-hour shifts, and he takes 4 hours on Monday → He’s used ¼ of a week

So, if Ethan needs more rest and recovery time in week two, he still has two hours left. Additionally, because he’s not scheduled for Friday, if he takes time on Friday, that doesn’t count against his balance and doesn’t need to be reported. Without proper calculation, Ethan may be taking too much or too little time, and calculating it incorrectly for FMLA compliance.

Smart schedule creation that you can double check

When planning their leave, an employee starts with their anticipated schedule, but we’ll check in to get more details as needed, and send estimated schedules to admins who can choose to review and sign off in bulk, or have them auto-approved.

What sets Cocoon’s approach apart from other leave management solutions?

We’re always improving and adding to our platform, because at our core, we believe that technology has the power to automate and simplify the hardest parts of managing leaves. In addition to giving you peace of mind and time back, you can look forward to: 

• Real-time automation and compliance: Cocoon ensures eligibility and tracking are done correctly across even uncommon leave situations, while automating calculations for accurate pay, compliance, and deadline tracking. No spreadsheets, manual processes, or leaving someone to figure out state leave laws by themselves.
• Scalability as you change and grow: Technology takes the lead, so whether you have five or 50 annual leaves, Cocoon offers a smooth experience. No more relying on one-to-one reps that tend to provide slow and manual support no matter how much you pay.
• Deep expertise in easy-to-use features: Experts like Frank Alvarez—with over three decades of first-hand employment and disability law experience—ensure we understand and codify leave laws and compliance so well that you don’t have to be the expert.
• More trust in more industries: Over 10,000 leaves have been managed in Cocoon, across industries ranging from tech to media, capital markets to banks, manufacturing to pharmaceuticals, and more.
• Tools to tackle the tough stuff: Though Cocoon can’t dictate your actual company policies, we can help you generate policy text, check how competitive they are, advocate for better ones, and ensure they’re compliant. 

“We used to spend a lot of time explaining how eligibility requirements worked… but with the way Cocoon visualizes and explains the information to leave takers, we get these questions far less, and the conversations that we do have are much more productive. Employees don’t feel like HR is just telling them something—they can interact with the information these decisions are based on.”
^{— Sarah Robillard, Senior Benefits Analyst @ ActiveCampaign}

Built for you, now and in the future

Need variable employee leave support? Talk to our team to see how it could work for you. In the future, we’re also excited about how this update sets the foundation for how we’ll handle complex scheduling to better accommodate any type of work schedule and worker. From nurses to restaurant staff, hospitality to manufacturing, more organizations and employees can now plan and manage their leave with Cocoon, giving your People team (and us) the chance to serve better, more equitable leave experiences to all.