Impact on leave balances
Cocoon categorizes an employee’s time away by evaluating four scenarios, which consider both the length of the company holiday closure and the employee’s leave duration. Using this information, Cocoon determines whether the employee’s leave balances will be applied.
These scenarios are outlined in the table below, which assumes the employee is not expected to work on company-closed days.
Example: If an employee is taking less than a work week of leave and the company closure is a week or more, then the Company Holiday days are not counted towards the employee’s leave time.
| Company closure is less than a week | Company closure is a week or more |
Employee is taking less than a work week of leave | Company Holiday days are not counted as leave time | Company Holiday days are not counted as leave time |
Employee is taking a work week or more of leave | All leave days including Company Holiday days are counted as leave time | Company Holiday days are not counted as leave time |
Pay clarity
To understand how company holiday time impacts an employee’s leave, refer to the leave timeline.
When Holiday time is not counted as leave time—i.e. your settings indicate employee pay comes from holiday pay, not paid leave on a given date—those dates will appear on an employee's timeline as the striped green bars shown below:
Additionally, Holiday pay will be included within the pay files provided during any applicable employee’s leave.
For more information on entering company holidays within Cocoon please see How to specify company holidays.
Example scenarios
Scenario A
If your company leave policy is to be inclusive of holidays, meaning that employees don’t get additional leave days if their leave crosses a company observed holiday:
While specifying your company holiday within Cocoon you will select the “Leave of Absence Policy” option for the subset of employees you want to be reflected this way.
This means any employee taking a leave over this holiday will be paid from their leave of absence policy rather than from any holiday pay. Their leave timeline will look like this:
Scenario B
If your company leave policy is to exclude holidays, meaning that employees should get additional leave days if their leave crosses a company observed holiday:
While specifying your company holiday within Cocoon you will select the “Paid Holiday" option for the subset of employees you want to be reflected this way.
This means any employee taking a leave over this holiday will be paid from Holiday pay rather than from any leave of absence policy
Scenario C
If your company does not specify any holidays within Cocoon.
Employees will be paid according to your leave of absence policies within Cocoon and no holidays will be accounted for throughout any leaves.
FAQs
How do these settings interact with employees' FMLA balances?
If an employee is out on continuous FMLA leave during a holiday you add to your Cocoon settings, that day will not count toward their 12 weeks of FMLA time. This is true regardless of the setting you choose for employee pay.
Example: if someone is out for ten weeks straight that includes Thanksgiving, and you have added Thanksgiving as a holiday in Cocoon, that day will not count against their balance.
Note: this only applies when the holiday falls on a day the employee would have otherwise been scheduled to work. If the holiday falls on a weekend or a day they wouldn't normally work, it won't impact their FMLA balances.
If I input a holiday and choose "Holiday Pay" for the pay setting, will that extend an employee's paid leave time if their leave intersects with that holiday?
Yes. Here's how to think about it: Setting pay to come from "Holiday Pay" indicates on that day, you will pay the employee separately from their paid leave leave time. This means their paid leave can include an additional day (or days).
What happens if my company has back-to-back holidays/shutdowns that overlap with a weekend ?
If your company is closed continuously, even if it is closed for multiple reasons, enter it as ONE single holiday/shutdown period. This will ensure accurate balance calculation.
Example: if you are closed on 12/25 for Christmas, 1/1 for New Year's, and all the days between (i.e. 12/26 - 12/31): enter this in Cocoon as one shutdown from 12/25 - 1/1