Transfer leaves: what you need to know
A Transfer Leave includes any leave that has started before going live with Cocoon. This includes leaves that are fully completed, leaves that are currently active and span the launch of Cocoon as well as leaves that have additional time planned after Cocoon’s launch (e.g. a new bonding leg).
Cocoon support for Transfer leaves
Prior to launching with Cocoon, your onboarding specialist will work with your team to collect the necessary information to transfer leave balances into the Cocoon platform.
Once your leave data has been transferred, employees from this list will receive a welcome email to Cocoon where they can track their leave.
As an admin in Cocoon, you can identify which leaves have been transferred by downloading leave data from your leave page or clicking on an employee and seeing the following banner above their leave:
Cocoon’s transfer leaves include:
Employer and employee ability to view leave dates
Employer and employee ability to view entitlements
Employee ability to edit leave & create a new leave leg within their employer policy and entitlements
If the employer provides historical leave time data, the date range will show whatever remaining time the employee has.
Employee ability to request ADA handoff for medical leaves if they've exhausted time
Cocoon’s transfer leaves do NOT include:
Pay support
Claims support
Compliance notices
*Should an employee need to take a new type of leave (i.e. previously took a parental leave and now needs to take a caregiver leave), Cocoon will handle this as a new leave*
Sending Cocoon historical data
Cocoon can ingest historical balances for your employees’ leave time taken from leave laws like FMLA and time they took from your company’s policies. Please note that these balances are limited to time - Cocoon currently cannot support ingesting historical pay data.
To get started:
Request a leave data spreadsheet from your CSM or by emailing
Add all ongoing and completed leaves from the past 12 mos.
PLEASE NOTE: If you do not send the leave data in the requested format, Cocoon will not be able to store historical balances. The spreadsheet must be populated at minimum 10 business days prior to when the transfer leaves would need to be live. Any missing or incorrect fields will lead to a delay in processing.
Email your CSM or [email protected] that you have uploaded to your shared box folder you received in onboarding
Requirements:
Cocoon can only store data for leave types currently available on the platform (parental, medical and caregiver).
Leaves must have a minimum increment of 1 day (no half day absences).
FAQ
What happens if I don’t upload the historical leave data?
Without historical leave data, our system has no way of knowing how much time your employees have already taken for leave and will assume that each employee begins with a “blank slate” that assumes they have a fresh balance of time from FMLA and your company’s policy. A “blank slate” means Cocoon’s platform assumes your employee has not taken any leave in the last 12 months and that the employee could end up getting more time (or pay) if in fact they had taken time in the last 12 months.
How will my employee know to set up an account and access their remaining balance?
Cocoon will send a welcome email to your employee after receiving your historic balances letting your employee know they can claim their account. Your employee has 1 week to set up this account and if not, they can request a new link.
Why doesn’t Cocoon send compliance notices for existing takeover leaves?
Because Cocoon does not have a record of any notices sent prior to an employee adding their leave to Cocoon, we cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of entitlement & employer policy calculations that previous vendors or in-house team members have done. This does not prevent us from offering leave date changes that are “in policy” with the employee’s entitlements.
Employers are obligated to send only one compliance notice so we would not want to send a second notice for the leave that already was approved by the employer or previous vendor.
Please note that the employer remains responsible for sending any required updated compliance notices –e.g., if the employer previously approved a subsequent leave leg but in the interim, the employee took another unanticipated leave and exhausted leave.
When would Cocoon be responsible for sending compliance notices for a Transfer Leave?
Cocoon will send compliance notices for a new leave that occurred while Cocoon is the leave administrator. For example, let’s say an employee was approved for a medical leave before Cocoon. The same employee takes a new leg for the previously approved medical leave (for the same condition), but also takes a new caregiver leave with Cocoon. In this case, Cocoon would send a compliance notice for the caregiver leave.
Why doesn’t Cocoon offer payroll calculations for existing takeover leaves?
Due to limited insight and quality of data provided by previous leave vendors, Cocoon unfortunately cannot properly calculate previous pay balances paid out to an employee, including how much and from which source. Due to this, employers will remain the main point of contact for pay for an employee with a Transfer Leave in Cocoon.
Why doesn’t Cocoon offer claims guidance for existing takeover leaves?
Due to limited insight and quality of data provided by previous leave vendors, Cocoon cannot reconcile what an employee has already been instructed from a past provider or an employer how to file claims or where they should file. We strongly advise that your employees follow the instructions they were previously given to complete their leave. Due to this, employers will remain the main point of contact for claims for an employee with a Transfer Leave in Cocoon.
Any questions? Please reach out to the Support team at [email protected]