Create Policies for Annual leave Flight Tickets

*The feature is available for all Jisr customers*

Among the various benefits that companies often offer to their employees, sponsoring annual leave flight tickets stands out as one of the most appreciated. This perk alleviates financial strain for team members, enabling them to visit their home countries without worry.
Since this benefit isn't mandated by labor laws, air ticket policies typically reflect the flexibility of each company's HR policies. That's why these policies vary significantly from one organization to another.

Why would HR professionals relish crafting policies for annual leave flight tickets?

• To establish and develop robust flight ticket policies for the company, and to adjust them based on business needs and new variables.
• To efficiently document, organize, and track flight ticket requests received from employees.
• To save time and effort that would otherwise be spent using alternative methods of managing flight ticket requests, such as direct booking with airlines, booking apps, or outsourcing.

How to create policies for annual flight tickets?

From the 'Home page', navigate to 'Configuration' 

In case previous policies have been created before, you'll find all the available created policies. 

To create a new policy, click on 'New policy' button. 

The following page will appear containing control fields that allow you to customize all the relevant details and restrictions of flight tickets requests. 

Make sure to fill fields promptly to be aligned with your company policies. 

Policy title: Enter a suitable name for the policy you want to create. For example, "Airline Tickets for Senior Administrative Positions"

Allow Exception Requests: This option determines whether the policy permits exceptions, meaning that employees assigned to it can request flight tickets even if they do not fully meet the specified policy conditions or details.

Example: A specific policy requires that ticket requests be submitted at least 5 days before the travel date. If exception requests are allowed, an employee may be permitted to submit a request just 3 days before the trip.

Note:
If the option "Tickets are booked only with annual leave" is enabled while creating the policy, this will require employees submitting flight ticket requests to attach an approved annual leave request in order to proceed with the submission. More details about flight ticket requests.

 

Request control

This section helps admins set limitations and conditions for flight ticket requests and ticket balance usage.

After defining the policy details and the maximum number of tickets per employee, you must select:

• Cycle: This determines how tickets are calculated within the policy. The options are:

1. Calendar Year: The employee's ticket balance is calculated based on the calendar year, from January to December.

2. Contract period: This means calculating the employee’s balance based on their joining date as recorded in Jisr system.

   Note:

   For contract period cycle types, ticket calculations are based on the date the employee was added to the system by admins, not the joining date stated in the contract.

• Effective Date: This determines when the ticket balance calculation begins for employees under this policy. You can choose between:

1. Cycle Start Date: This means the ticket balance will be calculated from the start of the selected cycle, whether it is a calendar year or contract period.

   Example: If the cycle is a calendar year and the effective date is set to the cycle start date, the employees' ticket balance will be calculated starting from January to December. This means employees will be eligible to use their balance starting from January.

2. Employee's enrollment date: This means the ticket balance calculation will begin from the date the employee is added to the policy, regardless of whether the cycle type is a calendar year or contract duration.

   Example: If a policy follows a contract period cycle and the activation date is set to the employee's enrollment date, and employees were added to this policy on February 26, 2025:

   In this case, the ticket balance for an employee (with a one-year contract, added to the system on February 1, 2025) will be calculated based on February 26, 2025, as this is the date they were added to the policy, making them eligible to use their ticket balance from that date.

After selecting the cycle and effective date, you must choose how the ticket balance will be availed to employees throughout the policy cycle.

There are two methods:

• Accrual: The ticket balance is gradually made available to employees over the cycle on a monthly basis, meaning the employee's balance accrues progressively over time.

Example:
If an employee is eligible for 12 tickets per calendar year and the policy follows an accrual-based approach, they will earn one ticket per month. By the end of March, their balance will be 3 tickets.

• End of cycle: The full ticket balance is granted to employees at the end of the policy cycle, making the entire annual balance available at the cycle’s conclusion.

  Example:

  An employee enrolled in a policy that grants 12 tickets per calendar year will receive all 12 tickets at the end of the calendar year, meaning after December 31.

Please Note:

• You can assign up to two custom tickets to an employee, which will be added directly to their ticket balance through their profile within the policy. More details are available in the article.

This feature can also be used as a work around in cases where the policy does not allow immediate balance addition for the employee—for example, a policy with a single ticket of type (Calendar Year - Accrual) or policies activated at the End of Cycle.

• When you enable 'Carry balance forward' toggle, you will allow employees to carry forward unused flight tickets to the following cycle, and you can also set the maximum number that will be carried. 

Flight control 

This section allows admins to set the flight specifications and relevant restrictions. 

Note:

When selecting specific permitted destinations in the policy, the "Allocate budget per Destination" option can be enabled, allowing a maximum ticket price to be set for each destination. However, if "No Destinations Restrictions" is selected, budget allocating will not be possible, as all destinations will be included in the policy.

Employees

This section is to set employees eligibility and dependents allowance. 

In the 'Employees' section, you can also manage dependents' coverage, determining the number of dependents of this employee who can be covered with flight tickets. This option can be disabled to disallow dependent coverage.

Once you are done with all the policy fields, you can save by clicking on 'Save' button at the top right of the page.

When you click "Save" the policy is created as a draft.

 

To activate the policy and put it into effect, all required fields must first be completed, and employees must be added to the policy for activation later. For more details, refer to the article Enroll Employees in the flight tickets policy.