Product Update December 2024 | Employment Hero

Welcome back to the final edition of the 2024 Employment Hero product update – can you believe another year is almost done and dusted? 

Although 2024 is winding down, our product updates definitely aren’t. So, what’s new in December? 

We’ve improved the organisational chart, added more flexibility to the approval processes in expenses, added a new 52-week average import, plus more. 

Before we dive in, we’d like to say thank you for your continued support throughout 2024. It was a huge year for us, and 2025 is set to be even bigger. 

We’d also like to say thank you for your continued feedback on our product and features – lots of our product updates and features come to life via feedback from you, so if you have any ideas or opinions, we’re always listening. 

Let’s get to it.

We’ve added more flexibility to the expense approval process

Available on the following plans: Classic: Platinum, EOS: Plus and Unlimited

Every business manages their expenses differently, which is why we’re excited to announce greater flexibility when it comes to setting up your own expense approval process in Employment Hero. 

Now you can personalise your approval processes with added ‘location’ and ‘cost centre’ fields to expense workflows. For example, you can add a requirement for additional approval for large ticketed expenses, or a rule that automatically approves any expenses that are logged by your CEO. Additionally, you can customise approval processes based on the employee cost centre, location or even team. 

These enhancements make it easier to align workflows with your organisational structure and help improve operational efficiency. 

Keep an eye out for similar flexibility coming to the Leave approval process in 2025!

Learn more about managing expenses.

We’ve made the workforce planning tool even more powerful with new updates 

Say hello to a new and improved organisational chart

Available on the following plans: All plans

As your business grows, you might find looking at the organisational chart overwhelming. 

To give you a clearer view, you can now navigate your organisation chart faster and more intuitively with the new minimap. It replaces the scroll bars, saving time and making your experience smoother. 

View your organisational chart with the current vacant positions 

Available on the following plans: Classic: Platinum, EOS: Unlimited 

Want to see what adding additional team members to your organisational structure would look like? You can now access an easy overview in Employment Hero with the workforce planning chart view. 

The tool gives you a mirror image of the organisation chart, with the added functionality of adding vacant positions. This visual format enhances tracking by offering clear insights into how vacant positions are structured, helping you make informed workforce planning decisions. 

You can also easily add and pre-populate details like team, entity, employment type, dates, and remuneration range when creating vacant positions. These enhancements streamline onboarding, improve workforce planning, and provide advanced filtering for reports.

Learn more about the workforce planning tool.

We’ve made some changes to Pay Rate Templates in the Employment Hero HR and Payroll platforms

Available on the following plans: All payroll plans

We’ve made some changes to how your organisation manages pay rates and salaries, and we think you’ll love them. 

Previously, Pay Rate Templates (PRTs) were not available in HR, meaning those using the feature were required to make updates in both Employment Hero HR and Payroll to ensure any new salaries were reflected in both platforms.

Now, PRTs will be accessible in HR. If your organisation uses PRTs in Payroll, you should now have the ability to assign them directly to employees in HR.

Important things to note:

• You do not need to migrate any existing PRTs, this has been done for you during the migration.
• If you already manage salaries in HR but don’t use PRTs, this update won’t impact your current process.
• Future-dated salaries will default to ‘Manually Set Rate’ after the migration 
• If you do use PRTs, these will now flow from HR to Payroll, simplifying the process and reducing manual work.

We’ve added a new 52-week average import

Available on the following plans: All payroll plans

Users can now import 52-week average holiday pay data into the payroll platform. This can be done via the Data Extracts screen, where admins can download a template spreadsheet. Then, the user must input employee details like ID, name, the starting date for the week being imported, the number of hours worked that week, and the hourly rate. 

The first pay run must have been opened to be able to import the data. The week-commencing dates must precede the dates of the first pay run, and cannot contain the dates of the first payrun. 

To use this new feature, select an open pay run, download the template, import data, check your pay runs and export results. 

Learn more about the 52-week average holiday pay.

Follow along every month for the latest and greatest product updates

We want our customers to get the most out of our platform. Whether it’s HR, payroll or benefits, you can expect to find new updates here – all designed to make your world at work easier and more valuable. If you’d like to stay up-to-date with our content, you can visit our resource hub or follow us on LinkedIn.