WO2016008009A1

WO2016008009A1 - A method and system for identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with employee attendance behaviour data from a plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources

Info

Publication number: WO2016008009A1
Application number: PCT/AU2015/050398
Authority: WO
Inventors: Charlie EVANS
Original assignee: Evans Charlie
Priority date: 2014-07-17
Filing date: 2015-07-16
Publication date: 2016-01-21
Also published as: AU2017100055A4

Abstract

A method and system for identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with employee attendance behaviour data from a plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources There is provided a method for identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with employee attendance behaviour data from a plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources (310 and 315). The method comprises receiving the employee attendance behaviour data from the plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources (310 and 315), the employee attendance behaviour data identifying at least one employee, the employee attendance behaviour data sources comprising at least one of an access control system (310) and a business information system (315) and receiving logged leave data from a human resource management database (305), the logged leave data identifying the at least one employee and at least one calendar day for which the at least one employee has logged leave and identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data and the logged leave data.

Description

A method and system for identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with employee attendance behaviour data from a plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources

Background

[1] Many large organisations (particularly in Australia) have unnecessarily high leave accruals; partly because in some instances employees take leave but fail to log a corresponding leave request in the H M system.

[2] Generally in these instances, employees will discuss and plan their leave with their line- manager, receive verbal approval to take the leave and be asked / expected to submit a leave request. The employee can then take the leave without submitting a request and if ever challenged on their return; log the request without consequence. If unchallenged, some employees will fail to submit a request.

[3] In other instances, some teams and business units use "off-system" tables and spreadsheets to plan annual leave and these can add a layer of confusion, with employees believing (or claiming to believe) they have formally requested leave by registering it in these planning documents.

[4] In both the above scenarios; the leave request is never submitted and the employee's accrued leave balance is overstated by the corresponding number of days of leave. This is accrual that can either be taken at a later date (at the company's expense) or continues to accrue (at a rate that includes all subsequent pay rises), and is paid out when the employee leaves the organisation.

[5] The overstated accrual is a liability on the Group balance sheet and effectively reduces the

P&L position by a corresponding amount as it must be held aside in a provision account.

[6] The composition of accrued leave at any organisation is shown in Figure 1.

[7] The quantum of the issue is very hard to assess (it is hard to measure something that is not requested), and because of the sensitive nature of necessary conversations, even harder to address without accurate data.

[8] The average cost of a day of lost leave is $330 across the Australian banking sector, and the scale of the problem is thought cost Australian organisations alone approximately $1.5b

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RO/AU [9] As such, an opportunity exists for a system and process that use an organisations' existing data sources to identify likely instances of employee time theft (intentional or not) and if confirmed; provide a mechanism to facilitate the recovery of these days.

[10] It is to be understood that, if any prior art information is referred to herein, such reference does not constitute an admission that the information forms part of the common general knowledge in the art, in Australia or any other country.

Summary of the Disclosure

[11] According to one aspect, there is provided a method for identifying at least one unscheduled leave calendar day in accordance with employee attendance behaviour data from a plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources, the method comprising receiving the employee attendance behaviour data from the plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources, the employee attendance behaviour data identifying at least one employee, the employee attendance behaviour data sources comprising at least one of an access control system; and a business information system; and receiving scheduled leave data from a human resource management database, the scheduled leave data identifying the at least one employee and at least one calendar day for which the at least one employee has scheduled leave; identifying at least one unscheduled leave calendar day in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data and the scheduled leave data.

[12] The method may further comprise generating employee attendance behavioural profile data for the at least one employee in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data; and wherein identifying at least one unscheduled leave calendar day further comprises comparing the employee attendance behavioural profile data and the employee attendance behaviour data.

[13] The access control system may further comprise at least one of campus/building access record; and cardholder record access control systems.

[14] The business information system may comprise at least one of login; intranet access; internal directory; timesheeting; workforce planning tool feeds; calendar; email; and remote access business information systems.

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RO/AU [15] The method may further comprises receiving a percentile cut-off threshold; calculating an average behaviour count for the at least one employee in accordance with the employer behaviour data; and excluding the at least one employee if the average behaviour count is less than the percentile cut-off threshold.

[16] The method may further comprises calculating the percentile cut-off threshold in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data.

[17] Calculating the percentile cut-off threshold may comprises calculating employer behaviour counts for other employees related to the at least one employee.

[18] The other employees may be related to the at least one employee by at least one of team; business unit; and job description.

[19] The method may further comprise excluding the at least one calendar day in accordance with known public holidays.

[20] The method may further comprise excluding employee attendance behaviour data from exclusion regions.

[21] The exclusion regions may include out of scope campuses and buildings.

[22] The method may further comprise sending unscheduled leave explanation request data.

[23] The method may further comprise receiving unscheduled leave explanation response data.

[24] The method may further comprise updating the human resource management database in accordance with the explanation response data.

[25] The method may further comprise identifying manager identification data representing a manager of the employee and sending the unscheduled leave explanation request data in accordance with the manager identification data.

[26] Other aspects of the invention are also disclosed.

Brief Description of the Drawings

[27] Notwithstanding any other forms which may fall within the scope of the present invention, a preferred embodiment / preferred embodiments of the disclosure will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

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RO/AU [28] Fig. 1 shows an exemplary composition of accrued leave at any organisation;

[29] Fig. 2 shows the effect of the methods and systems described herein on the number of submitted leave requests;

[30] Fig. 3 shows an exemplary system for unlogged leave detection in accordance with an embodiment;

[31] Fig. 4 shows an exemplary computing device for unlogged leave detection in accordance with an embodiment; and

[32] Fig. 5 shows an exemplary graphical user interface for responding to unlogged leave explanation requests in accordance with an embodiment.

Description of Embodiments

[33] For the purposes of promoting an understanding of the principles in accordance with the disclosure, reference will now be made to the embodiments illustrated in the drawings and specific language will be used to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the disclosure is thereby intended. Any alterations and further modifications of the inventive features illustrated herein, and any additional applications of the principles of the disclosure as illustrated herein, which would normally occur to one skilled in the relevant art and having possession of this disclosure, are to be considered within the scope of the disclosure.

[34] Before the structures, systems and associated methods relating to identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day are disclosed and described, it is to be understood that this disclosure is not limited to the particular configurations and process steps disclosed herein as such configurations and process steps may vary somewhat. It is also to be understood that the terminology employed herein is used for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting since the scope of the disclosure will be limited only by the claims and equivalents thereof.

[35] In describing and claiming the subject matter of the disclosure, the following terminology will be used in accordance with the definitions set out below.

[36] It must be noted that, as used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

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RO/AU [37] As used herein, the terms "comprising," "including," "containing," "characterised by," and grammatical equivalents thereof are inclusive or open-ended terms that do not exclude additional, unrecited elements or method steps.

[38] It should be noted in the following description that like or the same reference numerals in different embodiments denote the same or similar features.

Recovered leave days

[39] When employees fail to log a leave request in the company H system prior to taking their leave, a certain proportion of these log their leave retrospectively (after their return date). This seems logical for most sick leave, but analysis shows that a significant amount of annual leave is also logged retrospectively.

[40] On any given day; employees who are returning to work that day but have not yet booked leave are more likely to do so in the days immediately after their return. Once a month has elapsed since their return; if that employee still hasn't logged a retrospective leave request the chances that they ever will significantly reduce, and if the leave remains unlogged (intentional or not) this effectively becomes time-theft.

[41] If the lag time for all retrospectively logged leave requests submitted over an extended period (> a year) are calculated and plotted, it is clear that the lag duration of those requests is distributed fairly normally per the diagram provided in figure 2A.

[42] In the embodiments that follow, there will be described a system adapted to effectively change employees behaviour resulting in the diagram given in figure 2B.

[43] Generally, there are two types of leave day recovered, Accruing Days and Non-Accruing Days. Also (and for measurement purposes), there are two categories of leave day recovered: those directly identified by the system described below and recorded by line managers and those booked as a result of the significant word of mouth effect once employees realise the system described below is actively monitoring their behaviour.

[44] Both these types of recovery are clearly directly attributable to a change in process, resulting in a change of outcome and offering significant savings for the organisation.

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RO/AU System 100 for unlogged leave detection

[45] Referring to figure 3, there is shown a system 300 for unlogged leave detection, in other words: identifying calendar days for which employees were probably absent and had not requested leave. In preferred embodiments, the system 300 utilises employee attendance behaviour data from access control systems, various business information systems and the like in order to infer employee attendance behaviour for correlation against logged leave days in a human resource management system database.

[46] In this manner, the system 300 is adapted for reducing an organisations leave liability by detecting those calendar days during which an employee was absent and without a corresponding leave request submitted. Once detected and confirmed, the human resource management system database may be updated accordingly so as to reduce the organisation's leave liability.

[47] As such, the system 300 comprises a human resource management system 305. Coupled to the human resource management system 305 is a human resource database 335. The human resource database 335 is adapted to store various data relating to employees, including leave schedule data representing leave schedules submitted by employees. Generally, the leave schedule data comprises employee identification data stored in relation to calendar days indicating those calendars days for which leave has been scheduled for particular employees.

[48] Employees may be identified by a unique employee ID or by other unique characteristic, such as surname, name and surname combination and the like. Furthermore, the leave schedule data may represent the type of leaves scheduled for a particular employee, whether this be annual leave, compassionate leave, sick leave and the like.

[49] The system 300 further comprises an access control system 310. The access control system 310 generally controls campus and building access for employees, usually those utilising access cards. In this manner, the access control system 310 is able to record, amongst other data, the date and time at which a particular employee gained access at a particular access point.

[50] Furthermore, the system 300 comprises various business information systems 315 from which employee attendance behaviour may be inferred.

[51] In one embodiment, the business information system 315 may be a login information system, such as a Windows authentication system or the like adapted to record when employees log into

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RO/AU various business computing systems. Such a login information system is adapted to record the date and time at which a particular employee logged in to a particular business system. Such is useful for determining the behaviour of an employee with regards to whether or not an employee was attending work on a particular day.

[52] Similarly, the business information system 315 may comprise an intranet access information system adapted to record when a particular employee accesses various intranet resources, such as shared documents and the like.

[53] Yet further, the business information system 315 may comprise an internal directory system adapted to detect when an employee accesses an internal directory.

[54] Furthermore, the business information system 315 may comprise a timesheeting system used for those employees who record their work time. Time recorded by an employee may be used by the system 300 in detecting whether or not an employee was in attendance on a particular day.

[55] Other business Information system 315 may be employed also, such as workforce planning tools, calendar systems (such as Microsoft Exchange calendars), email systems and the like. Each of these may be employed by the system 300 to determine the attendance behaviour of an employee on a particular day.

[56] Even further, the business information system 315 may comprise a remote access business information system, such as a VPN or the like remote access system adapted for use by the system 300 in determining the attendance behaviour of employees who may have been working from home on a particular day.

[57] Other business Information systems 315 may be employed over and above those specifically mentioned herein within the purposive scope of being used for determining attendance behaviour of employees.

[58] The system 300 further comprises a server 325 adapted for various tasks including gathering various information from the human resource management database 335, access control system 310, business information system 315, identifying calendar days for which employees were absent and the like. It should be noted that the utilisation of a server 325 is exemplary only and the computational

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RO/AU tasks may be performed by other computing arrangements, including those being performed by computing devices within the human resource management system 305.

[59] Furthermore, the server 325 may be a local server, such as a server 325 accessible across an intranet. Alternatively, the server 325 may be "in the cloud" accessible across the Internet. The latter implementation is generally suited for the purposes of unlogged leave detection for multiple organisations.

[60] Furthermore, the system 300 comprises a client computing device 330 described primarily with reference to the embodiments herein as being the client computing device 330 used by managers for the purposes of reviewing flagged calendar days, and responding with reasons as to why employees may have been recorded as being absent on those flagged calendar days. However, the client computing device 330 may suit other purposes also, including for administrative purposes in configuring the system 300 and the like.

The computers of the system 300 are in communication across a data network 320. The data network may be a LAN network, the Internet or any other appropriate network arrangement.

[61] In one embodiment, the client computing device 330 executes a browser application, adapted to browse to a web resource served by a web server of the server 325. In this manner, managers may interact with the server 325 by way of ubiquitous web browser application.

[62] It should be noted that the exemplary technical arrangement of figure 3 is exemplary only and that no technical limitation should be necessarily imputed to the embodiments described herein. Specifically, the system 300 may be varied within the purposive scope of detecting unlogged leave and, in this regard, various functionality may be shared by a single computing device or various functionality may be distributed across more than one computing device than is given in figure 3.

Computing device 400

[63] Referring now to figure 4, there is shown a Fig. 4 shows a computing device 400. In a preferred embodiment, the computing device 400 may be implemented in, or taking the form of, the human resource management system 305, access control system 310, business information system 315, server 325 or client computing device 330. In this manner, the computing device may comprise differing technical integers depending on the application, such as whether the device 400 comprises

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RO/AU the display device 405, human interface 455 and the like. In other words, the technical integers of the computing device 400 as shown in figure 4 are exemplary only and variations, adaptations and the like may be made thereto within the purposive scope of the embodiments described herein and having regard for the particular application of the computing device 400.

[64] In particular the steps of the method for identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day may be implemented as computer program code instructions executable by the computing device 400. The computer program code instructions may be divided into one or more computer program code instruction libraries, such as dynamic link libraries (DLL), wherein each of the libraries performs a one or more steps of the method. Additionally, a subset of the one or more of the libraries may perform graphical user interface tasks relating to the steps of the method.

[65] The device 400 comprises semiconductor memory 410 comprising volatile memory such as random access memory (RAM) or read only memory (ROM). The memory 410 may comprise either RAM or ROM or a combination of RAM and ROM.

[66] The device 400 comprises a computer program code storage medium reader 460 for reading computer program code instructions from computer program code storage media 265. The storage media 265 may be optical media such as CD-ROM disks, magnetic media such as floppy disks and tape cassettes or flash media such as USB memory sticks.

[67] The device further comprises I/O interface 435 for communicating with one or more peripheral devices. The I/O interface 435 may offer both serial and parallel interface connectivity. For example, the I/O interface 435 may comprise a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), Universal Serial Bus (USB) or similar I/O interface for interfacing with the storage medium reader 460. The I/O interface 435 may also communicate with one or more human input devices (HID) 455 such as keyboards, pointing devices, joysticks and the like. The I/O interface 435 may also comprise a computer to computer interface, such as a Recommended Standard 232 (RS-232) interface, for interfacing the device 400 with one or more personal computer (PC) devices 450. The I/O interface 435 may also comprise an audio interface for communicate audio signals to one or more audio devices 445, such as a speaker or a buzzer.

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RO/AU [68] The device 400 also comprises a network interface 440 for communicating with one or more computer networks 470. The network 470 may be a wired network, such as a wired Ethernet™ network or a wireless network, such as a Bluetooth™ network or IEEE 802.11 network. The network 480 may be a local area network (LAN), such as a home or office computer network, or a wide area network (WAN), such as the Internet or private WAN.

[69] The device 400 comprises an arithmetic logic unit or processor 420 for performing the computer program code instructions. The processor 420 may be a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) or complex instruction set computer (CISC) processor or the like. The device 400 further comprises a storage device 430, such as a magnetic disk hard drive or a solid state disk drive.

[70] Computer program code instructions may be loaded into the storage device 430 from the storage media 465 using the storage medium reader 460 or from the network 470 using network interface 440. During the bootstrap phase, an operating system and one or more software applications are loaded from the storage device 430 into the memory 410. During the fetch-decode-execute cycle, the processor 420 fetches computer program code instructions from memory 410, decodes the instructions into machine code, executes the instructions and stores one or more intermediate results in memory 410.

[71] In this manner, the instructions stored in the memory 410, when retrieved and executed by the processor 420, may configure the computing device 400 as a special-purpose machine that may perform the functions described herein.

[72] The device 400 also comprises a video interface 415 for conveying video signals to a display device 405, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), cathode-ray tube (CRT) or similar display device.

[73] The device 400 also comprises a communication bus subsystem 425 for interconnecting the various devices described above. The bus subsystem 425 may offer parallel connectivity such as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), conventional Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) and the like or serial connectivity such as PCI Express (PCIe), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (Serial ATA) and the like.

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RO/AU Exemplary embodiment

[74] There will now be described an exemplary embodiment with reference to the above described system 300 and computing device 400. In this exemplary embodiment, there will be described the scenario of the utilisation of the system 300 for identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day using employee attendance behaviour data received from at least one of the access control system 310 and business system 315 and the logged leave data from the human resource management database 335.

[75] Again, it should be noted that this embodiment is exemplary only and that no limitation should necessarily be imputed to the other embodiments described herein accordingly.

[76] As such, in this exemplary embodiment, there will now be described the method for unlogged leave detection in accordance with employee attendance behaviour data from a plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources. The method will be described with reference to identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar days before a particular employee. However, it should be appreciated that the method is equally applicable for detecting unlogged leave calendar days for a plurality of employees.

[77] Furthermore, the embodiments herein refer to use with employees for convenience purposes only. However, should be noted that the methods and systems described herein may be used for other types of workers, such as contractors, subcontractors and the like if they are specifically contracted with an accruing annual leave allowance

[78] As such, the method comprises receiving the employee attendance behaviour data from the plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources. As alluded to above, these employee attendance behaviour data sources include access control systems 310 and various business information systems 315.

[79] Specifically, the access control systems 310 is used by the system 300 in detecting the physical presence of the employee, such as when the employee accesses various physical campus and building physical access points, such as doors, parking booms and the like.

[80] Furthermore, the business information system 315 is used by the system 300 in inferring the employees behaviour from the employee's interaction with various business information systems, such as when the employee performs a login, accesses an intranet resource, accesses an internal (?)

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RO/AU directly, submits a timesheet, is recorded in a workforce planning tool, records an event in a calendar, sends an email, or utilises remote access. As alluded to above, other business information systems 315 may be employed within the purposive scope of inferring the employees behaviour.

[81] It should be noted that other systems may be employed by the system 300 in inferring employee attendance behaviour over and above the access control system 310 and business Information Systems 315 specifically mentioned herein.

[82] Now, the method further comprises receiving logged leave data from the human resource management system 305, and in particular from the human resource management database 335. In particular, the human resource management database 335 may comprise database tables representing employee leave schedule. These tables may relate employee IDs with calendar days for which leave is schedule. Furthermore, the type of logged leave may be recorded within these database tables, such as whether the logged leave is annual leave, compassionate leave, sick leave, long service leave or the like. In this manner, the database tables of the human resource management database 335 may be queried with an employee ID to receive a plurality of calendar days for which leave has been scheduled.

[83] In this manner, the method further comprises identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data and the logged leave data.

[84] For example, should the system 300 detect that on 15 May no behaviour was detected for an employee, in other words that on 15 May the employee did not access any access control points nor interact with any business information systems, and determine from the logged leave data that the employee has no leave schedule for 15 May, the system 300 would flag 15 May for review in the manner described below.

Employee attendance behavioural profile

[85] For enhanced accuracy, the method may take into account behavioural patterns of the employee. As such, the method may further comprises generating employee attendance behavioural profile data for the at least one employee in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data.

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RO/AU [86] As such, identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day further comprises comparing the employee attendance behavioural profile data and the employee attendance behaviour data to identify.

[87] For example, should the employee usually exhibit a high interaction with the access control system 310, and then, for a period, show a significant variation in terms of interaction with the access control system, the system 300 may be adapted to discount the access records from the access control system 310 for the employee to account for this significant variation in behaviour which is inconsistent with the employee's usual behaviour.

[88] It should be noted that the employee attendance behavioural profile data may be generated by the system 300 in an automated manner, configured by an administrator, or a combination of both. For example, an administrator may record those employees having a job title of salesperson such that the system 300 excludes the access records from the access control system 310.

[89] There are many aspects of employee attendance behaviour which may be profiled by the system 300. For example, the system 300 may profile the days of the week the employee, such as where, for example the employee do not attended the offices on certain days, only working four day weeks.

Percentile cut-off threshold

[90] For further accuracy, the method may further comprise utilisation of a percentile cut-off threshold to exclude those employees who have not interacted with the access control 310 and business information systems 315 enough to provide a confident probability as to unlogged leave.

[91] For example, the system 300 may be configured with a percentile cut-off threshold, such as 25%. Then, the system 300 may be configured to calculate an average behaviour count for the employee in accordance with the employee behaviour data.

[92] For example, the system 300 may calculate that the employee interacts with the access control system 310 on average once daily and the business information system 315 twice daily.

[93] As such, the system 300 may assign the employee and average behaviour count of three. However, the average behaviour count of three may fall beneath the 25^th percentile when compared to other employees (such as all other employees, other employees within the same business unit, ,

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RO/AU other employees within the same team, other employees with the same job title and the like) and therefore the employee would be excluded. In other words, because the employee interacts so little with the access control 310 and business information systems 315, the system 300 is not able to identify and unlogged leave calendar day for the employee with confidence.

[94] As such, by using the percentile cut-off threshold, the system 300 is able to reduce the potential for false accusation for those employees who do not interact significantly with the access control 310 and business Information Systems 315.

[95] In a preferred embodiment, the percentile cut-off threshold is adjusted iteratively to optimise system accuracy. For example were an initial percentile cut-off of 50% to achieve an accuracy of 20% or less (in other words, the number of unlogged leave days accurately identified were only 20% of those originally flagged by the system), in subsequent iterations, the cut-off point would remain at 50% until such time that additional data can be found to increase the accuracy of the output to 25% or more. If a percentile cut-off of 50% achieves and accuracy of 60%, the next iteration would have a 30% cut-off threshold (because the data accuracy is good, less employees are excluded from the output). This increase in scope may decrease the accuracy from 60% to 30%; in which case the subsequent iteration cut-off will change to 45%, this will repeat until the cut-off point settles at an optimal value to maximise accuracy for a given dataset.

Calendar days, region and business information system exclusions

[96] In a preferred embodiment, the system 300 may be adapted to exclude certain calendar days. For example, the system 300 may be adapted to exclude public holidays.

[97] Yet further, the system may be adapted to exclude certain regions monitored by the access control system 310. For example, the system 300 may be adapted to exclude certain business campuses and buildings.

[98] Similarly, the system 300 may be adapted to exclude certain business information systems including business information systems in certain regions and business Information Systems experience in technical failure.

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RO/AU Unlogged leave explanation request

[99] In a typical business organisation, employees report to line managers. In this manner, in a preferred embodiment, the method, having identified at least one should shall calendar day, may be adapted to send, to an employee's line manager, unlogged leave explanation request data requesting an explanation for the employees ostensible unlogged leave.

[100] In this manner, the manager may liaise with the employee to ascertain the reason for the unlogged leave. Once the reason is identified, the manager may rectify the situation, such as by offering an explanation or by recording the leave.

[101] Specifically, referring to figure 5, there is shown an exemplary graphical user interface 500 comprising a web interface adapted for use by a manager in managing unlogged leave explanation requests from the server 325.

[102] For example, on a monthly basis, the server 325 may compile a list of employees for which unlogged leave was detected; compile those employees into multiple singular lists containing only employees identified with a direct reporting line to each manager, and then send each list to the appropriate line manager for review, such as by way of email comprising a hypertext link to the interface 500.

[103] The interface 500 comprises a table comprising a column 505 of the identified employees. Column 510 comprises the status for the unlogged leave explanation request such as whether the request has been responded to or as yet awaiting response.

[104] The third column 520 is used to input the explanation for the unlogged leave. For example, the first row comprises an explanation at the employee was sick and that sick leave should be recorded for that particular calendar day. The following two columns comprise the reason that leave was "inadvertently" not recorded and that a proper leave request has now been submitted for recordable in the human resource management database 335.

[105] Other reasons may be input into the interface 500 also, such as where the employee was attending a course or the like.

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RO/AU Pseudo code

[106] By way of further explanation, exemplary pseudo code will now be given providing an example of the steps taken to populate SQL tables for the purposes of identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day. Again, the steps of the below pseudo code are exemplary only and no limitation should necessarily be imputed to the other embodiments described herein.

1. Exclude all public / bank holidays from reporting

2. Exclude any day that there was a significant failure of upstream technology (data-sources)

3. Set the date range for the reporting (normally 1 month), "StartDate" and "EndDate"

4. Create a working table template (e.g.: "Touchpoints") including only 'workdays'

5. Import all employees and required details (employee attributes) from "HRMS ALL Employees File"

6. If good quality employee time scheduling data available go to 6a), if not 6b)

7. 6a) Do not filter for FTE = 1 - all f/t and p/t employees are to be included in scope. 6b) Filter (exclude) all employees where FTE <> 1 - only f/t employees to be in scope.

8. Exclude all Temporary / Contract / P.O.I, employees (no leave accrued)

9. Exclude all employees whose "HIREDate" > "StartDate" (from Point 3)

10. Exclude all employees domiciled in out-of-scope buildings

11. Import all leave booked in HRMS (include "LeaveStart" and "ReturnDate"), match by StaffID (Leave booked = 1 Touchpoint per day - employee cannot have "0" when leave is booked)

12. Import details of all courses attended ("Start" and "End"); match by StaffID (Course attended = 1 Touchpoint per day)

13. Import all intranet activity (each time accessed = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID

14. Import all internal directory access(each time accessed = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID

15. Import all access activity for Buildingl_l (each entry / exit = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID.

16. Import all access activity for Buildingl_2 (each entry / exit = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID

17. Import all access activity for Buildingl_3 (each entry / exit = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID

18. Import all access activity for Building2_l (each entry / exit = 1 Touchpoint); No StaffID available - cross reference with card user report to match to StaffID

19. Import Card / User report for Building2_l (cross reference with StaffID in activity for Building

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RO/AU Import CoreSystemAccessl_l activity (each time accessed = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID Import CoreSystemAccessl_2 activity (each time accessed = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID Import CoreSystemAccessl_3 activity (each time accessed = 1 Touchpoint); match by StaffID Import TimeSheetSysteml_l records (excluding any Leave records) match by StaffID Import TimeSheetSysteml_2 records (excluding any Leave records) match by StaffID Calculate the average number of touchpoints per employee across date range. (For Clustering analysis)

Calculate the average number of touchpoints per Team / Area / BU across the date range, (for Clustering analysis)

On first BAU cycle, build a ZeroDays table that contains employees that have a daily touchpoint value = 0 on any day of the month and where Av#TouchpointsEmp > Av#TouchpointsTeam.

On subsequent reporting cycles, calculate the accuracy of previous report cycles (i.e.; (Number of Confirmed leave Days recovered) / (Number of ZeroDays identified) for each Team / Area / BU.

Previous Percentile

Accuracy Cut - off

Build a ZE ODays table that contains all StafflDs where Av#TouchpointsEmp > Touchpoint value at percentile cut-off in above table, and for staff where TouchCount = 0. i.e. if previous accuracy of results for team = 30%; percentile cut-off is lowered to 45.0% - all employees with

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RO/AU an Av Touchpoint count for the month > 45th percentile Touchpoint count for their team is included in the report. If this cycle lowers the response accuracy to 25% the next month, the percentile cut-off is raised to 47.5%. If the move to 45.0% cut off still increases the overall accuracy of the reporting to 40%, the percentile cut-off is lowered to 40%. This allows the system to optimise the number of employees included in scope for a given accuracy achieved. This includes employees with an average daily touchpoint above the percentile indicated in the above table. Employees that fall below this cut-off limit will likely have similar leave logging behaviour to those above the cut-off and should also remain in scope. There are additional steps which can be taken to ensure all employees remain in scope and each of these steps can be used exclusively or in combination with others. Those steps are as follows: For employees identified with days having "0" touches and a mean monthly touchpoint count below the scope cut-off point identified in point 28; the system will calculate a historical average monthly touchpoint count for the employee and if this is higher than the current month, then the employee will be included in the report for investigation. The inclusion limit can be altered to account for variance in the role to define whether the missing days constitute a significant change in usual behaviour. .

Each employee's working pattern can be analysed for variability of their role, e.g. An employee that has a low variance of their daily touchpoint count has by definition a fairly consistent role. When-ever one of these (low variance) employees has a 0 count they should be included in the reports. Similarly; an employee with a low standard deviation and variance but high number of continuous 0 days (e.g., >20) are likely to have been away from work for an extended period of time without logging a leave request and should also be included.

Variance levels can be agreed with customers to make the system more accurate (conservative) or be more aggressive in scope inclusion.

Remove duplicated StafflDs (Employees with more than 1 reporting line

Remove any employees in agreed excluded senior-level roles due to known variability of work patterns

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RO/AU 35. If agreed, remove any employees or line managers whose e-mail address indicates they are not included in scope (e.g. not ending in '%.com.au')

36. Drop Temporary Tables

37. "ZERODays_Pre_Prod" table complete.

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RO/AU Interpretation

[107] The invention may be embodied using devices conforming to other network standards and for other applications, including, for example other WLAN standards and other wireless standards. Applications that can be accommodated include IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs and links, and wireless Ethernet.

[108] In the context of this document, the term "wireless" and its derivatives may be used to describe circuits, devices, systems, methods, techniques, communications channels, etc., that may communicate data through the use of modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. The term does not imply that the associated devices do not contain any wires, although in some embodiments they might not. In the context of this document, the term "wired" and its derivatives may be used to describe circuits, devices, systems, methods, techniques, communications channels, etc., that may communicate data through the use of modulated electromagnetic radiation through a solid medium. The term does not imply that the associated devices are coupled by electrically conductive wires.

Processes:

[109] Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the following discussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specification discussions utilizing terms such as "processing", "computing", "calculating", "determining", "analysing" or the like, refer to the action and/or processes of a computer or computing system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented as physical, such as electronic, quantities into other data similarly represented as physical quantities.

Processor:

[110] In a similar manner, the term "processor" may refer to any device or portion of a device that processes electronic data, e.g., from registers and/or memory to transform that electronic data into other electronic data that, e.g., may be stored in registers and/or memory. A "computer" or a "computing device" or a "computing machine" or a "computing platform" may include one or more processors.

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RO/AU [111] The methodologies described herein are, in one embodiment, performable by one or more processors that accept computer-readable (also called machine-readable) code containing a set of instructions that when executed by one or more of the processors carry out at least one of the methods described herein. Any processor capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken are included. Thus, one example is a typical processing system that includes one or more processors. The processing system further may include a memory subsystem including main RAM and/or a static RAM, and/or ROM.

Computer-Readable Medium :

[112] Furthermore, a computer-readable carrier medium may form, or be included in a computer program product. A computer program product can be stored on a computer usable carrier medium, the computer program product comprising a computer readable program means for causing a processor to perform a method as described herein.

Networked or Multiple Processors:

[113] In alternative embodiments, the one or more processors operate as a standalone device or may be connected, e.g., networked to other processor(s), in a networked deployment, the one or more processors may operate in the capacity of a server or a client machine in server-client network environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer or distributed network environment. The one or more processors may form a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine.

[114] Note that while some diagram(s) only show(s) a single processor and a single memory that carries the computer-readable code, those in the art will understand that many of the components described above are included, but not explicitly shown or described in order not to obscure the inventive aspect. For example, while only a single machine is illustrated, the term "machine" shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

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RO/AU Additional Embodiments:

[115] Thus, one embodiment of each of the methods described herein is in the form of a computer- readable carrier medium carrying a set of instructions, e.g., a computer program that are for execution on one or more processors. Thus, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, embodiments of the present invention may be embodied as a method, an apparatus such as a special purpose apparatus, an apparatus such as a data processing system, or a computer-readable carrier medium. The computer-readable carrier medium carries computer readable code including a set of instructions that when executed on one or more processors cause a processor or processors to implement a method. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the form of a method, an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of carrier medium (e.g., a computer program product on a computer-readable storage medium) carrying computer-readable program code embodied in the medium.

Carrier Medium :

[116] The software may further be transmitted or received over a network via a network interface device. While the carrier medium is shown in an example embodiment to be a single medium, the term "carrier medium" should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions. The term "carrier medium" shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by one or more of the processors and that cause the one or more processors to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the present invention. A carrier medium may take many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media, and transmission media.

Implementation :

[117] It will be understood that the steps of methods discussed are performed in one embodiment by an appropriate processor (or processors) of a processing (i.e., computer) system executing instructions (computer-readable code) stored in storage. It will also be understood that the invention is not limited to any particular implementation or programming technique and that the invention may

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RO/AU be implemented using any appropriate techniques for implementing the functionality described herein. The invention is not limited to any particular programming language or operating system.

Means For Carrying out a Method or Function

[118] Furthermore, some of the embodiments are described herein as a method or combination of elements of a method that can be implemented by a processor of a processor device, computer system, or by other means of carrying out the function. Thus, a processor with the necessary instructions for carrying out such a method or element of a method forms a means for carrying out the method or element of a method. Furthermore, an element described herein of an apparatus embodiment is an example of a means for carrying out the function performed by the element for the purpose of carrying out the invention.

Connected

[119] Similarly, it is to be noticed that the term connected, when used in the claims, should not be interpreted as being limitative to direct connections only. Thus, the scope of the expression a device A connected to a device B should not be limited to devices or systems wherein an output of device A is directly connected to an input of device B. It means that there exists a path between an output of A and an input of B which may be a path including other devices or means. "Connected" may mean that two or more elements are either in direct physical or electrical contact, or that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

Embodiments:

[120] Reference throughout this specification to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment" or "in an embodiment" in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, but may. Furthermore, the particular features, structures or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner, as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from this disclosure, in one or more embodiments.

[121] Similarly it should be appreciated that in the above description of example embodiments of the invention, various features of the invention are sometimes grouped together in a single

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RO/AU embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of one or more of the various inventive aspects. This method of disclosure, however, is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed invention requires more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment. Thus, the claims following the Detailed Description of Specific Embodiments are hereby expressly incorporated into this Detailed Description of Specific Embodiments, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment of this invention.

[122] Furthermore, while some embodiments described herein include some but not other features included in other embodiments, combinations of features of different embodiments are meant to be within the scope of the invention, and form different embodiments, as would be understood by those in the art. For example, in the following claims, any of the claimed embodiments can be used in any combination.

Different Instances of Objects

[123] As used herein, unless otherwise specified the use of the ordinal adjectives "first", "second", "third", etc., to describe a common object, merely indicate that different instances of like objects are being referred to, and are not intended to imply that the objects so described must be in a given sequence, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any other manner.

Specific Details

[124] In the description provided herein, numerous specific details are set forth. However, it is understood that embodiments of the invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure an understanding of this description.

Terminology

[125] In describing the preferred embodiment of the invention illustrated in the drawings, specific terminology will be resorted to for the sake of clarity. However, the invention is not intended to be limited to the specific terms so selected, and it is to be understood that each specific term includes all technical equivalents which operate in a similar manner to accomplish a similar technical purpose.

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RO/AU Terms such as "forward", "rearward", "radially", "peripherally", "upwardly", "downwardly", and the like are used as words of convenience to provide reference points and are not to be construed as limiting terms.

Comprising and Including

[126] In the claims which follow and in the preceding description of the invention, except where the context requires otherwise due to express language or necessary implication, the word "comprise" or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising" are used in an inclusive sense, i.e. to specify the presence of the stated features but not to preclude the presence or addition of further features in various embodiments of the invention.

[127] Any one of the terms: including or which includes or that includes as used herein is also an open term that also means including at least the elements/features that follow the term, but not excluding others. Thus, including is synonymous with and means comprising.

Scope of Invention

[128] Thus, while there has been described what are believed to be the preferred embodiments of the invention, those skilled in the art will recognize that other and further modifications may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of the invention, and it is intended to claim all such changes and modifications as fall within the scope of the invention. For example, any formulas given above are merely representative of procedures that may be used. Functionality may be added or deleted from the block diagrams and operations may be interchanged among functional blocks. Steps may be added or deleted to methods described within the scope of the present invention.

[129] Although the invention has been described with reference to specific examples, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the invention may be embodied in many other forms.

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Claims

1. A method for identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with employee attendance behaviour data from a plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources, the method comprising:

receiving the employee attendance behaviour data from the plurality of employee attendance behaviour data sources, the employee attendance behaviour data identifying at least one employee, the employee attendance behaviour data sources comprising at least one of:

an access control system; and

a business information system; and

receiving logged leave data from a human resource management database, the logged leave data identifying the at least one employee and at least one calendar day for which the at least one employee has logged leave;

identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data and the logged leave data.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

generating employee attendance behavioural profile data for the at least one employee in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data; and wherein identifying at least one unlogged leave calendar day further comprises:

comparing the employee attendance behavioural profile data and the employee attendance behaviour data.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the access control system comprises at least one of: campus/building access record; and

cardholder record access control systems.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the business information system comprises at least one of:

login;

intranet access;

internal directory;

timesheeting;

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RO/AU workforce planning tool feeds;

calendar;

email;

remote access business information systems;

courses attended; and

corporate travel booking systems

5. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a percentile cut-off threshold;

calculating an average behaviour count for the at least one employee in accordance with the employer behaviour data; and

excluding the at least one employee if the average behaviour count is less than the percentile cut-off threshold.

6. A method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the method further comprises:

calculating the percentile cut-off threshold in accordance with the employee attendance behaviour data.

7. A method as claimed in claim 6, wherein calculating the percentile cut-off threshold comprises:

calculating employer behaviour counts for other employees related to the at least one employee.

8. A method as claimed in claim 7, wherein the other employees are related to the at least one employee by at least one of:

team;

business unit; and the

job description.

9. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises excluding the at least one calendar day in accordance with known public holidays.

10. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises excluding employee attendance behaviour data from exclusion regions.

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RO/AU

11. A method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the exclusion regions include out of scope campuses and buildings.

12. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises sending unlogged leave explanation request data.?

13. A method as claimed in claim 12, wherein the method further comprises receiving unlogged leave explanation response data.?

14. A method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the method further comprises updating the human resource management database in accordance with the explanation response data.

15. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises identifying manager identification data representing a manager of the employee and sending the unlogged leave explanation request data in accordance with the manager identification data.

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RO/AU