What this guide covers
HR Settings (People > Human Resources > HR Settings) is the configuration hub behind the rest of HR. It has eight tabs: Document Types, Departments, Job Positions, Organizations, Compliance, Leave Types, Leave Plan and Company Shutdown. This guide covers the first five - the ones that define your organisation and its compliance rules. The three leave tabs are covered in HR Settings — leave types, plans & balances.
Who can open it: HR Settings needs HR write permission. Saving the Compliance tab needs admin.
The tabs
Document Types
The catalogue of document kinds you attach to employees (e.g. contract, ID, certificate). For each type you can set an expiry-alert rule so HR is warned before a document lapses. These types are what appear when you attach documents during onboarding or on a profile.
Departments
The department tree - the backbone of the org chart and of who-manages-whom. Here you:
Create departments ("New Department") and nest them under a "Parent Department" (building the hierarchy).
Assign a "Manager" to each department (that's what makes someone a line manager for the people beneath them).
See the whole tree below the table.
The screen protects against loops (a department can't end up as its own ancestor). The structure you build here is exactly what the org chart renders and what scopes the manager screens (Manage hours / schedules / leave).
Full step-by-step: see Departments: build the structure and put people in them - how to create a department, build the hierarchy, assign a manager, and how an employee gets put in a department.
Job Positions
The roles employees are appointed to. The list shows Title, Management level (Director, Manager, Supervisor or none) and Status. A position has its own sub-tabs for General, Job Description, a Scorecard (upload the role's KPI/scorecard PDF) and Access Rights (the role's default permissions).
A job position does not belong to a department. It is a title with a management level and a set of access rights, and the same position can be held by people in different departments. Positions are what you pick at onboarding step 3, alongside - but independently of - the department.
Organizations
The legal/operating entities employees belong to (name and logo). Most sites have one; multi-entity setups use this to keep each organization's people separate in reports and payroll scoping.
Compliance
Company-wide compliance rules:
Country of Origin (nationality) - employees with this nationality are locals and use a validated national ID; everyone else is treated as a foreign national with a passport and work permit.
Permit-expiry alert recipients (e.g. CFO, CEO) - who gets the in-app work-permit expiry reminders. All HR-role holders are always notified in addition to these.
"Save Compliance Settings" needs the admin permission.
How it fits together
Organization > Department (has a manager) > Employee.
A Job Position (title + management level + scorecard + access rights) sits alongside this: each employee holds a position and belongs to a department, and the two are set separately on the record. The department is what the org chart and the manager screens use.
Set these up before onboarding people, so the wizard's Position and Department choices are ready. Changing a department's manager or parent here immediately changes the org chart and the manager-scoped screens.
Good to know
Departments drive management scope. If a manager can't see their team on the manager screens, check the department's manager assignment here - and check that the team members' Department field points at that department.
Don't delete a department with people or sub-departments under it - re-home them first.
Scorecards uploaded on a position feed the KPI/review tooling for that role.
A position's management level can make its holder count as a manager even without being a department manager.
Related guides
Departments: build the structure and put people in them - the deep-dive on creating departments and assigning people.
HR Settings — leave types, plans & balances - the leave tabs of HR Settings.
Add & manage employees - where departments and positions get assigned.
The full org chart (HR view) - the visual view of the structure you build here.