People
Engagements
The dated relationship between a person and a legal entity — what it decides, and why a change opens a new one.
A worker is somebody the organisation engages. An engagement is the relationship itself: which entity engages them, doing what, on what terms, from when. Almost every rule the product applies to a person is resolved through it rather than from the person directly.
What it carries
| Field | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Legal entity | Which company employs them, and therefore which payroll run they appear in |
| Work country and region | Which leave rules, overtime rules and holiday calendars apply — see below |
| Job title, department, position | What they do. The position is what credential requirements attach to |
| Manager | The reporting line, and therefore who approves their leave |
| Working pattern | Which days and hours they are scheduled for, and therefore their capacity |
| FTE | Held in basis points. 10000 is full time; a 0.6 FTE accrues six tenths of the entitlement |
| Engagement type and worker type | Fixed-term versus permanent, employee versus contractor — two different questions |
| Probation end date | See Probation |
| Notice period, contract end date | Terms that matter at the end rather than the start |
Jurisdiction follows the work, not the entity
A Wyoming company employing somebody in California owes California's rules. That is why the work country sits on the engagement rather than being read from the legal entity — choosing an entity pre-fills it and never locks it. See Jurisdictions.
A change opens a new one
Engagements are effective-dated. A promotion, a move to another entity, a change of hours — each writes a new row from the date it takes effect and closes the previous one the day before. Nothing is overwritten.
That is what lets the product answer questions about the past correctly. A payroll snapshot re-read in two years reproduces what was filed; a leave balance accrued at 0.6 FTE stays accrued at 0.6 FTE even after somebody goes full time; a report *as at last March* reads last March's title and entity.
The agreement is not the engagement
A worker agreement is the signed instrument. The engagement is the set of facts it gives rise to. A title change opens a new engagement, not a new contract — and an amendment to a contract chains to the original rather than replacing it, because what somebody actually signed has to stay recoverable.
Two at once
Somebody can hold more than one engagement at the same time, and the product never resolves that to one. A General Manager at the UAE entity who is also a Director at the Georgian entity has two of everything: two job titles, two managers, two salaries paid by two entities. Somebody can also be an employee on one scope and a contractor on another at the same entity.
It is an edge case, which is exactly why it breaks quietly: asking for *the* engagement returns whichever started later, and the other becomes invisible — to entitlement, to overtime rules, to one entity’s payroll run, and to cost reporting. Everything that reads an engagement therefore says which question it is asking.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What rules apply to this person? | Every engagement in force. This is the default, because most questions want all of them |
| What does this entity pay them? | That entity’s engagement — payroll scopes by entity and worker type, so nobody vanishes from a run |
| What is their headcount slice? | Attributed to one engagement so the slices still add to the total. Two engagements are one head and, say, 1.2 FTE |
| Do they hold the right credentials? | Checked against every position held — two engagements are two sets of requirements |
| Who is their manager? | Anybody on either reporting line. Lines cross entities routinely |
| How much are they committed for? | The total across all of them |
Leave is owed per engagement
Two engagements are two employers, each owing leave under its own jurisdiction at its own FTE. A single pooled balance would let one entity’s accrual fund an absence from the other, and would credit somebody once for entitlement two employers owe. A leave request from somebody holding two must say which one it is against — the choice decides which entity carries the liability. See How leave works.
Attendance is the exception
An attendance entry is not tied to an engagement: somebody has one set of hours on a given day, whoever they were working for. Attendance and work jurisdiction resolve to a single engagement for that reason, while leave, pay and credentials do not.