10.2 Human Resources (HR)

The Employees app: the HR backbone

The Employees app is the central record for every person in the organization. An employee record holds personal and professional data: work contact details, department, job position, manager, work location, and related HR settings. Departments organize employees into a hierarchy (for example Sales, R&D, and Administration) and are reused across HR reporting, Time Off approvals, and Recruitment. Each employee can be linked to a user account and to a manager, and that manager relationship drives approval routing throughout every HR app. Employees also have contracts, which record salary, start and end dates, working schedule, and contract status; the contract underpins Payroll and some Time Off allocations. A single employee can have several contracts over time, but only one is running at a moment, and Odoo can flag contracts that are expiring so HR renews them. The Employees app also stores a resume/skills section and can hold a separate private address and identification data with restricted access. Because so much routing and reporting depends on it, keeping the department and manager fields accurate is a recurring exam theme.

Recruitment: job positions and the applicant pipeline

The Recruitment app manages hiring. You define a job position — a role tied to a department, with a target number of recruits and a published description that can appear on the website. Each job position has its own pipeline, a Kanban board of stages such as New, Initial Qualification, First Interview, Contract Proposal, and Contract Signed. Applicants move through these stages as they progress. An applicant record captures the candidate's contact details, an attached résumé, an evaluation (a star rating), and a chatter for interview notes and scheduled activities. When a candidate is hired, Odoo can create an employee record directly from the applicant, carrying over their information rather than re-keying it.

Time Off: leave types, allocation, and approval

The Time Off app handles absences. Administrators configure leave types — Paid Time Off, Sick, Unpaid, Compensatory, and so on — each with its own rules for units (days or hours), whether it requires an allocation, and whether it needs approval. Allocations grant an employee a balance of a leave type, either entered manually or built up through accrual plans that add balance over time. To take leave, an employee submits a time-off request for a date range; if the type requires approval, the request routes to the employee's manager and/or a Time Off officer. Approved requests reduce the balance and appear on the team calendar, so managers can check coverage before approving. This is the classic manager approval flow: request → To Approve → Approved or Refused.

Appraisals

The Appraisals app structures periodic performance reviews. HR configures appraisal templates and can schedule appraisals on a recurring cadence per department or company. An appraisal typically pairs an employee self-assessment with a manager assessment built from a questionnaire or survey. It moves through states — for example To Start, Appraisal Sent, and Done — and records goals and feedback, producing a documented history of each employee's development over time. Appraisals can be linked to skills and to individual goals with deadlines, so a review is not just a form but a plan the manager and employee track between cycles.

Expenses: submit, approve, reimburse, and the accounting link

The Expenses app lets employees claim work-related costs. An employee creates an expense by choosing an expense category/product (such as Meals, Travel, or Mileage), entering the amount and date, and attaching a receipt (Odoo can scan and OCR receipts). Individual expenses are grouped into an expense report, which the employee submits. The report then follows a defined approval flow:

After the manager approves the report, an accountant posts it, and posting creates the journal entry in Accounting — this is the accounting link that turns an approved expense into a payable. The company then reimburses the employee, or, for costs already paid by the company (for example on a corporate card), records that the company bore the cost so reimbursement is not double-counted. Correctly flagging who paid keeps the reimbursement and the expense account accurate.

How manager approval flows work across HR

A common thread ties these apps together: the employee → manager relationship on the Employees record determines who receives requests to approve. Time-off requests, expense reports, and other submissions route to that manager, who approves or refuses from their list of pending items or directly from the chatter's scheduled activity. Dedicated HR, Time Off, or Expense officers/approvers can be granted rights to approve in addition to, or on behalf of, the direct manager, which is essential for coverage when a manager is unavailable. Understanding this routing — set the manager, and approvals follow — is central to configuring HR correctly in Odoo 19, and it is exactly the kind of relationship the certification likes to test.