Article Contents
- Introduction
- What Counts as a Service Milestone?
- Plan for Upcoming Milestones
- Email Reminders
- Recognition Elsewhere in Hiro
- Troubleshooting
Introduction
Service milestones give organisations a natural opportunity to recognise the contribution and experience employees build over time. Hiro brings upcoming anniversaries into one place, giving managers and other responsible staff time to plan recognition that feels thoughtful and appropriate.
The Service Milestones page brings upcoming anniversaries, responsible managers and planning To-dos together. Users with organisation-wide milestone access can also see whether they receive optional organisation-wide email reminders, which are configured separately.
What Counts as a Service Milestone?
Hiro identifies:
- An employee’s first work anniversary
- Their 5-year anniversary and every five years after that, including 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years
- Longer periods of service, such as 35 or 40 years
Milestones are calculated from the employee’s Start Date using your organisation’s local timezone.
For employees who started on 29 February, anniversaries are recognised on 28 February in non-leap years.
Plan for Upcoming Milestones
Open Service Milestones
Global Administrators and users with the Confidential staff information privilege can plan milestones across the organisation.
Managers can also access the page without this privilege. Their view is limited to employees who list them as their manager and meet the milestone-planning criteria below.
The Staff > Service Milestones option appears when you have organisation-wide access or are assigned as the manager of at least one staff member.
Learn more about user privileges.
By default, the page displays milestones occurring during the next 12 months. You can choose a different period:
- Next 3 months
- Next 12 months
- This calendar year
- Next calendar year
Additional filters let you narrow the list by:
- Whether a planning To-do is required, in progress or completed
- Milestone
- Branch
- Department
The Branch filter appears when your organisation has more than one active branch. The Department filter appears when it has more than one active department.
Who Appears on the Page
Upcoming milestone planning includes employees who:
- Are active
- Have a valid Start Date
- Are not suppressed from reports and lists
- Do not have a Termination Date
An employee with a Termination Date is excluded even when that date is in the future. This avoids prompting the organisation to begin new milestone planning for someone recorded as leaving.
These rules apply to upcoming milestone planning. They do not remove service recognition that an employee has already earned from their staff profile.
Review Upcoming Milestones
Each milestone shows:
- The employee and anniversary date
- How soon the anniversary will occur, shown in days, weeks, months or years as appropriate
- The employee’s branch and department, where applicable
- Their manager
- The status of the associated planning To-do
The Action filter groups milestones by their planning status:
- Needs To-do
- To-do in progress
- To-do completed
The Action column lets you create a planning To-do or open the To-do already associated with the milestone.
A warning appears when no manager is assigned, the employee is listed as their own manager, or the manager’s email address is missing or invalid. Correcting these details helps ensure the employee’s manager receives the reminder and can take responsibility for planning.
Create a Planning To-do
Select Create To-do beside a milestone to begin planning its recognition.
Hiro pre-fills the To-do with:
- The employee and milestone in the name
- The anniversary date
- Suggestions such as a manager or director message, team lunch, gift or company acknowledgement
- A due date seven days before the anniversary, or today if that date has already passed
You can then assign the To-do, share it with other users and manage it through the normal To-do workflow.
Each milestone can have one linked planning To-do. Once created, its status appears on the Service Milestones page as To-do in progress or To-do completed. Closing the To-do marks the milestone as completed but keeps the association intact. If the To-do is removed, a replacement can be created.
Managers can create and open planning To-dos for direct reports shown on the page.
Linked To-dos can also be accessed through the normal To-do permissions for their creator, assignee and users added to Shared With.
Email Reminders
Access to the Service Milestones page and organisation-wide email reminders are managed separately.
For users with organisation-wide milestone access, the Email reminders status beside the page heading shows whether they personally receive organisation-wide reminders:
- Included means you receive reminders for upcoming milestones across the organisation.
- Not included means you do not receive organisation-wide reminders.
This status is not shown to managers accessing the page only for their direct reports.
Managers receive reminders for their direct reports even when they are not included as an organisation-wide recipient.
A reminder includes a link to the Service Milestones page when the recipient can access that employee’s milestone. The page can be used to plan recognition and create a To-do if needed.
Reminders are normally sent about one month before the anniversary. If the scheduled reminder date falls on a weekend, it moves to the following Monday.
A reminder is not sent when a planning To-do already exists because action has already begun.
Global Administrators can manage organisation-wide recipients under Settings > User Privileges & Notifications > Users > Service milestone email reminders.
Receiving organisation-wide reminders does not grant organisation-wide access to the Service Milestones page. A manager’s page access remains limited to their direct reports unless they also have organisation-wide access.
Recognition Elsewhere in Hiro
An employee’s staff profile includes a service timeline from their commencement date, including before they reach their first five-year milestone. The timeline shows milestones already reached and future milestones still ahead. Future badges remain grey until attained, while hovering over an achieved badge shows when it was unlocked.
The Staff Directory displays the employee’s latest achieved five-year badge beside their name, up to 25 years. Employees with 30 or more years of service receive a 30+ badge. The first-anniversary milestone appears on the planning page but is not displayed as a directory badge.
Historical service recognition remains visible for employees with a future Termination Date because the timeline records service already completed. A past Termination Date limits the timeline to service completed before the employee left.
On each work anniversary, Hiro shows the employee a celebration message on their homepage. The message is shown once and remains eligible to appear for seven days after the anniversary. This is separate from milestone planning and email reminders.
Troubleshooting
If an employee is missing, check their Start Date, active status, Termination Date and Suppress user from reports and lists setting. Any Termination Date, including a future date, excludes the employee from upcoming milestone planning.
If a manager warning appears, check that the employee has an active manager with a valid email address and is not listed as their own manager.
If the Service Milestones option is not shown, confirm that you are a Global Administrator, have the Confidential staff information privilege, or are assigned as the manager of at least one staff member.
If a manager cannot see a particular employee, confirm that the employee lists them as their manager and meets the milestone-planning requirements described above.
If you cannot open a linked milestone To-do, confirm that you have organisation-wide milestone access or are the employee’s current manager. The To-do may also be accessible through its normal creator, assignee or Shared With permissions.
If an expected email reminder was not received, check the recipient’s reminder status, the employee’s manager details and whether a planning To-do already exists.