Add a user to a userfield when there's a pending user on there

Question

I have this code to save a new user onto a userfield on another user:

    $employees   = $currentUser->employees->ids();
    $employees[] = $employee->id;
    $currentUser->getContent()->setAttributes(['employees' => $employees]);
    if (!craft()->users->saveUser($currentUser))
    {
        Craft::dd($currentUser->getErrors());
    }

Which works fine, however if there's a pending user in the employees field it's not returned in the ids() array. How do I get all user ids from the employees field, not just active users?

Edit: got it:

    $employees   = $currentUser->employees->status('*')->ids();

Answer 1

To mark this as answered, my solution was to use this code to get the current employee IDs regardless of status.

$employees   = $currentUser->employees->status('*')->ids();