Biggest Leave Management Challenges
As a business owner, you constantly have two major things in mind. You need to make sure your clients’ demands are met and that they’re happy with the outcome, while also making sure your employees are satisfied and motivated. It sounds simple. However, every business owner is aware that even when you plan everything to the last detail, something can go wrong.
Your employees are valuable, and even though you might need them in the office every day, you also need to be aware that taking some time off is good for them, and for your company. In order to have satisfied and motivated employees, you need to provide them with the time off they need. Having a good work/life balance is essential to your business’s success.
However, leave management can sometimes get very complicated, even for small companies. It can become really hard to keep track of everything while making sure your clients are happy with your work.
Here are some of the biggest leave management challenges.
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Challenge 1: Employees don’t know how many days off they have left
This is a big challenge, both for your HR department and your employees. Why? Well, it’s hard to keep track of how many days off everyone has left. It’s hard for small companies, and even harder for larger ones. Not only is your HR department responsible for managing everyone’s leave, but they also need to answer each request. And this can become really frustrating.
When your employees don’t know how many days off they have left, they have to send a request to your HR department, asking them how many days off they have. After that, they have to wait for your HR department to answer their request. This means your employees cannot book their travel until they hear back from them, and they might lose valuable time and money in the process.
On the other hand, your HR department will have their inboxes filled with vacation requests, and they’ll lose valuable time checking how many days off each employee has left. This takes them away from their other duties and it becomes very frustrating both for your HR department and your employees.
Challenge 2: Leave management through spreadsheets that aren’t effective
As we’ve mentioned above, leave management can become quite difficult. It’s important you find a tool which will do most of the work for you so you do not lose valuable time counting how many days off someone has and then writing everything in various spreadsheets.
What we see as a problem with using spreadsheets is the fact that they’re outdated and have become quite ineffective. With spreadsheets, you have to do everything manually plus you have to exchange several emails in the process. It’s easy to get lost in that entire noise.
Another problem is that you can’t be sure if several employees are taking days off at the same time. You have to go through the spreadsheet every time someone requests time off, and see if anyone else has already requested time off in the same time period.
Spreadsheets might work for someone, but it’s a fact they make the entire leave management process a lot more complicated. That’s why finding a leave management tool is the best option. A tool which will do everything for you and the only thing you need to do is approve or deny a request.
Challenge 3: Increased Payroll Errors
Due to poor leave management, many businesses have noticed that payroll errors have increased in their companies. And that’s completely understandable. There are some leaves which are paid, and others which are not. It’s important to keep track of this and make sure you know who’s taking which leave and how many days off they have left.
Without proper leave management tool, this is easier said than done. With a spreadsheet, you cannot be certain when someone has used up all of their paid days off and has started using their unpaid time. This can affect the company in a negative way and cause big problems.
And the solution? Again, a leave management tool.
Even though we’ve mentioned only three challenges, we think it’s obvious that poor leave management can really make tremendous damage to your company. That’s why having a leave management tool is essential.
What do you need to look for in a leave management tool?
A leave management tool should be reliable, fast and easy to use. You need a tool you can rely on to keep track of everything for you and notify you when necessary so you can take proper measurements. That’s why a leave management tool should be automated, easy to use, it should have daily and weekly notifications so you know who’s out of the office when, and it should deliver amazing reports.
Simple leave management tool like Vacation Tracker will definitely meet all your requirements and will make the entire process a lot easier, leaving you time to deal with your other responsibilities.
