Last updated on May 7, 2025
Struggling with PTO management at your marketing agency?
You’re not alone.
According to a study conducted in 2019, the marketing and advertising industry has a burnout rate of 69.6%.
And it's no wonder—with constant deadlines on the horizon and high client expectations, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Amidst this chaos, it may seem like working longer hours and reducing time off is the only way to keep up. However, PTO is crucial for maintaining a healthy, productive team.
The best solution is to use the right tools and be more granular with your PTO tracking.
Here’s why you should track PTO hourly in marketing agencies, as well as how to implement it smoothly—so you can avoid project delays and ensure your team gets the rest it needs.
Why marketing agencies should track PTO hourly
Marketing agencies have a lot to keep track of.
Building brands and running ad campaigns are challenges that require a range of different skill sets. So, a marketing agency’s workforce typically includes various specialists (possibly in different time zones) who are critical in producing deliverables. On top of that, it’s common for an agency to work with multiple clients simultaneously.
The result is that your employees are split across multiple complex projects, each with its own requirements, pricing model, and tentative timelines for delivery—which can make managing your team a project in itself and lead to project delays.
How does something as simple as hourly PTO tracking alleviate these stressors, you ask?
How hourly PTO balances employee satisfaction and agency output
According to a survey that polled over 6000 professionals, 25.3% of burnouts were due to unmanageable workloads, 13.4% were from a lack of support from management, and 15.7% were because of insufficient rewards.
This is where tracking PTO in hourly quotas has a huge impact. With a more agile scheduling system, preventing burnout and ensuring employee availability becomes much more manageable.
For instance, a colleague who needs time off for a medical appointment can request an hour or two of leave (rather than a full or half day) and return to work.
A more granular leave tracking metric makes it easier to adapt to unforeseen leaves of absence. Sometimes, life just pulls people away from what they’re doing. However, if the situation allows, your employee can take a few hours to handle it and return to work afterward.
Another consideration is that heavy work periods may be precisely when your employees really need some time to rest and clear their minds. A few hours can make a world of difference.
Hourly tracking allows your team to take PTO as they need without feeling like they’ve wasted their precious time off while minimizing disruptions in your agency’s output.
Tips and Tricks for Implementing Hourly PTO
While tracking PTO hourly creates a more agile workplace, it can take some getting used to. Developing some implementation strategies ensures a smooth transition to your new system.
Understand your needs and create a leave policy based on that
It all starts with designing your PTO policy. Take some time to figure out what benefits you want to offer your colleagues.
To create a comprehensive leave policy, be sure to:
- Identify your country’s leave laws — Every country will have specific leave laws you must follow. You’ll want to build your policy with them in mind.
- Choose a PTO system — You can implement a few types of PTO systems, like ‘lump sum,’ where employees get a set amount of days off per year. Alternatively, you can use an ‘accrual’ system where your staff accrue time for every hour they work.
- Identify the types of leave you want to offer — Most organizations allocate PTO for different types of leave, such as sick, personal, vacation, jury, witness duty, and even unlimited leave. What do you want to offer your team?
- Determine employee eligibility — You can also specify which staff members (full-time, part-time, or temporary employees) can benefit from your PTO program and include waiting periods before employees start accruing and using it.
- Create an approval process — Regulating PTO is crucial. Most companies require employees to submit a request specifying the type of leave they take and how long they need. You can implement request notice periods and require proof (doctor’s or school note) of where they went. You also should determine who has the authority to approve requests.
If you’re unsure how to draft your own, a leave policy generator can make creating a policy much more accessible.
Communicate your PTO policy and strategy clearly with your employees
With your leave policy in place, the next step is communicating with your team so that everyone has a solid grasp of how it works.
Start by explaining to them what you’re hoping to achieve with hourly PTO tracking. Your staff should be aware of the types of leave they’re eligible for and the system you’re using. They also need a clear understanding of the approval process and how to submit leave requests.
You want to ensure that those in charge of approvals (usually HR and management) know how to process leave requests and clearly understand when they should or should not be approved. They also need to learn to coordinate with the various departments to manage time off efficiently and balance employee and company needs.
Of course, tracking leave effectively requires a high degree of organization. While you can always use an Excel sheet, working with PTO software takes your leave tracking to the next level.
Find the right tools to help you track hourly PTO
The right tools help your marketing agency step its game up by reducing the tedious and time-consuming work for HR and management that comes with manually tracking PTO.
PTO tracking software offers a range of advantages. It simplifies the overall PTO process, tracks time off accurately, streamlines leave requests and approvals, makes compliance easier to follow, and virtually eliminates the possibility of PTO abuse.
What’s more, because PTO software provides real-time visibility into PTO balances and accruals, employees don’t have to check in with HR or management every time they need to take time off.
Benefits and functionality of Vacation Tracker for tracking hourly PTO
Vacation Tracker organizes all leave-tracking information into a cohesive platform that makes PTO processes like viewing PTO balance and submitting leave requests simple and easy.
One key feature that makes the platform really effective is that it provides real-time visibility of which users are taking time off during the month. With the dashboard, admins can view pending and approved requests, see who’s taking time off in the future, and set blackout periods to adapt to heavy work periods.
Vacation Tracker is also highly customizable. For instance, you can set your policies so they align with regulations from several different regions worldwide and specify and even create the different types of leave you want to track. Plus, can you easily adjust settings (like your leave quotas to hourly) at the touch of a button!
And last but certainly not least, Vacation Tracker integrates seamlessly with platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Workspace!
Avoid project delays with hourly PTO tracking
Running a digital agency is hectic work. Between juggling multiple clients and managing a diverse team of remote workers, there’s a lot on your plate. However, a fast-paced work environment shouldn’t lead to a reduction in your team's PTO.
A better strategy is to adjust how you track PTO and find the tools to optimize your leave management.
If you’re finding it challenging to adapt to a busy work schedule, using a PTO tracking software like Vacation Tracker is an absolute game-changer. But don’t take our word for it—try it free and see for yourself.
