How to Manage Remote Workers with Vacation Tracker

The features mentioned in this article have been upgraded, and the information presented may not be up to date. Please view our recent articles, and learn about the new version of Vacation Tracker.

It takes considerable effort to manage remote workers or to deal with the complexities of a global team. However, with the right tools, and with some practice, it is possible to create a great virtual team environment.

All kind of software is out there to help teams work remotely. One that you might not have considered is Vacation Tracker.

Go Remote with Ease, With Vacation Tracker

In today’s article, we will be covering how to effectively manage remote workers using Vacation Tracker. However, to manage remote workers is not the main function of Vacation Tracker. Nevertheless, this Slack-integration is very well suited for managing remote teams.

What is Vacation Tracker?

 If you don’t yet know about Vacation Tracker, it’s about time you looked into it!

It’s a cost-effective tool for any team that is collaborating on Slack. It allows teams to request vacations in seconds, without ever leaving Slack.

In fact, Vacation Tracker delivers effortless leave management at the modest price of 1$ per employee, per month. It’s surprisingly easy to use, and requires no employee training. Employees can simply type /vacation into any Slack channel to activate the Vacation Tracker bot, and they can make a leave request or log a sick day in seconds.

Furthermore, Vacation Tracker provides many useful features such as notifications, vacation day rollover, holiday settings for teams in different time zones and locations, and much, much more.

While it’s integrated with the chat platform, Vacation Tracker also offers its own Administrator Dashboard. On this Dashboard, Administrators can easily get an overview of their team’s vacation or leave status. However, with a few simple adjustments and customizations, this Dashboard can be used to manage remote workers.

Do You Find It Challenging to Manage Remote Workers?

You are not alone. Managing a team that shares an office is tough enough on most days. Now, take into account that you need to coordinate a team across multiple locations. It seems almost improbable that this arrangement can be effective.

When dealing with workers scattered across multiple locations, there are be multiple schedules, time zones and tasks to manage. It takes good organization and communication skills. Certainly, it takes a particular type of leader to manage remote workers. While leadership style can definitely matter, the tools are also important.

Remote work is becoming increasingly common and the tools to manage remote workers are becoming more common as well.

Let’s take a look at some of the main challenges facing remote teams, and how these issues can be resolved with the help of Vacation Tracker.

Challenge #1: Unclear Attendance Schedules

The first challenge managers experience when they first manage remote workers is that attendance schedules are not evident.

Sure, many applications do show who’s at their computer or not, with simple status displayed next to each team member’s name. Slack offers this; as does Microsoft Teams.

However, knowing about an absence on the day-of is just not proactive. With Vacation Tracker, any type of leave can be booked in advance. With 25 fully customizable leaves, your team can make their leaves unique and personalized. Leaves can be programmed for half-days, for sick days, for dentist’s appointments, for mental health days, etc. No option is off the table.

We already mentioned that Vacation Tracker offers a comprehensive Administrator Dashboard. Through the Dashboard, Administrators, Approvers and other team members can easily get an overview vacation or leave statuses on their teams.

Unless the Leave Type is hidden, everyone will be able to see the details of another team member’s time off on the Dashboard calendar.

For more on Leave Types, check out the Leave Types “How To” article on our Blog.

Challenge #2: Breaking Down Communication Silos

When working remotely, there is less office chatter. This can be great for productivity. However, it can also somewhat hinder communications. Particularly when it comes to vacation or leave planning.

Although silos can develop even in an office environment, the risk of developing communication silos is even greater for remote teams.

To manage remote workers effectively, clear communication about attendance schedules is important. This communication must be deliberate and strategic.

Luckily, Vacation Tracker offers team Notifications. An Administrator can program these notifications from the Settings tab in the Vacation Tracker Dashboard. Notifications can be set up for a specific team.

Then, Vacation Tracker’s Notifications can be customized to the team’s needs. When used proactively, timely notification can help to better plan workflow, to better prepare for absences, and to prevent out of office surprises.

For more information about Daily/Weekly Notifications, please check out the How To article on our blog.

Challenge #3: National Holiday Differences

If you manage remote workers spread across a few countries around the world, you have to be aware of relevant holidays. There’s no getting around this important HR issue. It can be an HR nightmare trying to piece all of the information together.

Have no fear! Vacation Tracker effectively solves any Holiday calendar disparity issues. When it comes to holidays, Vacation Tracker Administrators has a few options to further personalize the holiday calendar.

First of all, when importing holidays for a given year, the Administrator selects which country’s holidays he or she wants to import. If you manage remote workers across multiple geographical areas, you can import all relevant holidays for those countries. At the top of the tab, you can Select/Unselect all holidays for import, or pick only a few.

Secondly, the default setting for all holidays is that it applies to all teams, but this can be changed. For instance, Administrators can edit any of the holidays, to apply them only to certain teams. Therefore, carefully select which teams each holiday will be relevant for.

Lastly, if you have added too many holidays to your Vacation Tracker calendar, you can go back and delete the holidays that are not relevant to any of your teams.

With these simple tips to overcome the challenges of managing remote workers, you will be on your way to increased effectiveness. Sign up for a free Vacation Tracker trial today. This 7-day introductory offer can help you determine if Vacation Tracker is the right choice for your remote team!

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Kristina Ousmanova

Kristina recently left behind fast-paced life of Human Resource Business Consulting to freelance as a Content Writer. A regular Vacation Tracker contributor, she can be found working remotely from her home in Montreal, usually while eating a variety of snacks.