How To: Manage Rollover Policy 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.

Vacation Tracker is a leave management tool with many useful features, and new features are added regularly. Features are also fully customizable, so that the system can genuinely reflect any organization’s leave policy.

When you first download the Vacation Tracker app for Slack, you will be able to customize it. This app can be set up to fit your organization’s preferences and policies. The customizable features of Vacation Tracker make it the ideal leave tracking system for any team.

As a matter of fact, we often add features specifically to answer customer requests. Therefore, teams that are having difficulty setting up the software to reflect their company leave policy contact us with their requests.

The rollover feature was one of these requests.

Organizations that allow PTO or vacation days to rollover wanted to see this policy reflected in their leave management tool. Since we pride ourselves on running on customer feedback, we’ve quickly responded to this request.

Now, the rollover option is available to all teams that sign up for Vacation Tracker. Instead of spending hours on managing yearly leaves rollover days, managers can now do it all in a few simple clicks.

Currently integrated with Slack, the Vacation Tracker booking software doesn’t require any employee training. It really is that user-friendly.

So, let’s get started with our overview of the rollover policy for Vacation Tracker.

Who Can Set Up Rollover Policy?

Only Administrators can set up the Rollover policy for their teams. The option can be found on the “Settings” page of the Vacation Tracker Dashboard, in the “General” tab.

Administrators have the highest permission level in Vacation Tracker. Moreover, Administrators are the only ones able to see and edit all of the company’s settings. They can also edit individual and team information.

Then, Administrators can easily configure a Rollover Policy through the “Settings” page, either during the sign up flow or later on, at any point in time.

Unlike certain other features, rollover policy needs to apply to an entire team or to the whole organization. It cannot be enabled exclusively for certain individuals, but not for others.

What Is A Rollover Policy?

It might surprise you, but according to G&A partners, over 400 million days of paid time off go unused in the US every year.

Unfortunately, a lot of U.S.-based companies do not have rollover policies.

Generally, the government might issue guidelines that may or may not advise companies to implement rollover policies.

In a nutshell, rollover policies imply that unused days off could be added to the balance of yearly-allocated vacations days, for the following calendar year.

Rollover Policy Use Cases

Generally speaking, the rollover policy feature has three use cases.

The first case is when a company doesn’t allow transfer of remaining days off to the next year. In this instance, users of Vacation Tracker simply should not enable the “Rollover Days” option in the sign-up flow. As previously mentioned, if this policy had to be changed later on, it would be possible and simple to do so.

The second use case is when a company allows for the transfer of all remaining days off to the next year. All of the PTO or vacation days, or any form of leave that an employee has accumulated, simply transfers and gets added on to the total allocated days for the new year.

For example, let’s look at an employee who entitled to 10 paid days off per year. If this employee has only used 5 of those days off, then the remaining 5 will be rolled over to the following year. This means that, in the new year, the employee could take up to 15 days of leave.

In the third and final use case for rollover policy, a company may allow for the transfer of a limited number of days to the next year.

In this instance, the administrator can also set the limit of vacation days that can be transferred. Say that limit is 3 days. That will be the largest number of vacation days that will be transferred to the next year for each team member.

Again, let’s take the example of the employee with 5 remaining days off. In the third use case, this employee loses 2 days of vacation time in the current year. Indeed, only 3 of his 5 days get rolled over to the current year.

Rollover Policy Expiry Dates

However, to avoid large accumulations of vacation days, employers can decide to set an expiry date for their rollover policy.

Accumulation can lead to prolonged paid leaves, which could greatly disrupt operations and budgets.

Hence, with the rollover policy feature it is possible to put a restriction or an expiry date on the rolled over days. Actually, many companies opt to limit the use of rolled over days to the first few months of the New Year. If these days go unused by the expiry date, they disappear. Nonetheless, normal allocated days off for the current year remain useable for the employee.

Once again, expiry dates for rollover policy can be set up during the sign up flow, or ratified later on.

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.