Leave Management Tips For HR

For HR professionals, leave management is a daily, yet very complicated task.  Tracking employees’ day-offs, sick days, study leave, half days off, etc. can cause severe headaches.  Especially for HR professionals working in sizable businesses.

HR professionals are the face of every company. They are the ones who make people come to the company and they are responsible for their retention too! That’s why they shouldn’t feel unhappy, tired, and drained because leave management turned into an administrative nightmare. That’s why we decided to share with you some leave management tips for HR professionals to make their jobs easier and let them worry about the most important thing in every company: people.

But first, here are some leave management tips that will help you boost employee engagement.

A secret for increased employee retention hides in the levels of engagement and motivation. One of the ways to boost your employee’s engagement and motivation is by showing them that the company values and empathizes with them. Make sure that your leave policy covers situations when employees are requesting days off due to some difficult personal issues. Showing your company has managed to create the right balance between the company’s and employees’ interests will increase morale, productivity, and retention.

When it comes to leave management, setting up a clear leave notice period is crucial. Make sure everyone on the team knows when they should give a vacation notice and make them respect the rule. Exceptions will occur and you should keep your flexibility when that happens, however, for developing a proper leave management system you need to have clear rules.

Here’s one among a few leave management tips you shouldn’t overlook

…yes, we’re talking about checking your compliance. Each state defines its own legal framework when it comes to employee leave policies. Make sure your company is within the legal framework while implementing and respecting the leave policy.

HR professionals should make sure they are responding promptly to leave requests

Vacation requests can sometimes take a whole eternity to be approved, and that’s not a way to go. If you’re an HR manager, make sure you always respond to the leave request promptly.

We love Vacation Tracker because it enables HR managers to approve leave requests in minutes, and employees don’t have to wait long before they can freely plan their vacations. Employees just need to type /vacation on their Slack account and they will be able to send a leave request in minutes. Promptly responding to leave requests can boost employees’ motivation, satisfaction, and engagement.

Automate payroll process

There are two things you don’t want to mess with in business: HR and payroll. That’s why the automating process of importing leave data into your payroll is crucial. That way you’ll be able to successfully avoid administration issues.

HR professionals should always try setting realistic return-to-work schedules

HR managers should always aim toward having realistic return-to-work expectations. That means that if an employee took a week off from work due to surgery or some complicated medical issue, setting up a firm return to work schedule can only demoralize them and decrease their job satisfaction and engagement.

Allow employees to work from home more often

If your workplace is intense and employees are constantly complaining about how much they need a vacation, maybe a good solution to make everyone happy would be to allow them to work from home.

Technological advancement made our job easier and for most jobs, we only need our laptops and internet access. Make a smart HR move and profit by letting your employees work from home more.

Offer holiday pay when you need more employees at work

The holiday season might mean two things: either work becomes super hectic, or it slowly decreases in its volume. If your business thrives during the holiday season, try considering offering holiday pay to increase the number of employees willing to work during the holiday season. This incentive can be interesting for those ones who’re looking for ways to earn extra money or employees without kids who have better control of their schedule.

Make sure you are using leave management software

Leave management can and often is a very stressful part of HR’s job. However, with the help of vacation tracking software, it can become a seamlessly easy experience.

We know how much HR professionals are struggling to keep everything in check and that’s why we decided to make a Vacation Tracker to help them out and help businesses run smoothly.

This Slack integration comes with a clean interface. Employees can send vacation, sick days, and days of easy and fast. They just need to type /vacation in their Slack account. On the other side, HR professionals and managers can approve and deny requests without a fuss. A scenario of losing track of employees’ leave will never happen again with Vacation Tracker because it offers a neat overview of employees’ days off and the option which enables reports in CSV files makes tracking employees’ vacation days super easy.

One among many perks Vacation Tracker has is definitely a possibility of customizing leave type trough Settings page. Vacation Tracker’s default leave type is vacations and days off, however, this can be changed to suit businesses that have different leave types ranging from PTO to paternity leave.

We gave you a list of useful leave management tips for HR, however, we think this one is the most convenient and most helpful. If you doubt this software can fit your businesses’ needs, you can always try Vacation Tracker’s free trial period.

Ana Mladenovic

A cat enthusiast and a cupcake maniac, Ana is a freelance Content Writer passionate about HR, productivity, and team management topics. When she’s not at her keyboard, you can find Ana in the kitchen, trying to make delicious cookies.