Leave management is among the most crucial HR processes that take up a tiny but significant amount of time. While it doesn’t take long, approval of leaves is a difficult task that requires balancing. On one side, HR has to ensure that the leave policy is followed and ensure there are enough resources for continued business; on the other hand, it is required to increase employee satisfaction. We’ve all witnessed the conflict between employees and managers over leaving, making managing leave an essential task for the business.
Strategic Value of Leave
Although many businesses may not consider online leave management a severe issue, Research shows that ineffective management of leave has harmed the performance of businesses. In addition, it could affect project delivery and employee morale. Here are some crucial business concerns directly connected to onlineleave management:
The deadlines for project delivery:
The availability of human resources directly affects the timeframes for project delivery. When committing to dates for delivery, managers must be aware of the availability of resources. They must be aware of the time of peak leaves and be able to commit dates for the delivery accordingly. In addition, when critical projects are close to deadlines, they should be able to approve the leaves with care.
Legal questions:
Every country has legal regulations for employee leave. For example family and medical leave Act(FMLA) within the United States – with its expansive scope of definitions of health conditions and comprehensive leave policies – can be a source of concern for employers and tiny businesses that depend on a small number of essential employees. Failure to adhere to the law’s complex requirements could cause severe liability for individuals and companies. Similarly that the law in India, The FACTORIES ACT, CHAPTER VIII: Annual Leave, and Wages, sets out clear guidelines for leave. Failure to comply with these guidelines increases the chance that you will be sued by employees and penalized by the authorities.
Emotional aspects:
Getting leaves on time is significant for employee satisfaction. Employees face myriad personal demands that require them to be absent from work. Check out our other post on the effects of denying leave stress for employees, in which we looked at an instance of poorly managed leaves request.
The financial implications of this:
Accrued Leaves are the financial burden of businesses, specifically the privileged and paid ones that require reimbursement upon separation or when requested by the employee following the policy for leave. If employees take sufficient leave, the financial burden for the organization will stay manageable, and the HR department should be able to inform management of this at regular intervals.
Performance and leave:
Work-life balance has directly impacted the performance of employees. Employees who don’t take enough time off (and are stressed) and who take too many days off (and are negligent about their job) negatively impact their work performance. Both employees must be watched closely and trained to maintain an effective work-life balance.
A) Leave trends:
Many employees take leave during the holiday season. Therefore, an HR manager must monitor instances when many employees request leave. These numbers aid managers in making better decisions, particularly regarding project delivery dates.
B) Employee availability:
This indicates the number of employees available to work during the current quarter or at any time.
3.) Employee leave balance:
This shows the left-over leaves of different kinds for employees, both departmental and company-wide. This assists the finance department in calculating how much accrued leave liabilities of the business at a particular point in time.
(d) Leave rejection:
This will show the number of leave requests rejected by the manager during the past quarter or six months. A rising number of rejects should be scrutinized since they can affect the employee’s morale.
(e) Leave acceptance:
This is the number of days approved by the manager for a specific period.
(f) Workers who haven’t leave in the quarter:
This lists employees who had not taken any time off during the last quarter. Again, HR managers must determine the likely causes and may even advise employees if they’re stressed.
Technology’s role
Monitoring compliance with leave policies or managing data can be a hassle when you do it manually or with Excel. However, HR technology can dramatically simplify online leave management and add value by streamlining your information on leaves for an organization. Here are a few fundamental issues which an automated system for managing leave can solve:
Complete data:
Provides accurate information regarding leave balances, leave trends, etc., which lets you forecast available resources at any time.
Policy rules are conveyed:
Uses in-built systems to transmit leave policy guidelines like the maximum and minimum days allowed, holiday calendar management following the location, etc. Employees may anytime review the leave policy before requesting holiday days.
Respect for the leave policy:
Often, a lack of knowledge of policies for leave at work, can result in the disregard of leave policy guidelines by managers and employees. Online Leave Management Systems uses inherent rules that prohibit managers or employees from circumventing the rules when applying for or approving the use of leaves.
Instantly available information on the leave history of an employee:
Allows HR and managers to review the leave history of the person applying. The leave history of the company or department can be retrieved in minutes.
Reduces your time:
The visibility of online leave balances eases the burden on HR, where up to 15 percent of their time is focused on handling inquiries about the employee’s leave balance.
Increases the discipline of employees:
Leave coupled with an attendance record can increase the accuracy of attendance and create discipline in any business. Some companies, for instance, may have a rule of applying a leave-without-pay if an employee has been absent from work without the manager’s consent.
Multiple-location management of holiday:
Leave, when combined with specific calendars of holidays for specific locations, can assist in calculating the correct amount of days the employee is entitled to leave.
