Although companies have a range of perks to attract and retain skilled, experienced employees, including pension schemes, bonuses, profit shares, and flexible working options, a generous annual leave and holiday allowance remains the most sought-after benefit.
The benefits of additional employee leave & holiday allowance
It’s understandable why additional annual leave is attractive from an employee’s perspective: A greater number of days off provides more opportunities to take time away from the office and recharge their batteries, whenever the need arises.
Plus, a larger annual leave allowance gives them a greater range of holiday options, with them able to string together more annual leave dates to travel further afield. Both possibilities result in a positive company culture fuelled by productive employees who are happy to work for an organisation that cares about their wellbeing. best interests – In such a scenario, both the employee and company prospers.
Another benefit from the company’s perspective is that it’s a cost-effective perk to offer when compared to benefits like bonuses or company cars, for instance. In fact, the main cost is the opportunity cost of the work not carried out the absent employee.
Potential problems with extra paid leave as a perk
The first issue with staff having generous holiday allowances is that there will be more instances where employees aren’t there. On such occasions, the work they usually undertake won’t be carried out, affecting the company’s and delaying the completion of whatever they’re working on.
The second issue is the potential for increased admin. With staff having more holiday days to play with, they’ll be more requests, which, depending on how your company’s current leave request process works, means more forms or emails, checking requested dates against holiday dates that are already in the calendar, as well as important company dates – like deadlines, conferences, etc. So while additional vacation time is inexpensive compared to other perks, it can be costly in terms of extra admin, without the necessary forethought of how it will be managed.
Fortunately, this can be greatly simplified with a good leave management system: Firstly, they provide a centralised calendar so employees can see if anyone else has already booked their prospective holiday dates, or if they fall on important company dates – before they make a request. A leave tracking system also eliminate spreadsheets, booking forms, and email chains with a simplified approval process: A employee makes a request through the system, which HR or management, with a concise view of all booked dates at their fingertips, can approve or deny in an instant.
