Employee leave management is often a critical yet time-consuming task for small business owners and HR teams. Whether you manage the leave of 10 employees or 100, the process is often slow and error-prone.
With employees’ records to manage and multiple tasks that need to be performed daily, many HR managers are looking for ways to streamline managing employees’ leave.
There are a few ways to manage this for your company without using spreadsheets, some of which are outlined below.
- Have Employees Submit Requests Through Their Work Email
- Use a Leave Management Tool
- Use an Online Shared Calendar
Each of these methods has its benefits and drawbacks, this article will show each of them to help you make the right choice.
#1 Have Employees Submit Requests Through Their Work Email
This is the most basic way to manage employee leave, and it’s also the most straightforward. Employees email their requests to a central email address, and the HR team or manager then processes them.
The benefits of this method are that it’s easy to set up and doesn’t require any additional software. However, the drawback to this method is that employees often forget to submit their requests until it’s too late (if they’re using their email address outside of work). This can lead to many last-minute requests and headaches for the HR team.
This can also be very difficult to track and to understand who may be off at the same time, causing company wide confusion.
#2 Use Employee Leave Management Software
Whether you are or what computer you are using, simply logging into your system will give you access to everything you need.
Another way to manage employee leave without spreadsheets is to use a dedicated employee leave management software program. A leave management software can automate managing employee leave, making it easier and faster to track days off, approve or deny leave, and generate reports.
Leave management software minimises human error, prevent pay-related disputes and ensure compliance with a company policy. Over 50% of employees have been absent from work due to sickness at least once in their career. Managing leave can be a tedious and time-consuming task, mainly if several employees take leave regularly.
When using an employee leave management software program, you will never have to worry about losing or misplacing a booking because everything is saved in one place.
In addition, the software will also generate reports that you can use to track employee leave. The drawback is that you’ll have to pay a monthly fee for the service, and there may be limits on how many employees you can add.
Many leave management apps are available that allow employees to submit leave requests and managers to approve or deny them straight from their mobile phones. This helps speed up the process of leave approvals, particularly if employees are out of the office or on leave.
#3 Use an Online Calendar
Many employers use their internal calendars to manage employee leave, and this is an excellent option if you’re already using this system for other purposes. You can simply add a new column for leave requests, and employees can submit them from there.
The benefit of this method is that it’s easy to set up, and you can also use it as a way for employees to see availability. The drawback is that it can be challenging to track when employees are on leave, and it’s also not as visually appealing as some other methods.
This method can also lack reporting on leave allowance and any clashes of when employees are off at the same time when the company gets larger and you have several teams using this same method. It also lacks sophistication when coming to rejecting leave automatically based on various rules, without needing the manager to have to reject the bookings on this basis.
Wrapping Up
No matter which method you choose to use for managing employee leave, it is essential to remember that the process should be as easy as possible.
If the process becomes too cumbersome and time-consuming, you will inevitably lose valuable employees who find it too much work to keep track of their leave.
This will impact your bottom line and could lead to issues with productivity that you may not be able to recover from.
