As you can imagine online holiday planners like any software niche can have many software choices available, which can make the selection process a bit daunting. The right holiday management software can streamline leave planning for all your staff, regardless of business size.
Of course, the requirements that your business requires for leave management can differ from those from other organisations, these can vary based on the size of your business as well as the type of staffing you have e.g. part-time workers vs full time. It’s important to manage different allowances for part-time and full-time staff to ensure accurate tracking of leave entitlements.
Here are some items you should consider when selecting your holiday planner to ensure you meet your businesses needs:
A staff holiday planner is an essential tool for managing employee absences. An employee holiday tracker provides real-time visibility of annual leave and simplifies the process for both employees and managers.
Modern holiday planners offer cloud-based solutions that are accessible from anywhere. Say goodbye to holiday spreadsheets and paper forms by transitioning to digital solutions that make leave management more efficient.
These systems benefit both employees and managers by making the process of requesting and approving leave much easier. The key benefits of using holiday management software include improved efficiency, reduced errors, and better compliance.
Introduction to Holiday Management
Effective holiday management is at the heart of every successful business. When staff holidays are managed well, employees feel valued and motivated, and business operations run smoothly without unexpected disruptions. A staff holiday planner is an essential tool for any organisation looking to streamline the process of managing leave. By using a staff holiday booking system, businesses can easily track and manage holidays, ensuring that all employees and managers are on the same page when it comes to leave dates and entitlements.
Modern holiday planners take the guesswork out of holiday management, making it simple to manage holidays, approve requests, and keep accurate records. This not only benefits employees, who can see exactly how much holiday they have left, but also managers, who can make informed decisions about staffing and resource allocation. As businesses grow and teams become more dynamic, having a reliable system in place for managing holidays becomes even more important. With the right holiday planner, managing leave becomes a breeze, allowing your business to focus on what matters most.
Benefits of Using a Holiday Planner
Implementing a staff holiday planner brings a host of benefits to businesses of all sizes. One of the biggest advantages is the ability to handle holiday requests quickly and efficiently—employees can submit their requests with just a few taps, and managers can approve or decline them in seconds. This streamlined process reduces the administrative burden on HR and management, freeing up valuable time and resources.
A holiday planner also helps prevent holiday clashes by providing full visibility of all staff holiday dates, so managers can easily see who is off and when. This makes it easier to plan ahead, avoid understaffing, and ensure that business operations continue smoothly. Employees benefit from knowing exactly how much holiday entitlement and allowance they have left, which helps them plan their time off more effectively.
With a staff holiday booking system, all holiday requests and approvals are tracked in one central place, making it easy to manage leave, monitor trends, and make informed decisions. Ultimately, using a holiday planner saves businesses time and money, improves employee satisfaction, and enhances overall holiday management.
Moving Away from Paper Files
Relying on paper files and wall charts to manage staff holidays is not only outdated but also inefficient and prone to mistakes. Lost forms, missed requests, and unclear records can lead to confusion and frustration for both employees and managers. By switching to an online staff holiday planner, businesses can eliminate these issues and enjoy a more user-friendly, reliable way to manage staff holidays.
An online staff holiday planner allows employees and managers to access the system anytime, from anywhere, making it easy to submit and review holiday requests, track leave balances, and plan ahead. The digital system keeps a clear, accurate record of all holiday requests and approvals, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring that everyone is working with the most up-to-date information.
Moving away from paper files also means less time spent on manual admin and more time focused on core business activities. With a secure, accessible, and easy-to-use holiday planner, managing staff holidays becomes straightforward, helping businesses stay organised and make informed decisions about leave and staffing.
Self-administration
When deciding on what leave management solution to use, you should try to aim for one which allows you to fully self-administer the software, that way, when changes are required, you have the right access possible to make the changes without needing to submit support requests. With self-administered solutions, employees can easily request and book leave directly through the system, making the process of requesting time off simple and efficient.
Within self-administered solutions you would usually have multi-level user access as a result. This is particularly useful to allow specific users to be admins or approvers which can allow them and only them to view certain information which may be deemed sensitive e.g. somebody from HR may want to be an admin to track sickness of all the employees in reporting and view their leave entitlement, whereas a regular user will just want to see their own calendar for their bookings and leave requests and an approver likewise will want to approve or decline leave requests. The process of requesting and approving leave is streamlined, allowing managers to quickly review requests, and mark them as approved with just a click, reducing reliance on email and improving efficiency. Regular users can also book time off and track the status of their requests, making it easy to see when leave has been approved.
Configuration and customisation
Any online holiday planner should provide a range of configuration and customisation options, including but not limited to:
- Leave and lieu allowance (TOIL) on as a company default plus an individual user override
- Customisable leave types to add your own, mark them as approval required or not, as well as should it consume the user’s allowance, allowing you to efficiently manage different types of leave
- Customiseable role/office/department to represent your organisation structure accurately which will help with leave management
- Restrictions around how many users and for how long users can be off at the same time as other users
- Approver(s) per department and multi-stage approval
- Public/Bank holiday customisation and multi-country selection if you operate in other countries or if your organisation doesn’t have specific days off as bank holidays e.g. part-time staff
- Integration to your calendar and other tools e.g. Slack
Integrating employee records with your holiday planner enhances people management and streamlines HR processes.
Automatic leave allowance carry over and fine grain adjustments of lieu
An online holiday planner should always offer a capability of automatic carry over of holiday allowance via TOIL (Time Off In Lieu) as well as reset of allowance when your company year ends as it’s a key advantage over using a traditional spreadsheet to manage leave. The system should also make it easy to see how many days of leave each employee has remaining at any time. Equally, the company year-end should be able to be defined by day and month to fully align with your organisation’s practices.
Easy to use reporting
Within any online holiday planner, reporting is essential. If you can’t quickly see a summary of who is off when, what leave is left to be used up before the company year end, or report on hours taken or remaining for more granular tracking, as well as a full audit trail, it can be very difficult to manage in the same way email and or excel tracking options are.
Reporting can also prove to be useful in scenarios where you may have implemented the Bradford Factor and need to calculate the scores of users who are abusing sick leave.
Good support and product documentation
So by now, you are probably starting to see the benefits of simplifying your leave management processes and why this type of product makes sense, even with this scenario you can still get stuck with using the software if the support and documentation is lacking.
Try to find a leave management software solution which offers extensive online documentation so you or your users can easily find the help they need. Ideally this would be in the form of in-application support, so the user can read the help guides without leaving the platform.
A cloud-based web application
An online holiday planner or leave management solution should ideally be cloud based to ensure it’s accessible for all of your users from any location. A cloud-based system also makes it easy to manage leave for staff across multiple locations or work sites, ensuring seamless coordination for organizations with teams in different places. It also lifts the burden on needing any complex IT involvement or IT projects, thus also reducing costs of hardware and other software required.
Try to assess each leave management platform accordingly to ensure cloud based hosting is an option without the need to install or download any software.Next stepsCreate yourself a checklist which would allow you to grade each holiday planner a success or not. This will allow you to see what your success factors would be, as well as which leave management products would be most suited for your business.
As well as this, always ask any questions directly to the vendor if you’re unsure. This can give you an early view as to how quickly they can respond to your requests as well. The staff at ScheduleLeave are always on hand to help, you can get in contact with us using the (?) In the bottom right of any page on our marketing site as well as in our own software.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Choosing the right staff holiday planner is a crucial step in improving your business’s holiday management. By moving to an online staff holiday booking system, you can streamline leave requests, reduce administrative headaches, and give both employees and managers the tools they need to manage holidays effectively.
Take the time to assess your business needs and compare the features of different holiday planners to find the best fit for your team. Remember, a good holiday planner not only saves time and money but also boosts employee satisfaction and helps your business run smoothly.
Ready to make the switch? Discover how ScheduleLeave can transform your holiday management—sign up here and start managing staff holidays with confidence.
