Clunky employee leave management processes can be a sore point for your busy HR department. This can affect your other employees, too. Hence, at all costs, you need to preclude this to avoid high employee turnover. 


An intelligent leave application process guarantees your business to work seamlessly, all while allowing your staff to recharge or attend to urgent family needs. However, establishing a fair balance between a well-managed business and a happy team can be a challenge. 


Sure enough, employees will flood your HR team with time-off and leave balance requests when working or non-working holidays start. 


So, how do you exactly manage employee leave? What are the key elements? As you read along, you’ll learn strategic ways to manage employee leave applications. 


If you’re ready, let’s dive in!  


This article covers the following: 


  • What is Employee Leave Management? 

  • Benefits of Employee Leave Management 

  • How you best manage your employees’ leave requests:

  • Manage Staff Schedule with RosterElf Scheduling Software

  • Takeaway 



What is Employee Leave Management? 


Employee leave management manages staff leave requests—employee holidays, sick leave, paternal leave, etc. 


Effective leave management handles time-off requests in a reasonable and precise manner and adheres to the legal policy. This is so your workforce gets the benefits while your business runs swimmingly throughout. 


As this can be easier said than done, having vivid leave management in place is of utmost importance. This makes handling leave requests more systematic and well-ordered, ensuring everyone in your team is in the same boat. 



Benefits of Employee Leave Management 


You may probably find it counterintuitive, but giving your employees great leave perks benefits your business and society. 


  • Establishes compliance with labour policy

  • Boosts employee retention and satisfaction

  • Creates consistency of guidelines throughout the workforce 

  • Increases team efficiency and productivity

  • Cuts down the number of errors in the management process



Photo by: RosterElf



Here’s how you best manage your employees’ leave requests:



1. Set in Place a Clear Leave Process 


Work hand-in-hand with your human resources department to assess the type of leave structure your organisation should follow. For example, you can establish a time-off requests policy based on tenure rewards and accumulated time or arrange several leave credits for all workers. 


Once done, distribute the said policy to all employees. Use read receipts in your communication channel to ensure they’ve read the amended protocol. 



2. Collate All Time-off Requests Under One Place 


How are you handling leave requests? Through emails, text messages, channel chats? 


In reality, no one has the luxury of time to scan through documents, spreadsheets, and voice messages. Instead, take the opportunity to use RosterElf’s leave management software to oversee your team’s leave requests easily. 


Our mobile app is designed in a centralised system in which you can view various leave type requests and time-off balances. In that, it’s way easier for your employees to ask time-off requests, easier for you to respond, and simpler to track leave applications. 



3. Comply with Forced Leave Standards


There are quite a few prerequisites for managing days off—cultural celebrations, employee holidays, and special events. To top it off, the government has additional standards that many industries must comply with (e.g. Fair Work in Australia). 


Having a leave management system with built-in fair work compliance makes adherence to these standards easier. With this, you can automatically block leave requests for special dates when you need your staff to work—and still comply with forced leave essentials. 



4. Set up a Communication Channel With a Simplified Tool


Establishing a line of communication is vital in every aspect of a successful business operation. And when it comes to time-off requests or questions, let your employees know they can—and should—come to you. Create an understanding work culture, and make your staff feel they shouldn’t be intimidated to ask you for leave. 


It’s also a great move to put a minimum time buffer between actual days off and leave requests. That said, an employee shouldn’t be able to send any time-off request two weeks before the holidays.  This will give you ample time to assign other team members to cover their shifts. 


Remember, solid communication is the nitty-gritty of a good and effective employee leave policy. So, make sure to follow these best practices. 



Photo by: Sora Shimazaki | Pexels


Manage Staff Schedule with RosterElf Scheduling Software


Managing your leave process through intricate and manually controlled structures can be a big-ticket and is prone to mistakes. Therefore, going the route of automating your leave management is an optimal solution. Your employees will have access to self-service features in which they can submit leave requests and check benefits. 


You can even view approve and decline time-off requests in real-time. Our system can instantly track team members’ leave requests and compare them with unused leave credits. Not just that, our software is also capable of tracking all requests for approved, unused, and authorised leave from employees and keeping records as needed. 


Moreover, an automated leave management structure enables you to ensure unbiased and precise compliance regarding the absenteeism policy. You can even customise leave requests and allow streams to cater to your organisation's needs. 


Above all, you can easily access the collected information for analysis, financial assessments, and sales reports. 


Advantages of using RosterElf scheduling software: 


  • It allows you to create, update, and re-publish work schedules through your smartphone. Providing you with convenience and smooth-sailing processes.

  • Employees can better manage their time with the help of push notifications.

  • Employees can do auto-shift swapping via their account on the RosterElf mobile app.

  • Employees can easily tap the schedule they want to swap and explain why.

  • You can approve shift swaps or changes through your RosterElf account. 

  • No need to worry about finding the most suitable employee to cover the gaps with our “perfect-match” algorithm. 

  • Our payroll tool can provide you accurate roster and payroll labour costs in real-time. Thus, helping you leverage business sustainability and profit. 



Takeaway 


The ins and outs of your employee leave management—attendance control and PTO tracking—become plain sailing with suitable support systems and policies. And to keep your projects on course and your team on the same page, use RosterElf to document leave procedures. You can lay out plans and responsibilities for workload deliverables as your staff works and takes their days off. 


What are you waiting for? Sign up for a 30-day free trial of RosterElf to experience firsthand how you can handle time-offs, last-minute changes, and schedules under one software. You can also call us at 1300 353 000 to learn about our products and services. 



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Important Notice

The information contained in this article is general in nature and you should consider whether the information is appropriate to your needs. Legal and other matters referred to in this article are of a general nature only and are based on RosterElf's interpretation of laws existing at the time and should not be relied on in place of professional advice.

RosterElf is not responsible for the content of any site owned by a third party that may be linked to this article and no warranty is made by us concerning the suitability, accuracy or timeliness of the content of any site that may be linked to this article.

RosterElf disclaims all liability (except for any liability which by law cannot be excluded) for any error, inaccuracy, or omission from the information contained in this article and any loss or damage suffered by any person directly or indirectly through relying on this information.