Kategorie: Tips

  • Tips for Better Annual Leave Management

    Tips for Better Annual Leave Management

    Work-life balance is now more relevant than ever. With mental health and wellness on the line, employees have to take time off every now and then to maintain efficiency. Apart from doing the obvious which is reducing the stress level in employees, leaves boost morale.

    There are a bunch of mental and physical benefits linked to annual leaves so it’s pivotal for a company to make sure the employees are using up their quota.

    HR managers often struggle with keeping track of yearly leave, especially since there are different leave cases complicating the process. Stress leave, sick leave, parental leave are some of the many options. Finding a system that allows easy monitoring of employee availability within the business is key.

    Manual record-keeping is time-consuming and expensive. Consider utilizing a smart leave management system to keep digitized data. Collecting data from a leave tracker at the end of the year is much easier. Assume Day off app as an example. The employee leave tracker app lets HR admins keep account of employee availability, balance, and much more.

    What is Annual Leave?

    Before we get onto annual leave management tips, let’s be better acquainted with the concept of annual leave. It’s basically paid time off work employees get. They can use it for whatever purpose they wish.

    Now, this raises an important question: “Are part-time employees and full-time employees entitled to an equal number of leaves?”

    How Employee Leave Is Paid

    The rate for time-off payment for an employee is the same as their normal regular wage. Based on the country, part-time workers are given 4 week’s vacation. But, this isn’t a set standard; it’s not in the USA. Typically, casual workers don’t get any vacation entitlement. Instead, they get a compensatory amount to make up for the annual leave payment.

    Are Employees Entitled to Time-Off?

    There is no state or deferral statutory minimum paid public holiday or public vacation. The employer decides whether they want to grant paid leaves or not. Some companies do, some don’t. Needless to say, the former is definitely more liked by the workforce. 

    The average count of paid leave days granted by private employers is ten days after a year of service, two weeks after five years, 17 days after ten years, and 20 days after 20 years. In comparison to paid leaves in Europe, the numbers are quite shocking for the USA.

    Statistics suggest that the United States has many of the most toxic work environments in the world. 

    Neighboring nation Canada gives employees at least a week or two of paid leaves per year. In Australia, full-time employees are entitled to 20 annual accrued days. 

    Reasons Annual Leave Management Can be an HR Nightmare

    By its very nature, annual leave management is challenging for small to medium businesses. It doesn’t matter if they manage small teams.

    According to the process, someone from the team has to review the remaining leave days and balances. Based on that, they must decide whether to approve leave requests or not.

    Just one decision made by a single entity can turn the entire business cycle upside down if the holiday requests overlap with each other. Besides, manually keeping accounts and updating those every time there’s a request is too lengthy to be effective. This is where a good PTO tracking software can be a true savior.

    The Issue with Annual Leave Management

    Many companies still rely on the conventional excel staff leave planner to conduct annual leave management. A few more orthodox businesses will use on-the-wall calendars too. However, these methods have proven to be both ineffective and error-prone in the long run.

    Wall calendars quickly become overwhelming and the seemingly never-ending amount of post-its doesn’t help. Plus, they don’t track disposable leaves or the balance.

    You might now ask, “What about excel leave planners?” Surely those are better at tracking employee absences but they can still be prone to error. One incorrect formula is all it takes for the whole spreadsheet to be full of mistakes. 

    Most employees will request absences by email, paper forms, or even just inform the manager physically without any official documentation. 77% of employees hope to get routine tasks like requesting leaves done easier, making it increasingly important to find and establish an effective annual leave management system.

    Tips to Form the Best Annual Leave Management

    A leave management software such as a vacation tracker or PTO tracker combined with a bit of human intervention is what you a company needs to make annual leave management most convenient. Here are some tips to keep you at the top of the game.

    ·       Create a Fool-Proof Annual Leave Policy

    The first step to making an effective annual leave plan is creating a clear policy that is easily accessible to the staff. The policy should outline what’s permissible while the administration makes sure the management and staff is all aligned.

    When employees are sure about what’s expected of them and how to do it, they are more likely to stick to the best practices.

    Ask yourself what would be in the best interest of your business. If you’re expecting a rush period at any time of the year, it’s best to not grant leaves during that time unless emergency absences are requested. 

    Once your policy is fixed, share it with the staff. Upload everything on a shared drive so any concerned can access it at any time. Make sure it’s included in the onboarding process.

    ·       Communicate the Policy through Training

    Only when everyone is aware of the policies can the annual leave management policies be successful. Set expectations and communicate those properly.

    Let new hires know that getting leaves during peak periods could be hard. Encourage them to inform HR of their holiday plans in advance so you can stick to the annual leave management goals.

    ·       Make Leave Transparent

    HR departments and managers can be rather squirrely with annual leave trackers. Closed documents, secret files, and whatnot – but this isn’t the wisest decision.

    Make leaves visible so your employees can see who is available and who isn’t. The process shouldn’t be too long neither should it too short to the point that it doesn’t include necessary information.

    Monthly emails are a good way to do this but you can try investing in a vacation tracker for best results. Day Off is a free time off tracker with a great pro version for the affordable rate of a dollar per employee for a month.

    Employees can check out how many leave days they have and send in requests from the mobile app. It will be redirected to the right person.

    ·       Streamline the System

    Can your staff apply for annual leave easily? A common reason why the staff chooses to wait till the end of the year to apply for leave is that requesting one day off is too time-consuming and complicated. Set up a new system or streamline the existing one – make it easy to use and simple. 

    The request forms can be made available online so employees do not have to bother HR for it. Alternatively, a rota-planning software such as Day Off will allow staff to directly send leave requests to the manager via the app.

    Whichever option is selected, be transparent about it and make sure all the staff knows.

    ·       Start the Annual Leave Policy from Autumn

    Employees tend to lose track of their early leave and then try to avail of whatever is left at the end of the year. This could coincide with a peak pre-Christmas period when more than half of the office is away.

    Try to start the annual leave policy in autumn. That being said, it’s natural to deal with many requests for leave during Christmas, but hopefully, it won’t be a case of employees desperately trying to get time off to empty out the last of their leave allowance. 

    In addition, when you start the annual leave sometime during September, employees are already thinking about Christmas leave. Therefore, they’re more likely to inform in advance.

    ·       Encourage Vacation Planning Well in Advance

    Depending on the industry you’re in, the timeframe to plan holidays will vary. For example, employees are asked to plan their vacations for the coming year in the manufacturing sector. In healthcare, medical professionals are expected to plan 3 to 5 months in advance. 

    Some employees can feel burned by the thought of planning for an entire year from that early on. Encourage them to inform you four to five weeks before their leave so you can adjust operations better. But at the same time, try to remain flexible.

    The Perfect Digital Solution

    Day Off is the perfect employee time off tracker that’s both affordable and effective. A digital approach to HR management issues like annual leave will help the administration to free up more time to focus on other important topics. This is why you should use the free vacation tracker:

    • Make a company profile and customize it.
    • Employees can make leave requests on any device from anywhere. It will be directed to the assigned person for super-fast processing.
    • Send email notifications to the whole team from one place. Define leaves and allowances for those leaves. Vacation, PTO, time-off, or make something of your own. Assign employees to the set policy and maintain vacation accruals.
    • Enjoy auto-updated leave balances free of error. The remaining absence balances of employees can be checked from a single source. 
    • HE dashboard provides a clear overview for leave applications, possible overlapping with public holidays as well as other leave appeals.
    • See the consolidated calendar showing the entire business’ annual leave. Employees can synchronize it with their calendars.
    • A centralized overview of yearly data provides information to make correct decisions based on employee behaviors and trends. Know when employees’ are becoming unavailable the most and try to adjust workload according to that.
    • Say bye-bye to paper records. You can now save your storage space and save annual leave management data in a digital, clutter-free zone. 
    • Create sub-teams and define leaves for each member.

    Employees can send requests from the Day Off app from their mobile on the go. Any sort of unforeseen emergency calls for instant information.

    What to Know Before Granting Holiday Requests

    You, as an employer and manager, must be aware of a few important things before granting a vacation request to your employee.

    A business usually has adequate resources to fill up the absence of the employee in a way that productivity isn’t harmed. An employer and employee should discuss and mutually decide on leave.

    HR has to make sure not too many employees are on holiday simultaneously and/or there aren’t many conflicting requests.

    You can always go for the “first come first served” approach when sorting through leave requests, but a better, more efficient system would do much for the company. Poor annual leave management decreases employee satisfaction and raises the chance of employee turnover.

    Unused Annual Leave

    While it’s good for employees to get off work once in a while, not everyone needs the break sometimes. There are the typical workaholics who are too dedicated to the task. Or employees just couldn’t on break because the company was short-staffed during ta particular periods.

    Employees at the end of the year are often concerned about what happens to their unused accrued days. Do they lose that or can they roll those over into the next time?

    Usually, companies don’t allow the leaves from the previous year to be rolled out into the next. You should outline that clearly in the policy so the managers and employees can refer to it on the online employee portal.

    Bottom Line

    Employees who are constantly working experience quicker burnout, lower productivity, workplace illness, stress, and more. Absence leave management is a crucial function of HR. A time off app will help keep records of annual leave better than manual processing.

  • A Guide to Efficient Leave Tracking for Global Teams

    A Guide to Efficient Leave Tracking for Global Teams

    Remote work is a newer concept to many companies. Thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic, many of these organizations were forced into the whole thing. Two MIT surveys concluded that about half of the whole American workforce has gone remote. 

    Regardless of size, companies have had to incorporate the work from home option into their operations. Apart from the obvious safety and health concerns, another important factor is childcare. Until educational institutes are conducting offline classes again, employees might need to be physically present in their homes. 

    The point is, having a plan for remote work is just the prudent thing to do; doesn’t matter if your state has allowed in-person working or not. As long as there are employees who get work done outside the workspace, you need to consider leave tracking and PTOs.

    With that comes the responsibility of tracking said leaves properly. If the company falls under government assistance criteria, they may also need to track emergency leave and sick leaves. 

    But leave tracking for remote teams are different than leaves for regular, physical teams. For instance, a recent PTO curveball requires leaves related to COVID-19 to be tracked separately in compliance with local, state, and federal governance.

    Companies are doing everything in their power to keep efficiency at an all-time high despite the limitations. In a time like this, ignoring leave management is a certified death wish for any organization.

    So, how exactly do racking works for remote team works?

    A leave policy has to be made for all kinds of employees – whether they drive into work or get everything done from home.

    How Much Vacation Time Should Employees Get

    The answer depends on the company. There’s not a fixed number as employers aren’t required to offer paid or unpaid leaves. Vacation time is another form of time-off to consider. Some companies only grant vacation leave tracking to full-time employees. In contrast, others sanction leaves to all levels of employees.

    An agreement between the employer and their employee determines the vacation pay. It could either be a collective bargaining agreement, an employment contract, or a company policy.

    The Many Advantages of Having Remote Teams

    A remote work model is the only method to achieve higher productivity in a few industries. However, even if you don’t necessarily have to form remote teams, there are quite a few pros of telework. To name a few:

    There’s no commuting cost as well as a decreased need to operate from a physical workspace. This can increase savings.

    Less stress for employees and improved work-life balance have no other alternative. In a time like COVID-19 mental peace is important. The more satisfied the workforce, the more likely they are to give their best efforts and stay loyal to the company. Employee turnover rate can be expected to decrease.

    New generation employees greatly value flexibility. When a business is willing to hear and value new ideas, they attract talents from all across the world, add diversity to their teams, and ultimately increase competitive advantage in the long run.

    However, a prerequisite to gaining these advantages is managing the telecommuting teams properly and ensuring that the employee(s) is/are available when needed. Many big businesses rely on PTO trackers or leave trackers to monitor which employee is unavailable and how many days they have left in their leave calendar. A good employee leave tracker app will also include payments and other important data.

    Before making any plan, the remote team’s characteristics must be taken into account – that’s a pivotal step. Not all teams will react to the same practices equally. Finding the one that aligns with them is essential.

    On that note, let’s explore a few options, shall we?

    A Complete Guide to Managing Leave for Remote Teams

    Implement a Smart Leave Management System Early

    A distinguishing factor of remote teams is the increased degree of flexibility. The very premise of telework relies on employers trusting their employees enough to know they will be able to perform their assigned tasks efficiently. This means that in addition to choosing where they want to work, remote workers can also decide when to work. 

    With that said, devoid of any control, a commuting team’s progress can slow down and they may go off track. A manager must ensure that the employees are putting in the right amount of hours daily and their schedules are accommodating effective communication. Performance bottlenecks are the last thing you want. 

    A time tracking solution can be implemented for the former issue. For the latter, it’s crucial to adopt a top-notch system for leave management and team schedules as such a system offers the most convenient way to plan employee availability and timetable.

    Take Day Off as an example. This employee time off tracker comes with plenty of helpful tools for streamlining worker absence management. You can make sub-teams while setting different policies, working days, and balances for each. Once a leave request comes in, HR can get a consolidated view of the entire workforce’s vacations.

    The automated system allows employees to apply for leaves directly from the mobile app. They can also check how many days they have available while helping the business set up the right workflow for the teams and employees.

    Let Employees Know What’s Expected of Them from the Start

    A leave management system is only as effective as the organization’s rules and policies. You can’t progress without structure – that’s an open invitation to chaos. It’s crucial on the managers’ part to communicate expectations of remote work to their team members.

    Designing and implementing a telework policy is one of the best ways to handle that. The document should cover issues like cybersecurity, communication, conditions of employment, occupational safety, and more. For improved leave management outcomes, discussion of the company’s leave requests, scheduling processes and other relevant matters is key.

    You have to answer questions like:

    • How many hours should employees work on a daily or weekly basis?
    • Should employees be performing at a specific time of the working hours?
    • How quick is the leave approval process?
    • Which tools do they have to use to inform supervisors or managers about alterations in their personal routines?

    Consider the additional expectations you have when it comes to absence and schedule management in the business and try your best to clearly communicate them to the remote team. Apart from the set telework policy, this can be done through group and personal discussion.

    Encourage Planned Leaves

    SHRM says that unplanned absenteeism cuts down on productivity as well as other financial processes of a business. On the other hand, planned leaves promote an efficient attitude in employees, letting them plug off to recharge only to come back with more zeal.

    Thus, managers are advised to encourage remote employees, in general, to plan their time off and PTOs in advance. Longer breaks are better.

    It’s good to utilize a vacation tracker app for this as well. For example, the Day Off app makes it easier for HR managers to track employees’ yearly balances plus approval status. You will now be able to set up a better workflow for your employees and teams.

    The app also lets you define an unlimited number of vacation types. All in all, it allows for error-free and effortless planning of PTO.

    Unplanned leaves are harder to avoid completely – employees will fall sick once in a while. Not to mention unprecedented personal emergencies require utmost attention immediately. Circling back to a previous point, this is why staying flexible in terms of leave requests and scheduling is extremely important when dealing with remote teams.

    Organize Meetings and Video Calls Regularly

    Generally, team members are physically located quite far from each other. They may reside in different cities or even hail from different countries and continents. It’s natural for remote teams to not feel a strong sense of connection amongst the members.

    Employees can feel isolated from colleagues and lonely and as a consequence, maybe much less engaged in teamwork. In fact, they might not even be committed to their company as a whole.

    Situations like this can force remote employees to take more unplanned leaves or even resign from their jobs. There is no substitute for insightful long-distance communication for successful leave management in remote teams. 

    You can encourage employees to interact with their remote colleagues face to face using web-based conferencing tools. Organize brief daily video calls where employees will talk about their current performance and discuss any problems their team members are facing while working. 

    Furthermore, video calls can serve as a great means to increase team cohesion and boost employee morale. It doesn’t always have to be a serious discussion. Gather the employees in a chat room to engage in light-hearted conversation with them once a month. It will help everyone feel like a valuable part of the team and establish meaningful human relationships.

    Always Be Available

    A leader of a remote team must always be available for multiple reasons:

    When managers are present at work and show a great deal of attention to their managerial duties, employees become more motivated to produce the best results too.

    Newly remote workers will experience troubles every now and then. If they do not have a superior to help them out instantly, chances are, and they will become discouraged. Consequently, they might start to invest less time and effort into work when they feel nobody cares about the output or wants to support them.

    Without consistent manager-employee communication, it’s difficult to understand actual worker contribution. A manager can only provide unbiased constructive feedback and praise achievements when they’re constantly in touch with their team. In general, staying connected with employees is highly rewarding in any work environment.

    You, as a leader and manager, must be available to your remote teammates all the time and be prepared to help them.

    Inform employees how they can reach out to you throughout the day and try to provide multiple contact options: phone number, email, social media handles, whatnot. This simple yet effective measure will go a long way in making everyone feel heard and supported. 

    Gather and Analyze Employee Leave Tracking Data

    Data of any factor of team performance is extremely informative and useful to businesses. Employee leave statistics will show how good the management approach is when analyzed against the growth and output data.

    This way, you can identify the problems in a remote team’s conduct and fix those. Knowledge like that can help you enhance team management strategies in addition to fostering numerous improvements with a better approach.

    With the free time off tracker Day Off, employee leave data is readily available to the HR managers. Employees can self-service and keep a better track of the leaves disposable to them. 

    One of the best time off apps available, Day off allows companies to input their information and customize everything according to need. Once done, all that can be accessed from the central HR dashboard.

    As a result, companies have greater transparency in the sector of leave management for remote teams. Collected data provides deeper insight into leave trends.

    A smart leave management system will optimize management as a whole. And the best part about it is that it’s a free vacation tracker. You can pay $1 a month for one employee to get the pro features. That will come with perks like half-day balance. Startups and companies on a budget will find this app extremely useful.

    Bottom Line

    Don’t feel like you have to make all management decisions alone. As you try to come up with the best leave management policies for remote teams, feel free to get the input of your employees.

    Is there a certain policy you think will serve the interest of the company and employees the best? Communicate educate the employees about the policies you will establish your business in a superior position.

  • Tips to Set Leave Policy in Your Company

    Tips to Set Leave Policy in Your Company

    Employees need a day off every now and then to recharge, rejuvenate, and return to work with a stress-free mind. It’s their right to get leaves for important matters. Some companies have set the standard for amazing leave policy that keep their employees happy while maintaining the workflow smoothly.

    However, others have gained a bad reputation in the industry for their vague, often questionable leave policies. When a company starts valuing its work over its employees at all times, it loses credibility to its workers.

    What these companies fail to understand that just because employees need leaves, doesn’t mean their absence has to create a huge dent in the operations. A well-planned leave policy gives the employees their rightful days off while making sure the company doesn’t accumulate major losses. 

    Leave trackers, otherwise termed vacation trackers are a great way to monitor which employees are available at any given time. But before that, you have to know what an effective leave policy looks like. 

    Why Do I Need a Leave Policy in My Company?

    Today’s world is all about balance. Employees’ lives don’t revolve around their workplace. Leaves help them break away from the monotony of their regular work and focus on other aspects of their life. It’s a part of being human.

    Apart from that, there are certain laws in every country dictating the rights of employees when it comes to leave policies. Straying from that hurts employer’s reputation and it can also cost you fines from the government. 

    A Leavy Policy is a set of rules outlining all possible protocols and procedures for employees to avail leaves. Your workforce is the biggest asset of your company.

    Absence of a proper leave policy can result in:

    • Lower productivity
    • Unapproved leaves of employees
    • Decreasing productivity hours
    • Missing important deadlines, targets, etc.

    All this and more can be solved with a good leave policy. For instance, if an employee goes on leave suddenly without any prior notice, their work suffers since the company wasn’t prepared to handle the unprecedented absence.

    On the other hand, if the stakeholders were aware of it beforehand, the work could be distributed between the other employees to handle loss of productivity. This is where a solid PTO tracking software could do wonders for the company’s recording process.

    When drafted and implemented properly, a Leave Policy delineates an understanding between the employees and the employer(s) as to how they can avail of leaves during their tenure.

    A leave policy:

    • Defines the number of leaves an employee has.
    • The kinds of leaves they are eligible for.
    • How employees can apply for leaves

    From the employee’s end, a leave policy gives them the assurance that their company will grant them leaves to:

    • Recover from physical complications
    • Handle any issue they’re facing
    • Go on vacation and enjoy
    • Celebrate their cultural and religious festivals
    • Simply break off from work to relax

    The leave policy needs to be mentioned explicitly in the document of hiring policy. Your employees must know the dos and don’ts to applying for leaves. Furthermore, it’s important to ensure the employees aren’t taking advantage of the holidays and paid leaves offered by the company; helps maintain a steady level between employee satisfaction and productivity. 

    If you’re struggling with falling numbers due to employees’ tardiness and sudden leaves? Ensure a proper leave management system using Day Off , a free vacation tracker.

    The Purpose of a Leave Policy

    As mentioned before, the purpose of a leave policy is to let employees know about when they can ask for a leave, the process of it, what leave with pay is and what leave without pay is, and so on.

    All regular employees of your company are eligible for the leave policy.

    Guidelines of the Leave Policy

    • Employees cannot claim leaves as a matter of right. They must know that any form of leave can be refused as it can be granted depending on the company’s requirements. 
    • Taking a leave from work without receiving approval for it will subject employees to disciplinary action.
    • The calendar year lasts from January to December. 
    • Employees’ leave records shall be maintained in an optimized HRMS tool. 
    • They shall be eligible for Earned Leave after completing their probationary period. After confirmation, that shall be credited to the employee’s account.
    • A limit of 9 paid leaves can be brought to the next year.
    • An employee is free to avail paid leaves based on the leave balance they have. Also, unpaid leave starts from when the leave balance is over but an employee is still in need of leave. The approval can be granted by a manager, HOD, or HR.
    • An employee cannot use the leave until it has been approved by the reporting manager.
    • Leave without approval shall be counted as leave without pay.
    • Weekends, as well as holidays falling within the sanctioned leave periods, shall be excluded and not be considered as earned or casual leave.
    • Leave for the upcoming year cannot be used in the present year.
    • It is the employee’s responsibility to apply for leave in advance in case of a planned leave. But if it’s an unplanned leave, an employee has to regularize leave under two days of resuming duty.
    • LTA leave is counted as earned leave, not casual leave.

    Cancellation of Leave

    An approved leave can be canceled at any time depending on the company’s demand but those must be within reason. Once canceled, the notice will reach the HR and employee through an automatic message. HR will update the leave balance.

    Leave Extension 

    • Due to any unforeseen circumstance, if the employee has to extend their leave, they must inform HR beforehand. 
    • If an employee overstays without gaining proper approval, that will be considered as absence from duty and call for disciplinary action.
    • Extended leave without permission shall be treated as a loss of pay.

    Calculating Leave on Termination/Resignation

    In case an employee is terminated from the company or resigns, privilege leave shall be calculated until their final working day. They will be paid in full.

    Types of Leave Policies

    A number of leave policies could be effective for your company. Generally, leave policies fall within one of these three types:

    Fixed number of credited leaves

    This kind of paid leave policy fixes the number of paid leaves an employee can get on a fixed date. Thus, following company guidelines, you can grant (credit) all the leaves at the beginning of the calendar year or the financial year.

    Set amount of accrued leaves on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis

    A specific number of leaves are accrued based on a daily, weekly, or monthly calculation.

    Unlimited leaves

    There is no fixed number of leaves. Employees can use an unlimited number of leaves.

    How to Choose the Best Leave Policy for Your Company

    The three types of leave policies entail a different set of rules and regulations. As the main decision-maker of the company, you have to consider a few things to know which leave policy would work best.

    Ask yourself: which leave policy would do the most for your employees? It goes without saying that the unlimited/flexible leave policy encourages employees to apply for as many leaves as they want, whenever they feel like it. However, there is no limit to this policy, meaning employees make abuse this opportunity.

    Thus, industry leaders recommend companies take the opinions of their employees on the leave policy. This will make employees realize that they are valued and kept in the loop while the company will be able to narrow down on the policy serving the best interest of their workforce. 

    Why You Should Create Varying Leave Categories

    There are a bunch of reasons an employee would use their paid leaves such as personal emergencies, sickness, vacations, and maternity or paternity leaves. Once you know which leave policy would suit your company the best you need to know how to categorize them.

    Majority of companies like having distinguished leave categories like earned leaves and sick leaves as clean differentiation helps them to track employee absence better. Plus, you would be abiding by Labor Laws.

    Now, how do you decide how many leaves to account for each leave category? The count of casual and privileged leaves that your employees are entitled to be decided by the State you are operating in. The number is determined by the State’s Shops and Establishments Act.

    Considerations about Leave Management

    At this stage, you’ve already implemented the best leave policy. The next step is to learn how to manage leave accruals and leave applications alongside calculating leave balances. An employee leave tracker app such as Day Off can help you track everything from one place conveniently. It’s best to use digitized methods as manual recording is time-consuming and takes too much effort.

    Managing Leave Applications

    Designing a process for applications

    The key to a smooth employee leave management process is timely organization and clear communication. Leaves play an important part in activities such as payroll, which is why it’s even more important to set a fixed process on applying for and approval of leaves.

    You might ignore this procedure as you think it’s too obvious, but clarity will do wonders for your company. It’s as important as the job description.

    Administer the approval power

    You must then decide who will be responsible for approving employee leave applications. Is it going to be their immediate supervisor or the HR manager? Employees need to know where to send their requests to decrease processing time. 

    Tracking Leave Requests

    Leaves are directly connected to the payroll process. Collating leave requests at a month’s end from leave request slips or emails is a crucial task. Track these efficiently on an employee time off tracker app to manage everything with the least amount of effort and time. 

    How to Track Leave Requests Efficiently 

    Using an intuitive employee time off tracker such as the Day Off app helps companies track employee leave applications quickly and better. Here are the reasons you should consider this time off app.

    • For starters, you can get this service for free! Set up your company profile and fill in the information for a unique, personalized experience.
    • The mobile app is super convenient. It keeps the managers and employees connected to the database at all times.
    • The system automatically sends the employee leave request to the appropriate person.
    • HR has total control over the workflow. That means defining teams, managers, and employees.
    • Increase transparency between line managers and employees.
    • The HR dashboard – Calendar view for both employer and employee. You can monitor workflow and team absence, generate detailed and consolidated reports for any period, and send notifications to the team. 
    • You can add new leave types and define balances for each. There is also a half-day option.
    • Manager’s Web Dashboard – Get a full overview of the team, their leaves, and statistics from one point. 

    Small businesses will love this impressive free time off tracker. You can also upgrade to the Pro version for the affordable price of $1 per employee per month. The free version has some of the basic options you would want in any PTO tracker while the Pro version comes with some exciting features that would take your HR game to the next level.

    Final Thoughts

    A company that neglects the leave policy is directly ignoring the needs of its employees, and we know that’s the first step towards the fall of an organization. Do not take it lightly as leaves are enough to get you sued too!

    Make sure to go through all the rules and regulations the state has set. It’s best to mention them in your company policy too. Lastly, have an attorney look at the policies. If they approve, you should be good to go. However, try to stay flexible for the best results.

  • Paper vs. Software in Leave Management

    Paper vs. Software in Leave Management

    The Day Off software or application allows you to tackle the absence, track PTO, vacations, and leaves as well as enjoy an overview, saving your hours of effort and headache. You can easily scroll through the leave and vacation policies associated with your company using the application. If you are rather the employer, it can be quite useful as well. Let us take the topic of Leave Management for instance to take the Paper vs. Software decision

    Leave management Paper vs. Software is a complicated, yet integral issue for all different kinds of companies. Payroll and leave management Paper vs. Software need to run hand in hand for the company to work efficiently and it can sometimes be a challenge to do everything on paper. Yet, many companies today find it difficult to use software for this purpose.

    We have compiled this guide to talk about the different ways of managing the day-off of employees within companies,

    Paper vs. Software pointing out the pros and cons associated with the advancement of technology that highlights the ability of software in doing so.

    Why is Leave Management Necessary?

    If you own a business or work in the HR department, you must know the importance of leave management Paper vs. Software . It can be quite challenging to deal with such day-offs and PTOs or vacations across different departments. Starting with the different types of leaves,

    distinguished laws specific to states, and the added tensions of teams regarding the time-offs of some employees, it can be quite a headache.

    Though it might seem quite straightforward to handle leave management within smaller companies,

    it can start to become both expensive and complex with the increasing number of employees.

    Paper leave management remains a viable option for small businesses but when the number of employees goes over 20,000,

    the companies start switching to outsourcing leave management. This might also differ between industries, but is an issue for most.

    Leave Management through Software vs. through Paper

    When we are talking about leave management for employees, we are talking about the huge amount of data. There is probably going to be quite some paper documentation crammed in the office cabinets,

    where you can find tons of employee information that has to stay undamaged and easily accessible. That might be one big reason why HR systems, even today, avoid going paperless.

    It is essential to understand that the more you rely on paper,

    the greater the effort you have to put in to manage it all. One solution can be attempting to scan all the hard copy data into a soft copy format.

    This can take some time to kick off,

    but once done, the integration of the paper-based content can be quite simple with a software HR system, for day-off trackers, PTO trackers, etc.

    Some managers argue that paper is no hassle given the fact that all the printed documents are usually filed in a relevant sequence,

    more often than not according to the name of the employee. You can, however, maintain this sequence when converting the papers to a digital form to track the information well.

    Sometimes you may wonder why software is essential to management or track the leave of employees when you have dedicated HR within your company to keep an eye on the issue. We have got some benefits here that you might consider.

    Time and Energy

    At the end of the day, you need your company to run all its operations in a streamlined manner. This means you need to save time as well as effort that your employees put into. When you use the software as your PTO tracker and leave tracker,

    you can integrate both the payroll systems and the leave-management parts of your company and reduce the double work of data processing.

    Since both payroll and leave-management systems deal with the information of the same employee,

    it makes sense to have them handled through a database or software instead of having an individual go through different paper files to keep the account.

    You can simply enter the information once and easily track attendance, leave, pay, and all kind of records. It can automate a lot of the functions that would take hours through the paper system. Sometimes, employees can also enter their details, hence saving time and effort for your HR.

    More Accessible

    Usually the vacation tracker, PTO tracking software or leave tracker app can be installedon different devices. When the software is available in the form of an application,

    for instance, an Employee leaver tracker app or an Employee time off the tracker, it is easily manageable through different smartphones, tabs, iPad, etc.

    Accuracy and Compliance

    The computer software or application is likely to make fewer mistakes in terms of calculating payrolls based on PTO or leaves than paper leave-management methods. The latter runs the risk of more mistakes occurring due to human error.

    When you are required to stick to paper for handling leaves, it increases the bureaucracy. Someone who wants to apply for leave first has to complete a form, hand it to the manager,

    wait for him or her to sign and approve. The manager then has to pass it on to payroll for further processing. This tends to be quite inefficient and risk, requiring additional labor.

    The paper management can require between 73 and 124 minutes while the software or application will cost you a maximum of 30 minutes. In the latter case, you simply have to make the minimum number of steps.

    Even considering that you make multiple changes, it will take less than 1 minute to update the online form. The system is automated to go into contact with the relevant parties whenever any change arises. The redundant tasks will be avoided.

    If there is an error in the leave management, it can badly harm the business. In the worst situations,

    business owners or HR can even be sued or fined for miscalculations or underpayments for the smallest of mistakes in timekeeping systems.

    Limited Manual Interventions

    There have been issues faced by several businesses,

    whereby some people have made unauthorized changes to the leave management system through manual interventions in the paper-based system.

    This results in fraud- employees taking a vacation, day-off, or leave and then removing the record,

    or taking one day less than how it should be, or manually making changes to the number of leave days available to one individual.

    When you switch to a software or application, this opportunity to commit fraud is easily minimized.

    Transparency

    When you use software or application to input planned vacations or unplanned leaves,

    all the data can be accumulated by one comprehensive dashboard. This will allow you to have a clear overview of all the metrics related to the day-offs of your employees.

    There is no way the approval of the managers can be skipped. Furthermore,

    you can also track if anyone is abusing the policies associated with leave or underutilizing the vacation hours, and even working below standards.

    In short, the application or software, unlike the paper management system,

    can easily spot the leaks in the employee performance or tackle the issues of absenteeism more efficiently. You can also see if your company needs any specific improvement and make changes to the current approach depending on the requirements.

    Customizable for every location

    If you have employees working in different parts of the globe,

    a free time-off tracker or day-off app can highly benefit both your employees and your company. The free vacation tracker can help both of you keep an eye on the status. These apps can also be customized (with the required settings) for different locations across the globe.

    Furthermore, when you have an overview through the app,

    HR can ensure that key employees to do plan their leaves at the same time. You can also try to make the settings suited to your preferences.

    Cost

    You can highly contribute to saving on the cost of paper,

    time as well as disputes arising from leave and vacations of your employees. The cost of hiring extra professionals to run the leave balance or HR overheads can be avoided with the software versions. It can also help to remain fair in enforcing the policies related to PTO and leaves.

    Reporting

    When all the day-offs are planned using the day-off app or through an employee time-off tracker,

    you can have all the employee-related data and company-wide information in one place. Most of these applications come with an integrated reporting module that makes it quite simple to analyze patterns,

    as well as to get the proper insight on the employees.

    Data Loss

    Even if your company goes through an accident,

    like an unavoidable fire or a simple spilling of drinks on the paper lying around, if you depend on software for leave management, you can avoid the data loss. You can store the information in the cloud and access it anytime from anywhere you allow.

    Values

    With software or application working as a leave tracker or time-off app, you can start to build a strong company culture, where you highlight transparency and compliance as the main factors that cultivate trust amidst the employees, regardless of who they are.

    You can start to promote other company values based on these aspects as well. If you do not have these strong values, you will soon end up with people working in your business for nothing more than the remunerations.

    Simpler Audits and backward reviews

    You can easily keep an eye on what edits and audits have been made to the different leaves or vacations associated with the different employees throughout your company if you are using the software system. This is quite impossible or difficult to do easily when you depend on paper for leave management.

    You may need to check the archived information, for instance, when making a deal or agreement with an employee or former employee, the employee rights control agencies, or some external parties, checking your audits. The software can be regarded as a more reliable source of providing this information in the most convenient, as well as, fast manner. You can avoid penalties or even earn a better image in eyes of the investing organizations and individuals.

    Environment

    Paper is better than plastic- we often hear. Indeed. But, it is still a waste that needs recycling. Why not go paperless altogether when possible? It will not only minimize the workload of the HR management but also help your company act more responsible towards our planet.

    You can eliminate unnecessary waste. As of when converting the paper to digital form, you can decide to remove and get rid of the ex-employee data altogether. 

    A recent report depicted that the negative impact on climate brought about by cutting down over 350 trees, carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, production of solid wastes as well as extensive wastage of water due to office paper use. An honest switch to a software system for handling leaves in your company can help to combat such negative impacts.

    The leave management through software can be seen as an all-in-one hub that can take care of maintaining all the requests relevant to employee vacations whilst also ensuring that their operations run smoothly.

    To summarize, you can get rid of paperwork, subside manual interventions, improve communication, get a real-time overview of the status, ensure compliance with the law as well as reflect on the organization’s health all at the same time when you use the software.

    Concluding Remarks

    The online or software method of leave management, or a mobile Day of the tracker, can serve as the perfect example of a feature that can perform great in the back-end without any effect or any distinct visibility in the main activities of the company.

    It can serve as the perfect optimization tool for your business, delivering the advantages as discussed in the guide. Once you start trying it out, you will soon realize how irreplaceable this application, Day off, can be and how your company can benefit from it.

  • Things to Do at Work before Taking a Long Vacation

    Things to Do at Work before Taking a Long Vacation

    Although it might be a refreshing thought for you when you are about to take a long vacation from your work, it might not be the case for your colleagues. Even the management might bear the hassle of an unplanned long vacation of the employee if he or she plays a significant role in the workplace.

    Every employee of an organization plays a vital role in his or her assigned work as an individual. The absence of one single block creates a void in the complete system, and the management has to fill that void by putting other team members in their work or hire part-timers in that position.

    Things to Do at Work before Taking a Long Vacation

    Due to the lack of a workforce, the management has to provide extra payment to the people doing the overtime for you while paying your paid time off. Therefore, it would be best if you do few things at work before taking a long vacation.

    However, you can use a free vacation tracker as your time-off tracker for tracking your progress before leaving for the vacation. You can also sign in and input your vacation days on your company’s personalized Day Off app used as an employee leave tracking app.

    This PTO tracking software will assist the HR manager in monitoring the absence and calculate the approximate work distribution beforehand. In this article, we have assembled few essential tips for you to make your checklist of things to do at work before taking a long vacation.

    1. Prior Notice to Your Boss

    Since your HR manager manages your company’s leave management, they might have to plan and settle for a replacement in your absence.  Informing your boss or manager before going on leave is necessary to maintain a good relation with your workplace senior.

    It will help your manager to assign your works to other coworkers and track the leave. Check in with him or her and provide an outline of your tasks. This will help your higher-up maintain the leave management and save you from unnecessary queries and work calls during your awaited vacation.

    2. Informing Colleagues

    Always remember to inform your colleagues before going on a long vacation because they have to shoulder the works you might have handled on regular days. Your coworkers and team members are your work pals. So informing them about your long vacation before leaving is mandatory.

    As they may have already had their tasks to complete, it would come as an extra burden on them. Therefore, knowing it beforehand would help them to be prepared for taking it and keep their hand free of other priorities for that time being. It will show your sense of responsibility and built trust among colleagues. Doing otherwise may cause mismanagement and workplace dissatisfaction.

    3. Contacting Clients

    Make sure to contact your clients and inform them before you take an extended vacation from work. There might be clients and customers who have a close connection with you to provide an effective service with your work. In addition, they might not feel the same comfort as other team members while dealing with the result.

    Therefore, contacting them before taking a leave is essential for giving them the heads up and acquaint them with the coworker who will follow up on that project. It would make the communication work easy for your colleagues.

    4. Complete the Tasks on Hand:

    If you are already working on any project, make sure to complete it before leaving for your long break. Other people who will be assigned with the work may not follow up with your working style, and the quality of the work may degrade. Using a free vacation tracker to track your progress will help you to check your advancement.

    These are the most crucial list of things you should do at work before taking a long vacation. We have further discussed this article to make a complete checklist, keeping some other necessary points in mind.

    Purpose of Doing These Planning

    There are many purposes to plan and do things at work before going on a long vacation. We have closely discussed the primary purposes of planning these things out.

    1. Not Arousing Mismanagement

    Not arousing mismanagement at the workplace is essential for planning the list of works to do before leaving on an extended vacation. If you do not do the part of your duty to inform relevant authorities and people associated with your work, mismanagement might occur.

    The HR manager will fail to monitor the paid time off to distribute the job efficiently. It will eventually impose an excessive workload on other employees and cost the productivity of the company.

    The productivity of other workers may slow down because of added workloads and imbalanced work distribution for poor leave management caused by this mismanagement. Employees face burnout due to overworking and lose productivity in the process.

    2. Managing Your Work Relation

    Managing the employee-to-employee relation is a great communicative asset in a workplace. For maintaining this relation between coworkers, good communication is mandatory.

    Therefore, it is essential to inform your colleagues of your plan for a long vacation. Give them an approximate idea about your pending and upcoming works.

    It will let them surmise the amount or type of work they would be assigned. Sharing this with your colleagues will build trust between coworkers and help to maintain a good relation with them.

    3. Keep Your Work Spirit Intact After the Vacation

    It is imperative to meet the deadlines of your pending works to enjoy a worry-free long vacation with your family.

    Worrying about meeting the deadline right after your vacation and getting work queries on your vacation might be very unpleasant. In contrast, coming from a hassle-free vacation will keep your work spirit high after the long break.

    4. For Enjoying a Comfortable Vacation

    Whenever an employee is on leave, follow-ups on the employee’s attendance, leaves, and day-offs might be a great hassle if not managed properly. Due to work needs, the employer may contact the employees during the vacation. In addition, he or she might be called out for any uncertainties at work.

    These things might hinder a holiday that the employee might have taken after long due. However, as an employee, you may have contributed to this poor leave management.

    Therefore, do prior planning for not taking your works on your trip. Do the necessary things and submit the work outlines beforehand for enjoying a comfortable vacation on the go.

    How to Execute the Planning at Work before the Long Vacation

    1. Inform Your Manager

    Inform your manager if you are going to take a leave before going on a long vacation. Later on, knowing it might displease your HR, and he or she can lose reliance on you for hiding it. If your company or HR manager follows a time-off app, make sure to input your vacation tab on that software.

    You can use this excellent software as a service naming Day-off app to keep track of your workdays and track the date before your leave. It will make the process easier for you to notify your boss.

    Input your vacation information on the employee time tracker app, and it would be easier for your manager to distribute the work between your colleagues beforehand so the workflow will remain intact.

    2. Check-in with Your Team

    Many business firms and companies do not follow any day-off app to track their leaves. If it is the case for your organization, make sure to inform your colleagues before going on an extended vacation.

    Checking in with your colleagues and letting them know about your upcoming long vacation would ease their stress while shouldering your works. Otherwise, your coworkers might fall into hot water if they are imposed with the extra workload while having their deadline to meet and works to complete.

    This will also assist you in confirming any query and seal any pending deal with their assistance. Therefore, give prior notice to your colleagues about your long presumed vacation.

    3. Notify Your Clients

    Notify your important clients about your long vacation from work. If some of them work with you regularly, make sure to inform them of your availability for the time being. If you are going on leave for an extended time, you can also acquaint them with other coworkers. Give them the contact information of another colleague for any emergency response. This will help you manage your clients in the workplace for the long run.

    4. Prioritize Your Checklist

    Make a checklist of your works to do and prioritize them to complete all of them before going on your extended trip. If you have deadlines to meet, focus more on them to finish them within time.

    Use a free vacation tracker or our Day-off app to track the deadlines during your workdays and after your extended vacation. Outline your upcoming projects to advance your work gradually.

    So you can return home at peace from a long vacation. Make a to-do list of your forthcoming works during the vacation to assist your boss and coworkers. Anticipate any follow-up questions upon informing them about the vacation.

    5. Set an Automated Reply

    Set an automated reply on your contact system to notify the stakeholders who are depending on your service. Create a concise text or audio for informing others about your vacation and mention a date or time of your availability after the vacation.

    6. Clean Your Workstation

    Keeping your workstation tidy creates a good impression on your work. Therefore, always remember to clean your desk before taking a leave. Before leaving for a long vacation from your work, clean out your workstation on your last day. Wipe the dust off your table, clean your trash bin, and cover your accessories with a cloth to avoid dust buildup.

    7. Maintain a Tracker

    Maintain a vacation tracker to keep track of your vacation days. You can use the Day-Off tracker app. It will allow you to set a particular section for tracking your workdays. In addition, this time off app will let you check your progress on the PTO tracking software to meet your deadlines.

    With growing industries and the size of enterprises, the requirement of a faster data collection process, including employee budget, leave management, paid time offs, etc., has increased. Keeping track of a hefty load of employees and registering their leave information in a manual or paper-based process is a hectic course for your manager.

    A modern-day innovation of this ‘Software as a Service’ known as SAAS platforms provides great assistance in these cases. Our Day-Off software works as a great leave tracker to ensure your leave records’ accuracy and helps you maintain transparency as an employee.

    There are many benefits of software-based leave trackers over the ancient paper forms. It provides a minimal effort cloud-based system with an easy user interface. Our Day-Off app is easy to use and easily accessible to users. You can use this PTO tracking software from anywhere and any device option.

    You can also use them on your Android, iOS, and personal computer. The website or app allows a precise and one-stop location for tracking the leaves. Moreover, the dashboard on this PTO tracker informs your boss and colleagues about the long vacation.  

    Final Thoughts

    Informing your colleagues and boss, completing any scheduled tasks, and notifying your clients are the main things you should consider and do at work before taking a long vacation. Doing these works will show your workmanship and respect towards your higher-ups and colleagues at your workplace.

    You can make a checklist of your work and vacation days on our Day-off app. This will be great assistance as a free vacation tracker on managing your tasks smoothly. This process works as an all-in-one employee leave tracker to ensure effective leave management within a short time and helps you do things at work before the long vacation.

  • HR and Leave Management Tips for Startups and SMEs

    HR and Leave Management Tips for Startups and SMEs

    Leave management becomes troublesome when you are at the first stage of your business.

    Whether you run a startup or an SME, employee management is tough. This initiates urgency for the right HR management tips to maintain the work force.

    This article will help you step-by-step on setting up leave policies. You can use some outstanding tools to manage better. Keep reading to find out what they can be!

    Tips for HR Management in Startups and SMEs

    Managing people is a hectic task. Even in the smallest company, you will need to maintain your workforce effectively. Otherwise, you might end up losing precious time from your work life.

    So, whether you are a business owner or an HR manager, you should follow some management tips. Here, we have a few HR management tips you can check. These guidelines will make your HR job easier than before!

    Receive Updates on Regular Reviews

    Reviewing the performance of your employees is a must for any HR personnel. We encourage checking up on every three to six months. This will allow you evaluate if the business goals are being met.

    So, you must track the performance and engagement of the team. For this, you can use software to ease the process. A software helps to automatically boost appraisals, and update both parties. This will help to increase employee morale and work for the growth of your business.

    A time off app can become much handy in this case. Employees can track their request status of company workflow. The company can set up the correct amount of workflow for the employees as well. 

    Using a paid time off tracker is much efficient. Day Off has a well-designed time off tracker which can benefit both employees and HR.

    You might want to use a free time off tracker if you have very low investment. Still, you won’t regret using one as it balances off workflow much smoothly.

    Secure all the Documents in a Cloud Software

    With the pandemic hitting, almost everyone now works remotely. As such, recording and retrieving all of the working documents became necessary. In this crucial time, you certainly have nothing but to provide extra flexibility to your employees. This means you have lesser option to control the wide range of work.

    In order to synthesize workflow, you must secure all the documents in a cloud software. By accessing the software, the employees will be able to work from home. At the same time, you can supervise how they are working.

    There is a benefit to this idea. Both employees and the authority can access those files whenever they want. This will tremendously boost productivity. Also, it’s easier to measure who is really serious about his/her work.

    Not to mention the benefits reminders and alerts promote. You will get your task done at the right time. Time management is safely secured!

    Use Software for Everything

    We all used spreadsheets at some point in our work life. It’s not really an inconvenience but you should adopt better measures to make things faster.

    As an HR or the business owner, try switching to different management software instead of spreadsheets. This will provide you a huge advantage in the long run. Recording employee information, keeping up with the training schedules, assigning tasks all of them becomes easier.

    You will be able to save time and focus on other revenue focused work. Also, some software enables users to automate the regular tasks. Tasks will get reduced and you will find the perfect work life balance.

    Maintain Leave Requests Appropriately

    We’ll now introduce the most crucial tip – leave management. It’s pretty obvious that your employees will take leaves. They can either request leaves according to their convenience or the company may arrange some paid leave policies.

    For startups and SMEs, it might be hectic at times to manually manage this. It usually becomes a problem when the work force is huge and diversified.

    So, the best way to tackle this problem is to use leave management software. For example, the Day Off app allows organizing employee leaves and requests in one place.

    To maintain employee leaves you can follow the basic steps below:

    • Keep a calendar to update employee leaves.
    • Assign leave allowances for each employee.
    • Use software to track leave requests.
    • Share the leave planning updates with the workforce. It will help to mitigate the upcoming clashes of tasks assigned.

    This is just a glimpse of how to manage leaves in a startup or in an SME.

    Don’t worry, we’ll provide more in depth leave management procedures in the next section.

    Leave Management Tactics in Startups and SMEs

    There is a reason for us to emphasize on leave management too much. It’s because employee sentiments and salaries are related to leaves. Whether your employees take a paid leave or an unpaid leave, both will tremendously affect your business.

    And if you are unorganized regarding this matter, it will cost you both time and money. You don’t want that! Do you?

    This leads to the fact that you must devise a full-proof leave management policy. These policies must be in favor of the company as well as the employees.

    While devising these policies, you must keep in mind about the following.

    • Employee Salary
    • Performance
    • Appraisals

    Step-by-step Employee Leave Policy

    Set Eligibility Criteria for Taking Leaves

    Before you sanction any leave to an employee, you must ensure if the employee is eligible to take a leave. Not all employees will receive the same facilities. You have to clearly state rules for each position an employee belongs.

    Let’s jump on to the factors that influence Leave Management Policies.

    • Leave during probation period
    • Taking leaving while serving a notice
    • Simultaneous leaves
    • Entitled annual leaves
    • Quantum of approved leaves at a time

    Another most crucial indicator is the type of leaves. Every leave has a different pattern and timeline. A maternity leave and sabbatical can’t get the same weightage. So, you must ensure that you are devising the correct policies for each type of leave.

    Some crucial leaves are:

    Statutory leave

    This type of leave is built by the government to provide facilities to the working class. Government and private firms have different rules and regulations to measure statutory leaves. An employee has the right to get these leaves and get paid in due time.

    Maternity leave

    Maternity leaves are for expected mothers. Even after the baby born, mothers get maternity leaves. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) states that US companies are bound to allow unpaid maternity leave for 12 weeks. In this case, the company must have 50 or more employees.

    Paternity leave

    Along with maternity leaves, firms now also allow paternity leaves. It is to encourage fathers to take care of the newly mother in this crucial time. Thanks to Facebook that helped in raising such good initiative. The leave type varies from company to company. In the US, some companies even allow up to 17 weeks of paid paternity leave.

    Bereavement leave

    Companies should focus in valuing the employees’ emotions too. Bereavement leave allows employees to take a week (minimum) leave for the death of a close family member. By being emphatic, companies can increase employee morale and receive better output from them.

    Roll-over leaves

    Sometimes employees work more than their usual leaves. Where every employee has some fixed leaves, some just do their work without hesitation. As they are providing value to the company, they deserve to get a little sensitivity. In other words, companies can issue roll-over leaves for these employees.

    Sabbaticals

    It’s hard to continue job at a stretch. To retain work life refreshments, companies offer sabbaticals to employees. This type of leave allows an employee to take a long-term vacation.

    Structure all these leaves on a week or monthly basis. It will help you to build up a strong engaging management style.

    Now, let’s move on to the real deals!

    Build a Requisition Form

    First of all, let’s be clear what a requisition form is. A requisition form is a document that describes the type of leave an employee wants to take.

    Here, you must include the purpose of the leave clearly. Ask your employee to provide details on his vacation and rejoining date.

    This form will work as a record for the employee’s performance. Also, it can help you to dictate work availability for other employees.

    To sum up, maintain a requisition form to be updates on when and why your employee is taking a leave.

    Grant Leave Approvals to the Eligible Candidates

    Let’s be honest. It’s not possible to provide leaves whenever an employee wants. As the authority you must check if an employee is meeting all the criteria to take a leave.

    Here’s when you evaluate the requisition form, we discussed about earlier. Smaller organizations can authorize about this matter with the help of only 1-2 HR professionals. On the contrary, larger organizations should set up an approval authority for expediting the process.

    You can also keep records using an employee leave tracker app. It will cut your budget and time in case of leave approvals.

    You might have noticed the tech talk a couple of times by now. It’s because we think, incorporating technology to your business can smoothen all your work. Keeping this in mind, we will show you some tracking systems to speed up your leave management techniques.

    Incorporate Tracking Technologies for Leave Management

    A leave tracker is efficient in maintaining leave policies. There are a lot of tracking software which will allow you to document every information regarding leaves.
    Use a vacation tracker when your employees seek long-term vacations. In this case, we recommend for the free vacation tracker to cut the budget. It is mostly useful for small businesses.

    Try keeping a PTO tracking software to ease Paid Time Offs. Day Off has a wonderful PTO tracker tool that helps both the employees and HR professionals.

    Want to know how? Let us walk you through the path in short.

    • As an HR, you first have to download the app
    • Invite all of your employees
    • Provide proper guidelines on how employees can request Time Off and vacations
    • Evaluate the requests. Make sure direct managers are also involved
    • View all the reports and balance workflow accordingly

    Remember, Paid Time Off is only for those countries that support the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Example: The USA.

    Similarly, an employee time off tracker measures the requested leaves. It analyzes employee salaries and appraisals to properly evaluate time off.

    Set the Right Guidelines for Your Employees

    The effectiveness of your leave management techniques depends on the application. You might have several brilliant technologies to support you. What if your employees are not quite clear how to use them?

    Suppose, even if they know how to use them, they are using for personal benefits. They pull out the loop holes which directly affects your revenue. This will be huge threat to your business.

    That’s why, it’s important to set industry level guidelines. You must research the industry norms and then devise a policy.

    The policy must be flexible for employees to increase employee retention. But it can’t be something that jeopardizes your business.

    So, in order to devise a guideline, you must keep in mind the following rules.

    • Guidelines must be bold and straightforward
    • Cut off any ambiguous word from the guide
    • Prepared well-organized documents and circulate among all employees
    • Define the culture, location, location, ethnicity, and diversity of the company in detail
    • Input all the eligibility criteria to take a leave
    • Ensure transparency among the employer and employees

    Final Words

    In summary, using different types of leave management tools can help you to be ahead of the game. You manage your employees well and also save yourself precious time. We encourage applying the techniques above for better results. Only your strategic gestures can bring success to the business.

  • Leave Management Tips for Managers

    Leave Management Tips for Managers

    In any professional company or organization, members or employees that work in that specific institution have serious concerns regarding their acceptance or rejection of leave. In an employee’s life, leave Management or vacation is an authorized time that an employee spends away from the company depending on any special circumstances or reasons. Some leaves are paid and some are unpaid. It all depends upon the rules and regulations and some policies of that company.

    Representatives and employees of a company who go on vacation come to work with a positive outlook and are charged to take on difficulties. Giving your representatives an incidental leave from the everyday routine will help advance wellbeing, usefulness, and bliss over the long haul. You can’t anticipate the best from individuals without permitting time to rest and re-energize.

    Depending upon your request, you might keep on accepting a check and worker benefits during your downtime.

    PURPOSE OF LEAVE MANAGEMENT

    Leave management is a system that handles the time of duration of an employee, worker, or even an HR manager to run the business and organization smoothly.

    Leave management is one of the primary responsibilities and an important component of the HR department. Employees also get benefits from the policies and rules of the company.

    TYPES OF LEAVES IN ANY PROFESSIONAL DECORUM

    Sorts of leaves and their accuracy depends upon the rules of a company and the rules of one could be different from the rules of another.

    Many companies offer their employees some extra relief in vacations or leaves when the matter is serious, but it overall depends upon the performance of that employee.

    All nations have work laws that qualify representatives for some sort of leaves for various reasons. For managers to agree with the law, it’s important to comprehend the different principles administering paid leave.

    But in a general way, the type of leaves that we often see in a company’s main ordinance is given below.

    1-  Privilege leave

    In this type of earned leave, employees are given a long time of work. This is also called vacation leave.

    According to work laws, giving pay to your employees on their leaves is obligatory.

    However, the policies may differ as the rule of work is different from state to state.

    This type of leave is determined by the specific number of days but it does not include the off days, holidays, or other days of special occasion.

    2-  Casual leave

    Some organizations additionally give a leave type called casual Leave. Such leaves oblige any earnest/unanticipated individual necessities as against privilege leave being arranged leaves.

    We see some examples of this type of leaves as; if you got dire pipes issue at the house and require half or an entire day of casual leave and set everything straight. If you need to go to the child’s school for some confirmation-related work, then this type of leave acts as the hero.

    Giving this kind of leave is obligatory in numerous states, yet not so in some different states. There is a consolidated qualification for casual leave in cities like Lahore.

    3-  Sick leave

    This type of leave is additionally called Medical Leaves (ML), these are given on the grounds of infection or if there should be an occurrence of mishaps.

    Sick leave is another regular leave type ordered by the law. As these leaves are inclined to abuse, bosses as a rule look for a clinical declaration if the quantity of long stretches of leave surpasses a few days all at once.

    In certain cities like Lahore, there is a consolidated privilege for both casual and sick leave.

    4-  Maternity leave

    Maternity Benefit Act of 1961 necessitates that, businesses need to give 26 weeks of paid leave to any lady who has worked for at any rate 80 days in a year going before the normal delivery date.

    While state laws administer the former three kinds of leaves including privilege leave, sick leave, and casual leave, the Maternity Benefit Act is a focal government act.

    5-  Marriage Leave

    A few organizations give a unique leave to representatives or employees that are working in their company getting hitched called “Marriage Leave”. The marriage leave award is for anyplace between 1 to 15 days. Be that as it may, most organizations will in general give three days of marriage leave as a standard.

    The HR office may require either a greeting card or a marriage authentication as narrative confirmation for endorsing the leave.

    Further, the qualification is for just a single time during the worker’s whole business time frame in the association. Along these lines, in remarriage or different relationships, representatives should use their yearly leave adjusts or even go on leave without pay.

    6-  Paternity leave

    Paternity leave is a type of leave conceded to new dads or maybe spouses or accomplices of a pregnant lady, proxy parent, or somebody who embraced a kid to deal with their newborn with no concerns at all.

    Dissimilar to maternity leaves, new dads for the most part get fourteen days of leave to deal with their kid post-conveyance. A few nations command 1 to about fourteen days of paternity leave for new dads.

    Organizations seldom give paternity leave to the introduction of their kid since such leaves are not required by law. Nonetheless, it is significant that HRs perceive the burdens of acclimating to the infant and dealing with the youngster in their initial not many days.

    7- Bereavement leave

    Losing a friend or family member is an unavoidable circumstance and on such occasions, workers take abrupt leave. As HR, you need to have a loss leave strategy that furnishes the representative or an employee working in your company with an opportunity to bear their misfortune, deal with any obligations they may have because of the passing, and permit them to request a loss left with no issue.

    Most HRs give their workers 3 to 7 days as deprivation leave, contingent upon the closeness of the family member.

    Day Off Leave Tracker

    This vacation tracker app saves your time and exertion and tracks your group’s absence in one spot or place. All the works that HR managers do, this leave tracker done 80% of that and in seconds you will arrange your leave and excursions approaches. This allows you to taste a unique experience of doing things on your own in a more effective manner and avoid any human error too.

    A DISTINCT SETUP FOR A LEAVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR YOUR COMPANY

    In a variety of hundreds and thousands of other systems and management that have their own rules and regulations and policies when it comes to sending and managing leave requests and to keep a balance between vacations by keeping all the data original, safe, and secure, this Vacation tracker has its place in the market.

    Following each representative’s or employee’s leaves is a hectic task. With the DAY OFF app, representatives can demand leaves directly inside and directors are sent directives for endorsement. When approved, each leave is naturally recorded inside the dashboard with the goal that you can screen the leaves taken and track whether a representative or employee is taking a larger number of leaves than they are qualified for.

    POLICY OF LEAVE MANAGEMENT

    The main thing you need to do is find out about laws and guidelines, from government and nearby about workers’ privileges, and when representatives ought to be given leave. It also depends upon the rules and policies of the company in which you are working.

    After you’ve got to know the laws around there, it’s an ideal opportunity to add cutoff times and consider different crises. Crises are something that can occur, and you ought to have an emergency course of action for some normal ones. Some unexpected situations are the most noticeably awful, so you need to arrange your HR’s activities in those circumstances. The last thing you need is to leave your organization ill-equipped.

    And afterward, cutoff times. Cutoff times are vital and you should set various cutoff times for various situations. The first should be how long ahead of time does the representative needs to demand a get-away. Is it seven days, a month? See what works best, and make certain to tell your representatives about these cutoff times during your onboarding interaction. You can be done this by using the free time off tracker!

    Likewise, consider the period of the expedition. Could your representatives require three weeks on the double? If not, compose that in your leave the executive’s strategy. That is how there will be a bad situation for shocks as it were.

    Be aware of the requirement for an all-inclusive getaway. In the case of something occurs, and your worker should remain longer than arranged, be chivalrous. Furthermore, having that alternate course of action can help in these circumstances.

    TIPS OF LEAVE MANAGEMENT FOR THE EMPLOYEES AND MANAGERS

    Leave management is one of the vital duties of HR chiefs and staff. Even though it is a regular undertaking, it is surely not a simple accomplishment to accomplish. Indeed, numerous HR faculty regularly end up in hot waters with regards to nonattendance/leave the board.

    The tips that are useful in most companies and professional institutes include the following common tricks.

    Using of leave management systems to recognize the trends

    If there should arise an occurrence of continuous unplanned leaves of workers, it gets basic for chiefs to follow the nonattendance patterns. Here, having a robotized leave the board framework would be of incredible help. An online leave global positioning framework will help HR supervisors to distinguish patterns at the snap of a catch.

    Likewise, the PTO tracker online leaves the executives’ framework can be consistently incorporated with a biometric time participation framework or gadget empowering the HR directors to monitor representatives or employees leave in a hurry!

    Be conscious when you are dealing with some extra leave

    In a few cases, state or public laws too as your organization approaches could command the privilege to expanded leaves. In this manner, preparing the line administrators in how would they react to such asks for and display sympathy gets vital.

    Continuously recollect that the approval for a leave in the event of any authentic reasons, for example, clinical or family earnestness lays to a great extent on the director.

    A negative reaction from the director can enrage the representatives in this manner, bringing about disengagement among workers, the executives, and the managers.

    Set a realistic schedule that you will get back to your work!

    By using the employee leave tracker app, you can set your leave schedule very efficiently and nicely!

    Perhaps the greatest concern is that the more you realize what’s in store, the better it would be for the group. This is the reason it is very significant for HR directors to set practical re-visitation of work leave plans for their representatives.

    For example, if a representative applies for seven days in length leave demand for some clinical reason (medical procedure or treatment), at that point setting up a severe re-visitation of the plan for getting work done is essentially a mood killer.

    Have a plan of ‘in action’ for employee vacation

    The more your HR administrators know front and center about who is going out, when and for how long, the better it is.

    This is the reason HR directors should be proactive and smart when managing get-away demands from representatives by using any employee time off the tracker. It would assist them with planning just as a guarantee that usefulness doesn’t go for a throw during top excursion times.

    Know when to respond to leave requests

    HR administrators ought to consistently react to free day demands briefly. This PTO tracking software permits administrators to get and accept leave demands in a hurry. Consequently, workers don’t need to trust that ages will get endorsement for their leaves. Indeed, this leave tracker help representative commitment and fulfillment levels incredibly, and furnishing the HR supervisors with the correct apparatus to do this is a genuine mutually beneficial arrangement for everybody.

    CONCLUSION

    The above-mentioned tips would be the best strategies that could assist you to approve your leave request in a very nice and quick way.

    Moreover, by using these tips, there is a good way to smooth the path of the employee to employee or manager to manager bond and relationship that further supports optimism and even could support long term productivity and approval of short term or long term leaves.

    Sign up now for free and get the best leave management experience!

  • Leave Tracking Tool: Benefits of Using One in your Team

    Leave Tracking Tool: Benefits of Using One in your Team

    Before starting its benefits, let us know what the leave tracking system is all about. The leave tracking tool is a template that ensures the tracking of leave or vacation in an organized way. It automatically calculates the attendance of the employee, gives a calendar view of leaves, and also prints leave reports annually.

    Significance of a leave tracker

    The leave management systems are in the hand of HR management. The employees and the workers that work in the company might not realize that HR is providing us a balancing act that all of their processes are compliant with the HR policies. So, the leave management task is very time-consuming and burdensome because just approving and managing leaves can be an extra load on the HR team.

    With a leave tracking tool workers can get information, such as the different types of leave they can ask for, a background marked by past leaves and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. This can be very timesaving for an HR group too. They will presently don’t have to go diving into file organizers or through Excel bookkeeping pages to get this data.

    That is why companies have their automatic leave tracking systems. They know very well about its potential benefits along with the time-saving advantage.

    Avoid Payroll Errors

    In the modern world of science and technology, where everyone wants to find a way to live a better and advanced life, get yourself easy and let the application work on its own!

    In checking the leaves, we people sometimes do mistakes that could not be ignorable in terms of professionalism. The eliminating effect of human error prevents many consequences. As you have to pay your employees after every one month, so by using leave management tools, we can easily track the leaves in a month of some specific member.

    Urlaubs-Tracker

    By using a vacation tracker, it has become so easy for the employees to help other team members track their off days with just one click.

    It also assists you to create reports regarding employees’ leaves. It then further be helpful for the HR department to work easily.

    Get Rid of Manual Intervention

    In the HR team, one or more than one person is working in the team and processing paperwork for the leave requests. Besides the time issue, there are many chances of causing some errors even in the final list too.

    Having a proper leave management system can do all that in just one click! And we all know the benefit of an online system that is eco-friendly and a perfect alternative to traditional employee leave tracking management.

    Create A Healthy Environment

    Clear and transparent communication between the head and the workers boosts professional decorum and online leave trackers provide benefits to your company.

    For remote team members, tracking the attendance and the schedule has been easier and more fruitful because the lack of face-to-face communication could not settle down things in a more appropriate way.

    Real-time Visible Data

    Employee leave tracker apps provide all the benefits to the employees that they demand and expect from them. As leave is a very sensitive employee benefit so it should be checked and tracked accordingly.

    Sometimes employees request leave and do not have any confirmation that their leave will be accepted or not but with these online leave tracking systems, this type of communication happens seamlessly.

    Access to a Comprehensive Dashboard

    By having access to the vacation tacker dashboard, the approvers or the administrators settled all the information or data in a single place of any upcoming leave information.

    They have access to this dashboard and they can get into it at any time especially when they have to approve or reject some leave.

    An Assurance of Legal Compliances

    Representatives, and the millennial labor force specifically, esteem straightforwardness in business measures. Being paid effectively and on time is an excellent worry for anybody. That should be obvious.

    One of the top advantages of leaving the board frameworks is that they can forestall human mistakes. A legitimate leave the board framework guarantees that nobody avoids seven days of pay when they are taking very much procured took care of time.

    Have Healthy Organizational Values

    Advancing open interchanges about leave is likewise a best practice. On the off chance that straightforwardness and empowering leave are not yet part of your association’s qualities, they certainly ought to be.

    When planning leave is not, at this point a feared 10-day measure, yet should be possible in only 10 seconds, everyone wins. To carry out effective cycles shows to representatives that their time is esteemed. Notwithstanding, it likewise proposes that time off is significant and should be taken.

    The Benefit of a Specific Leave on and off

    Whatever your work, yearly leave is regularly a critical piece of it! Our psyches and our bodies need appropriate breaks from the working environment and consistently!

    Indeed, research proposes that taking yearly leave for occasion purposes can support work environment usefulness, improve your emotional well-being and expand your life.

    The Importance of Employees’ Calendar

    Having a proper system that can manage leaves, count the free days of the employees and keep updated about the coming vacations too is very beneficial in the working decorum nowadays.

    Subsequently, this framework helps in dealing with the additional schedule advantageously and effectively through clear meaningful reports.

    Day Off Leave Tracker App

    This app is a vacation tracker app that tracks the absence of your team in a single place and saves your time and effort, you can set up your leaves and vacation policies in seconds, and allows you to have a unique experience of doing things making done by their own effortlessly.

    Why Day Off Leave Tracker is more beneficial than other leave tracking systems?

    When we talk about thousands of other systems that have their processes and mechanisms to have a safety check and balance between leaves requests, vacations, and managing requests, DAY OFF proudly says that it balances the leaves and vacation requests by keeping all the data original and safe.

    Layout the policies of HR

    To have a better setup and organizing data, this vacation tracker balances the holidays, working days, approvals, and year or the start of the month.

    Vacation tracker

    This is one of the best vacation tracker apps that keep an eye on the vacations of your team members in a very precise way and gives you an official notification when you got a vacation request.

    PTO Tracker software

    When we talk about PTO, it means the “paid time off” tracking process that tracks the working hours of the employees and other vacation requests.

    Working with sub-team members

    You can also create a setup of a sub-team that works under the real person to create working policies, working days, and balances in requests.

    Time off app

    This time off application creates a weekly, monthly, and yearly calendar to be viewed by both the members and the company.

    To have a better observance of workflow and have a detailed report of any moment and send announcements in case of some emergency, this time off app would be very effective and beneficial.

    Convenient through Mobile App

    Now you can send your vacation and leaves holidays at any time anywhere with the benefit of this mobile application app!

    Usually, 80% of the customers use this application on their mobile to track requests and vacations with just one click.

    A process of creating your own company!

    By creating your account by entering a name, email and password, and the company location, you can add your members, team member, and employees to them. You can also set up a team manager that has a hold of managing a team in a better way with good implications of policies.

    Customize the settings of your company

    From choosing the working days and weekends and adding the leave requests and balances, you can create the setting in your own comfy and easily grasped way!

    Official holidays

    By using this leave tracker, you can identify the national and official holidays that come in a week or a month, but you can add up other holidays too if you want to.

    Management of leaves requests

    Whenever you’ve added your group and they began to submit demands. You can track down a full calendar see with every one of the leaves of your group. You can likewise discover a rundown of the got demands which are the worker’s information, mentioned leave type, leave length, start and end dates and leave reason. At that point, you can undoubtedly acknowledge or decline the requests.

    Sending sudden announcements

    Now you don’t have to write a unique message and send it to all of your employees. There is no need to write an entire email and then send it to your team members or have an announcement board on the top!

    By typing one single message, you can send this message to all of your employees, team members, or managers so that your whole team is notified in a short time.

    Sending leave requests

    Presenting a leave demand isn’t a boring thing any longer, you don’t have to fill a whole paper leave structure and hang tight at the top for it to get acknowledged by your administrator!

    With the Day Off app, you can present a leave demand very quickly, simply pick your leave type, the beginning and end dates of your leave and the leave reason, at that point present your request and you will be informed when it gets acknowledged.

    Balancing holidays

    With Day Off, you can without much of a stretch and worry view your leaves balance, how long have you utilized, and the number of are left. You can likewise see the official occasions of your nation also.

    What other features make the Day Off Leave Tracker stand out on its own?

    We have listed a few things that would be very beneficial for you when it comes to the technology of tracking vacations and managing online requests of different employees in a company.

    Sending of invitations by Email & Phone numbers

    Now the time has gone when only the handwritten work and manual page works were acceptable. With the innovation in time and science, with many apps that have changed their style of organizing the data and brought more professional effectiveness in their use of the content, the apps like DAY OFF do half of your tasks automatically.

    Types of leaves configuration

    The arrangements and design of all leave types are done by the managers in customized way. They can also have an opportunity of adding new types of leaves and defining their request balances and the option of half-day too.

    Web dashboard managers

    Having full knowledge of team leaves and their statistics, there is a release of admin or manager web dashboard that manages all the implemented policies.

    Official notifications

    You can receive notifications from your company that tells you whether your leave is accepted or not or any other message just pops up on your screen so that you have a better idea of what is going on and a better way of response too.

    The approval process in the team

    This leave tracker has a better and more effective layout of your approval process that is further based on the work that you have done in the past.

    Conclusion

    Despite the fact, that a company relies on the HR department for tracking the leaves and vacations of the employees, any human error or mistake cannot be acceptable in this regard.

    Ideally, the above-mentioned advancements in the leave tracking system made the work so easy and time-saving that you got all your work done in one click within no time. It is an approach to continuous information or to take any action to a paperless arrangement, and track down the ideal answer for your group.

    Apps like PTO tracker or Day Off would be very helpful and have the greatest advantages of managing and sending requests. This employee time off tracker easily and effectively tracks the absence of any team member so that there would be no reason of saying “I was present that day, boss”! 

    Sign up now for free and get the best leave management experience!