How to Overcome these 4 Leave Management Challenges.

Your employees are valuable, and even if you need them in the office, you know that time off is often the best thing for them. Everyone benefits when employees have a good work-life balance, and that includes giving them the time off they need. Whether it's vacation days or bereavement leave, it's important for both your business and your employees.
Of course, corporate leave management often leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the challenges listed here will sound familiar to any HR manager or employee. If you're facing some of these challenges in your business, you'll be pleased to know that most of them are easy to overcome.

Track vacation

The first challenge in managing vacation is actually knowing who is entitled to what and when. Employee vacation is accounted for differently in different companies. Different provinces also have different laws about how vacation accrues. In Ontario, for example, employees are not eligible for vacation days until they have worked for the employer for a full year.

You may have different policies for sick days, short-term disability leave, and even long-term disability leave. You must comply with your own internal policies as well as external laws set by the government.

Some systems for recording leave are better than others. Recording leave by hand or in Excel spreadsheets means someone has to update the files manually. If something is entered incorrectly, leave could be calculated incorrectly. Did someone forget to record a sick day?

Instead of struggling with inefficient methods of managing leave, invest in a new human resources information system. The system's ability to automatically update information will make leave tracking more efficient and accurate.

Payroll errors

Leave management affects your payroll. Some vacations are paid, others are not. Depending on your policies, you may even offer your employees both paid and unpaid leave within the same category. For example, you may offer two weeks of paid vacation and an additional week of unpaid vacation. In some places, this is even required by law.

There is clearly a potential for error in this situation. How do you know when someone has used up their paid vacation days and is using their unpaid time? Your payroll software may not be able to tell the difference. If no one tells the person responsible for managing payroll, they may not be compensating the person appropriately.

The solution? Automation and connectivity within your HRIS system. This integrated system ensures that accurate leave information is forwarded to payroll. Because payroll professionals can quickly and easily pull the information from the system, it becomes much easier to know when someone needs to be paid for vacation.

Leave policies

Your policies are also important when it comes to effectively managing leave. Do you allow employees to take religious holidays? If you allow them to take non-Christian holidays as unpaid leave, you could be operating with a discriminatory policy. Review your policies to make sure you treat all employees equally.

Also, make sure your policies are consistent with the letter of the law. An HRIS can help you here, too. The system can help you keep track of your compliance. A cloud-based solution will be updated regularly to reflect changes in the law to ensure you're always up to date on compliance.

Employee confusion

Do your employees know how their vacation time is accrued? Do they know your policies for unused vacation or sick days? One of the biggest problems with leave management is that your employees may not know what they are entitled to or how much leave they have already used.

Keep your employees informed about your policies and how much time they have already accrued. Informed employees can make smart decisions about how to use their time.

These are just a few of the challenges in leave management. The good news is that there are solutions that can improve not only your leave management, but your overall HR operations. Try IceHrm today for your overall HR operations.

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