Leave is an integral part of the welfare of the workforce of any company. It helps to improve the morale of the employees by giving them time to enjoy a nice vacation or spend quality time with family or take part in a religious ceremony or tend to the sick in the family. One of the important aspects that impact any company’s productivity and the attrition rate is the welfare of the employees. By not sanctioning leave or vacation, morale is affected. The human resources department of any firm is constantly trying to bring in measures to strike the right balance between satisfaction levels of the employees and the company’s business objectives by use of employee attendance software. A captain is only as good as his team, so is a company only as good as its employees. Disgruntled or inefficient employees will not make a successful company. An efficient system of managing the leave requirements of the workforce is key to operational and administrative success.
Flexible Policies – Balanced To Optimize Productivity
Different types of organizations have different leave policies. However, a flexible policy that cannot be exploited or flouted is very often the best policy. By keeping in mind the workflow requirements and the leave and/or vacation requirements of employees in a particular region while drawing up the policy, companies attempt to optimize work efficiency and loyalty. Use of an employee leave management system to manage the leave requirements of the employees in a company will ensure:
- That leave is applied for and granted through a centralized system, keeping key personnel in the loop
- That leave will be granted in such a way that departments will be manned at all times with minimum required manpower
- That leave will be granted for exigencies at the shortest possible time by invoking and using a special feature
- That vacations will be planned in advance and leaves managed efficiently by advance intimation and effective follow-up
- That acquittance roll/payroll software is integrated with employee attendance software
- That reports for all necessary and relevant queries are made available to higher hierarchy
- That the data is secure
Cutting Attrition
Accommodating the leave requests within the ambit of company’s policy and the laws governing the issue pose a major challenge. A company’s leave policy is often a reason for attrition of employees who choose to look for greener pasture. Employee leave management system factors in all the requirements in the algorithms.
The Five Tips – Bull’s Eye
The five tips on leave management for HR teams are a mix of a humane overview of leave requests, by ensuring that morale of all employees is high while also improving the company’s business and productivity.
- Patterns of leave requests of employees found to be taking undue advantage of leave policy are to be identified and discussed with the employee in person, counseled and acted upon appropriately.
- All leave requests are to be considered in a manner that does not negatively impact on the employee – management relationship. The language used while denying leave should be soft and always mitigate. This is quite different from an adverse remark or reprimand, for administrative purposes.
- In factories working on shifts and schedules, employees filling in for others on vacation, need to be adequately compensated, either monetarily or by compensatory offs, subject to suitability. Similarly, leave accrual is to be calculated.
- Vacation calendar is to be planned well in advance taking into consideration the academic sessions of wards of employees.
- Mandatory leave/vacation is to be given to employees to improve morale. A chance to recharge, refresh and rejoin work schedules with increased loyalty and enthusiasm is to be accorded to all employees.
