How to improve holiday management: essential absence management features for every HR system

With so many staff heading off for a well-deserved break, now is the perfect time to check how well your absence management processes are working – and identify what could be improved.

In an ideal world, annual leave would be booked and approved months in advance with a perfect balance between an appropriate level of cover for the business, and everyone able to take their preferred dates.

In reality, this is rarely the case. A clear company policy can go some way to avoiding the more obvious problems, like employees booking that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia BEFORE their leave request is approved, or scheduling a midweek break in New York that coincides with an essential trade show or company event where their presence is essential.

However, policies can only take you so far. What makes policies work in practice are HR systems that makes it simpler for you – and managers and their employees – to work together to manage time off in the best possible way.

Here are ten essential features that will ensure you can manage holiday absences with ease.

Automatic calculation of entitlements

Ensuring that holiday entitlements are calculated fairly and in real time based on specific working hours, local holidays and company rules (and local legislation) will save you hours of time – and ensure everyone is allocated the right amount of time off.

Secure self-service

It goes without saying that your HR system needs to have employee self-service – and it needs to be secure. If employees don’t find it easy to check entitlements and book time off, or worry about the safety of their personal data, they just won’t use the system.

Multi-approver workflows

For some businesses a single step approval (or even self-approval) is all that is needed. However, where employees hold multiple posts, or are involved in different projects or areas of the business, multiple managers may need to approve an absence request – or at least be notified of the absence.

Team diaries

Up-to-the-second team and peer diaries make it simpler for employees to check when colleagues are away (or company events booked) so they can plan their absences to minimise negative business impact.

Overlapping absences notifications

Busy managers may miss conflicting absence requests, but HR software should spot them easily. For example, with Cezanne HR holiday request emails clearly show the details of any overlapping absences. The system also triggers email notifications prior to absence events, so an empty desk on a Monday morning shouldn’t come as a surprise!

Approval delegation

Line managers take time off too, so it’s essential that your HR system allows them to delegate approvals to their peers, or HR, while they are away.

Mobile apps

For line managers that want to keep close to their teams while away, native mobile apps can be invaluable. They typically consume less bandwidth (and eat into less mobile data) than the web-enabled alternatives.

Carry over calculations

Reflecting your carry over rules in your HR software can help avoid problems at the end of the holiday year – especially if you can generate reports showing how much time employees still have to left to book, so you can nudge them to use it up in good time.

Smart TOIL usage

Since both annual leave and Time off in Lieu normally have to be used by a certain date, it’s essential that your HR software ensures that employees use whichever leave entitlement expires first. That way, they won’t feel they’ve been short changed.

Reporting

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Fast, easy and specific reporting is a critical element of any HR system – not least when it comes to totting up how many days of holiday entitlement employees have yet to book, or drilling down into the detail to look at the patterns of absence for groups of employees to help with resourcing.