HR is the strategic cornerstone of many successful businesses. A recent People Management survey found that more than half (53%) of companies are investing more in HR, to ensure they have the right talent to lead operational transformation and maximise staff satisfaction. But is this investment being made in the right place?
Giving HR professionals the right tools to do their job properly is vitally important – and onboarding leave management software can make a massive difference to the everyday productivity of HR personnel.
Managing daily HR demands as strategic responsibilities increase
It’s a great time to be an HR professional, as the value placed on human resources is increasing within many companies. However, with more power comes more responsibility; 75% of HR experts feel their workload is increasing.
The challenge most HR personnel face is that they’re getting more involved in business tactics and strategies, but they are still required to run the day-to-day aspect of their organisation – including co-ordinating staff holiday requests. Investing in leave management software significantly reduces the demands placed on HR teams.
5 ways leave management software improves the productivity of your HR team
There are many ways that onboarding leave management software can improve the productivity of your HR team. Here are a few key examples:
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Giving staff greater autonomy to manage leave
One of the reasons many HR professionals become so consumed by the holiday calendar is that responsibility for processing requests falls squarely on their shoulders. Leave management software gives all employees access to a central system, so they can check who else has time booked off, log requests and chase managers for feedback, rather than channelling all enquiries through the HR department.
Businesses already using a digital platform to manage leave are seeing tangible improvements. For example, since Evoluted has onboarded WhosOff leave management software, the marketing agency says
every single holiday request…has been approved within five minutes.
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Automating key aspects of the leave management process
Onboarding leave management software makes a massive difference to HR productivity, simply by automating key aspects of the holiday approval process.
For example, when a member of staff requests time off, automatic alerts are sent to managerial staff, letting them know that a request needs to be reviewed and processed – bypassing HR if they don’t need to be involved. Equally, automatic notifications are triggered when a decision has been made, so each employee can see whether their holiday submission has been approved or denied.
HR can also use leave management software to establish business-wide protocols, such as bulk entering dates on which all staff have time off, like bank holidays and Christmas.
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Applying policies and restrictions to holiday approvals
HR’s job isn’t just making sure the holiday calendar is up to date; it’s setting guidelines that inform leave entitlements and permissions.
Investing in leave management software supports this aspect of their role, empowering HR teams to create restrictions on who can be off at the same time, setting maximum leave limits, and enabling carryovers between holiday years. This significantly reduces the time spent undoing manual errors or solving disputes that arise as a result of annual leave policies not being managed correctly.
A flexible solution also enables companies to implement temporary policies during important periods – for example, the England World Cup Bid team used WhosOff leave management software to manage leave for team members during the country’s 2018 World Cup bid.
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Managing overtime and sick leave alongside leave entitlement
Paid leave is only part of the HR puzzle; teams also have to deal with other types of absence, such as overtime paperwork and sick leave.
The right leave management software can integrate all forms of leave in a single solution, enabling non-HR staff to manage some of the demands. For example, an automatic protocol can be implemented allowing managers to log a certain number of days’ sick leave before the matter is escalated up to HR. Equally, staff can log their own overtime for approval – depending on the number of additional hours they are allowed to work, and the type of compensation (payment or TOIL) they receive in return.
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Integrating essential HR functions into leave management
While leave management is a huge part of HR’s workload, there are other essential people management tasks that are also highly demanding. Onboarding leave management software can improve the way these aspects are processed as well.
For example, a good leave management platform will allow HR teams to log all employee documentation centrally, including appraisals/performance reviews, training, skills and certifications, and any disciplinary actions that have been taken.
It’s also a great repository for recording important data such as emergency contacts – and if the software is accessible online, team members can look up this data from any location.
Empower your HR team with WhosOff leave management software
A recent Gartner study found that two thirds (67%) of business leaders think their companies need to become more digitised by 2020, and HR is under pressure to lead this change. Leave management software is an important step towards embracing new digital tools, empowering HR staff to focus on higher level strategic tasks.
WhosOff is already helping successful businesses across the world to improve the way they manage staff holiday, sick leave, overtime and personal records through our market-leading leave management software.
JustGiving, Infinity, Creditplus and Moody International are just some of 450,000+ customers we’ve helped to improve everyday operations using the WhosOff leave management platform. Is it time your business joined them?
Start your free WhosOff trial to see how leave management software will improve your HR team’s productivity.
Main photo by Kateryna Babaieva of Pexels.com
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Posted by Tony Bushell
on Thursday, 17th October 2019
View all blog articles
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Keeping track of holiday requests is a small part of business operations, but it takes up a lot more time than many companies realise. Inefficiencies in the leave management process can increase the workload of your managerial and HR staff, frustrate employees, and even lead to costly calendar clashes.