A Guide to Better Leave Management

Leave management can be a complicated thing and the process can lead to tension among employers, HR and employees. Additionally, many companies are manually recording leave, using spreadsheets and other outdated methods that can end up costing them in the long run.

Poor employee leave management can impact your business on many fronts. From conflicting schedules to coming up short-staffed, employees working overtime and suffering burnout, increasing costs of having to pay staff for overtime, dealing with frequent absenteeism, and having a high staff turnover— these are all very real scenarios that can easily occur. The question is, how can you avoid these issues? Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1. Know the law The first step in efficient leave management is to understand what the law states. The last thing you want is to run afoul of any rules specific to your business and its policies. Consult the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) to ensure compliance.

2. Create leave policy guidelines When creating leave guideline policies, it helps to cover the following:
   • The types of leave you offer
   • How your business calculates leave accrual and what happens if employees don’t use all their leave
   • How your business deducts leave time
   • The procedure of applying for leave
     
     

3. Being empathetic towards employees It is important for managers, and HR, to be understanding when employees ask for additional leave due to unavoidable circumstances. Morale within a company can be negatively impacted if an employer turns down leave requests that have been put forth due to an emergency or something urgent.

4. Use of an online leave management system Aside from a complicated process, poor leave management can lead to costly errors. There are mishaps that can easily occur with record keeping and tracking leave, which can be difficult when fully documenting an employees’ leave of absence. This is where implementing a good online leave management system can benefit you.

Do you need a little help in making the leave tracking process easier? Streamline the process with LeavePro’s online leave management system., which comes with several features that allow for efficient leave management.

Try it free for 30 days. You can be up and running in minutes. Or let us do the setup for you at no cost.