5 Practices for Improving Employee Leave Management

With so many different types of leave to navigate, employee leave management can be a continuous challenge for your human resources team. And if you’re relying on manual HR processes to handle leave requests, the administrative burden can be even higher.

Improving employee leave management with automation doesn’t just reduce your legal risks and payroll errors. It also improves employee satisfaction by making it easier for workers to request leave, reducing the risk of absenteeism and burnout.

Here’s how streamlining leave of absence management benefits HR departments and how you can improve the leave management system at your organization.

Why Improving Employee Leave Management Matters

Many HR professionals, from small businesses to HR teams, approach employee leave management as a matter of compliance risk. But while honoring your employees’ leave entitlement is important, effective leave management is about more than compliance. It’s also about improving the employee experience and work-life balance.

Here’s why improving employee leave management matters and how HR leaders can better address employee needs in the leave management process.

Reduces Employee Frustration

Employees often request a leave of absence at an already stressful moment in their life. Whether it’s sick leave, parental leave, or bereavement leave, dealing with a confusing spreadsheet or calendar for time-off requests only makes the situation worse.

By streamlining the approval process, you put employee well-being first and make it easier for employees to address their physical and mental health needs.

Increases Transparency

A big part of improving employee leave management is fairness and transparency. If employees are unsure about their eligibility or suspect that other team members are taking advantage of your company policies, it can damage trust and morale.

Automated leave tracking ensures that leave accruals are calculated fairly and allows employees to easily view their own leave balances for additional transparency.

Standardizes Processes

From employee leave requests to the return-to-work process, standardized workflows encourage prompt resolutions and reduce human error. With cloud-based software, employees can apply for paid time off (PTO), access state and federal paid leave programs, and manage their employee benefits all in one place.

Use a platform like Pulpstream to generate documents, provide real-time notifications, and link directly to your payroll management system with built-in integrations.

5 Practices for Improving Employee Leave Management

Different stakeholders may have their own reasons for wanting to improve employee leave management. Your finance team may want to save time and money, while HR professionals are focused on ease of use and seamless integrations. Here are five practices to consider as you implement your leave management strategy.

1. Automate the Onboarding Process

It’s never too early to familiarize employees with their leave entitlements. Even though some types of leave only kick in once an employee has worked for an employer for at least a year, you may be required to follow notification requirements and inform them about their rights and responsibilities upfront.

The onboarding process is a great opportunity to review your company leave policies and walk new employees through the process for requesting leave. It can be helpful to differentiate between your personal leave policy, remote work policy, and other paid or unpaid leave programs that employees might be eligible for.

2. Provide a Self-Service Portal

A self-service portal is the centerpiece of modern leave management software. Instead of having to call or email their HR department any time an issue comes up, employees can log in to their online account and submit a leave request, view their leave balance, and upload any supporting documents like medical certifications.

Not only can this reduce the time it takes to receive a response from a matter of hours to a matter of minutes, it also gives employees more insight into the leave process. With Pulpstream, employees can submit a request from their laptop, desktop, or mobile device. Plus, they’ll receive a notification any time there’s an update on their case.

3. Use an Employee Attendance Tracker

Employee attendance and absences are two sides of the same coin. In some states, employees accrue leave for every hour they work, while some types of leave, like the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), require employees to perform 1,250 hours of work before becoming eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year.

An employee attendance tracker simplifies the process of tracking work hours and absences. It also allows you to identify attendance issues, such as unplanned or unexcused absences, chronic absenteeism, and FMLA abuse or fraud.

4. Keep Up With Leave Laws

Leave laws aren’t set in stone, and they can vary based on your company’s size and location. For example, the Family and Medical Leave Act applies in all 50 states, but many states have their own leave laws with similar eligibility criteria. If an employee qualifies under multiple types of leave, the laws usually apply concurrently.

One of the benefits of using a digital leave management system is that you don’t have to spend as much time keeping up with leave laws. Pulpstream automatically checks eligibility against state and federal leave laws based on the most recent updates.

5. Enhance Company Leave Policies

Leave laws represent the bare minimum of what you can offer your employees. While small businesses may be exempt from certain laws like FMLA or the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they may still choose to provide paid leave or healthcare to support their employees’ well-being and work-life balance.

Increasingly, large organizations are choosing to offer paid parental leave, personal leave, and even long-term sabbatical leave to attract and retain top talent.

3 Takeaways for Improving Leave Management

Leave management can be complex, but it doesn’t have to be stressful. These three tips will help you improve employee leave management for everyone involved:

Keep It Simple

The easier it is for your employees to request leave, the more likely they are to give you advance notices of their intent to take leave, helping you avoid surprises. An inefficient leave process is more likely to result in unplanned absences and compliance issues.

Automate It

Use automation to verify eligibility, generate key documents, and track employee leave balances. HR automation reduces time spent on manual tasks like data entry, and frees up your HR team members to focus on more complex cases.

Be Considerate

An employee may need to take leave to address personal medical issues or serve as a caregiver for a family member. While employers do have the right to request a medical certification, do so respectfully and store this documentation securely to comply with HIPAA and FMLA confidentiality requirements.

Improve Employee Leave Management With Pulpstream

Effective leave management helps you maintain appropriate staffing levels and increase employee satisfaction and retention. But with so many types of leave to account for, HR teams can struggle to keep up with leave laws and enforce company policies. Modern HR software uses automation to standardize workflows and ensure compliance.

Pulpstream’s comprehensive leave management platform provides a convenient digital solution for managing employee leave benefits. From a secure self-service portal that keeps sensitive data safe to a custom rule engine that automatically verifies eligibility, our user-friendly tools empower HR teams to provide a better employee experience.

Request a demo today to see how Pulpstream can enhance your leave management strategy!