The State of Leave Management 2026: Key Findings from Our Industry Research

Leave management has evolved significantly. State-level regulations continue to expand. Employee expectations shift. Organizations managing multi-state operations navigate increasingly complex compliance requirements.

To understand current practices and challenges, we surveyed HR professionals across diverse industries—healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, technology, retail, hospitality, non-profit, and 10+ additional sectors. These organizations range from under 500 to 30,000+ employees and use various HRIS platforms including Workday, ADP, UKG, Paylocity, and others.

We combined their responses with Bureau of Labor Statistics data, comprehensive regulatory analysis across 50+ federal and state jurisdictions, and industry benchmarking to create The State of Leave Management 2026.

The research reveals four key findings:

1. Compliance confidence varies significantly. While 59% of organizations rate themselves as moderately or very confident about audit readiness, 41% recognize room for improvement—particularly among the 66% managing multi-state operations.
2. The automation gap is measurable. 49% identify automation as their top 2026 priority. Organizations that have implemented intelligent automation report 60-75% reductions in administrative time while improving accuracy.
3. Employee experience represents opportunity. 50% of employees rate their leave experience as "neutral." Organizations investing in modern platforms achieve satisfaction scores of 4.2-4.8 out of 5 compared to the 3.0 baseline.
4. Multi-state complexity compounds. Organizations using automated compliance tools process cases 40-50% faster than manual methods.

These four findings point to a larger reality: 2026 is an inflection point for leave management. New state regulations are launching. Manual tracking is no longer scalable. Organizations that act now are systematizing their compliance and freeing up HR capacity for strategic work. Organizations that wait are exposing themselves to audit risk while burning budget on manual processes.

The question isn't whether to modernize your leave management—it's how quickly you can move. The full State of Leave Management 2026 report provides the benchmarking data, maturity framework, and calculations you need to make the business case to leadership.