Employees expect that managers or HR are tracking their time off. There are instances when they book time off yet they’re not certain if they have the time available to them. 

An HRIS can help you and your employees keep track of how much time someone has accrued and how much time they’ve used. Many HRIS’ include employee self service modules, which means your employees can keep track of their vacation and leave accruals, as well as monitor how many days off they have left.

Employees who can easily access their leave information through a self-service platform tend to be more mindful of their time off requests. Self-service also makes it easy for employees to see how much time is available to them (meaning managers and HR are not bombarded with questions about leave).

Automate How You Track Employee Leaves Offer More Effective Scheduling

One major challenge—particularly when dealing with vacation requests—is that many employees will request the same time off. The summer months and holiday season often experience a rise in leave requests, leading to a lot of overlapping. Add to this, employees who may be on parental or disability leave, and the issue can become even more complicated.

If your company operates using shifts, you’ll also need to successfully schedule work hours. The HRIS will allow you to schedule more effectively by:

• Keeping track of how many employees have already booked (and been approved) for time off
• Highlighting who is currently off and for how long
• Automating work-shift scheduling
• Enabling you to quickly fill vacancies
• Reducing manual data entry—thus limiting human error
• Providing analytics on schedules and absences

Having these tools on hand can help you strategically schedule vacations and work schedules, preventing overlap and gaps in production. While it’s likely some people will still be away at the same time, an efficient tracking system can help keep key projects rolling by making it easy to stagger vacations.

Monitor Employee and Team Tasks & Timekeeping

Once you’ve determined who will be away and when you can make better strategic decisions about who will be carrying out tasks during an employee’s leave. If the manager is away, who will supervise the department?

Once you’ve decided who’s in charge, you’ll want to divvy up their work responsibilities to keep them from being overloaded or overwhelmed.

You can also schedule project work this way. Using a worksheet module, you can track all employee tasks, when they’re completed and how long each task takes. Doing this will provide a useful outline of which team members are responsible for what. Outlining employee’s roles and duties make it easier for others to take them on when an employee is away.

This kind of strategic thinking will help keep things moving forward even as your team takes their hard-earned vacation time goes through shift changes, or if a team member moves on to another business.

The HRIS as Support

Many businesses remain sceptical when it comes to incorporating the HRIS into their organization—let alone their leave management strategy. However, the

HRIS is a proven support system for HR departments. HRIS technology offers some of the best support for executing an effective leave management strategy.

Test drive Collage, Canad's leading HRIS platform.