Employees of any organization require time off or leave for undertaking various personal tasks. The HR department manages these leaves to ensure that there is minimal productivity loss when the employees are on leave.
Additionally, there are various statutory laws when it comes to employee leaves. When a company is drafting its leave policy, it needs to consider these laws and develop the policies around them. Failure to adhere to even a single labour law would amount to hefty fines and even cancellation of business permits in some cases.
Therefore, leave management is one of the most crucial factors for the company’s success as good leave management would result in engaged and loyal employees and ensure that productivity is maintained even in the absence of some staff members.
With the advancement of modern technology and software, leave management systems are used to undertake the task of leave management in modern organizations.
Hence, let us look at what exactly a leave management system is and understand the four biggest benefits it has on any company.
What is a leave management system?
Simply put, leave management is the software that helps manage the employee leaves in a company. It helps the employees apply for leaves transparently, lets the managers approve them on time, and tracks the leave balances to ensure that leave management is undertaken efficiently.
While leave management was initially done with the help of manual methods such as the use of spreadsheets, it was a demanding task. HRs used to spend a lot of their productive time on tallying the employee leaves since it was directly linked to their payroll and its processing. Additionally, they were required to perform this task every salary cycle.
The scenario has changed a lot with the advent of leave management systems and most of the administrative tasks related to employee leave management has become automated. Employees can apply for leaves and track their leave balances as well as coordinate with their team members using the leave management software for easy accessibility and efficiency.
The managers are also able to view all the leave related information and approve or reject the leaves accordingly. They are also able to generate reports of the leave trends of the employees to understand who is slacking and who is being sincere to the company.
Hence, a leave management system is a necessity in the modern company where efficiency is of utmost importance.
Importance of online leave management system
When it comes to employee leave management, companies and their HRs usually have to deal with a huge number of parameters such as providing different kinds of leaves, ensuring that the leave structure is following the local labour laws, etc.
Hence, they opt for a leave management system that can automate these functions. Having such a system would greatly improve their efficiency and help them concentrate their time and efforts on other productive tasks.
With the recent penetration of the internet and the improvement in mobile internet technologies, it has become quite feasible to have an online leave management system for the employees. This would help the HR process employee leaves even remotely. Similarly, the employee can also apply for leaves and check their professional information using their online ESS portals.
As a result, online leave management systems can help the company transition to a hybrid or working model, which is going to be the future of working if the current trend carries on. The option to check their information online would surely help the employees in viewing their leave balances and applying for leaves from anywhere at any time.
4 biggest benefits of a leave management system
There are several benefits of deploying an online leave management system. We have delved into four of them below:
Avoid manual errors
An automated employee leave management system helps in removing any kind of manual error. Since it can undertake the various clerical tasks traditionally assigned to HR, HR need not interfere in its working. There would be no manual errors in the database as the data itself is entered by the system.
With the online leave management system, even the leave balances are maintained by the software itself, thereby removing the need for any human intervention. As a result, valuable HR time is saved, which can be utilized in other productive ventures. It also removes the need for any kind of paperwork, which is both cost-effective and space-efficient for the company.
Automates legal obligations
As mentioned earlier, several labour laws are present for safeguarding employee interests. The automated online leave management system will have these laws coded into its framework to ensure that the company using the software abides by all of these. Hence, it can be trusted by the employee and the employer to be just and unbiased.
Additionally, the labour laws might change from time to time. This can be incorporated in a cloud-based leave management system since it is on the cloud and hence, can be updated by the software vendor at any time. This ensures that the software always stays updated and hence, HR need not worry about updating the policies manually.
Real-time data visibility
Having the option to view real-time data is another major benefit of leave management software. Modern employee leave management systems have a dashboard, that can showcase all of the required data in an interactive dashboard format. It helps the manager take the necessary decisions as per the available real-time information.
For example, consider the example of an employee applying for leave. Before approving the request, the manager can take a look at the real-time data to understand the employee’s leave behaviour. The manager can also take a look at the employee’s past leave trend to understand whether they genuinely require the leave. They can also check for the active number of employees scheduled for that day when the employee requires leave and understand whether granting them leave could hamper the productivity of the team for that day and make an informed decision.
Provides analytics
A robust employee leaves management system helps with employee analytics to help HR improve their company as well as keep their employees engaged. With these systems, HRs can infer valuable insights and take the necessary actions based on such insights. They can keep on using the tactics that are working well while changing the ones that are not working.
For example, HRs can understand the individuals that are taking a lot of unplanned leaves and have a word with them to understand the reason for such behaviour. A recent SHRM survey throws some light on a few leave statistics. Taking a look at these statistics, it is understandable that leaves are a costly affair doe for any company and hence, having the necessary data to make corrective decisions are a necessity. With this article, you can also enhance your knowledge through knowing about how to IoT device lifecycle management is fueling industry 2023.
Conclusion
As we have seen until now, an employee leave management system plays a crucial part in ensuring that the leave process is managed efficiently in a company. As we have seen here, it helps mitigate the four major challenges of manual leave management methods with the help of technology. Hence, it is advisable to deploy an online leave management system, even if you are a start-up with a handful of employees to ensure the continued success of the organization.
