Leave management is a crucial part of the running of any organisation. Employees need, and are entitled to, time off work. But keeping track of staff holiday booking and other types of leave can be a challenge if it’s done in a disjointed, manual way.
What is leave management?
Leave management is the process of managing all types of employee leave within an organisation. This is includes annual leave, or holiday entitlement, whereby employees are entitled to take a certain number of days off per year. In the UK, almost all employees are legally entitled to statutory leave which is 5.6 weeks paid holiday per year. This varies in other countries.
In addition to statutory leave, organisations may also choose to offer additional holiday entitlement as part of their employee benefits package.
Leave management also refers to managing other types of leave that employees are legally entitled to, which includes maternity leave, paternity leave, and many other types of leave.
What types of leave are employees entitled to?
There are different types of statutory leave that employees in the UK are entitled to, including but not limited to:
- Maternity, paternity, parental, shared parental and adoption leave
- Parental bereavement leave
- Sick leave
- Time off for family and dependants (sometimes offered in the form of ‘compassionate leave’)
What is a leave management system?
A leave management system, or leave management software, is a platform that allows employees to view their holiday allowance and request days off, which people managers can then approve as appropriate.
Having one, easy-to-use system for holiday booking provides accuracy and an empowering employee experience.
A holiday management system also provides visibility for who is off and when which helps to anticipate busier times of the year and plan team resources accordingly.
Why is leave management important?
Leave management is important in the day-to-day running of an organisation. Employees are entitled to take time off work, and so the processes in place in order for them to do that should be clear and easy for both the employee and their people manager to navigate.
Having a disjointed approach to leave management which involves lots of manual processes can lead to inaccuracy and confusion, be a huge admin burden, harm productivity and have a negative effect on an organisation’s workplace culture.
For example, certain times of the year may be a popular period for employees wanting to book time off. An organisation has to manage how many people can be off at any given time to ensure they have enough resource available to continue their day-to-day operations.
The opposite may also present a challenge – if employees are not using enough of their holiday entitlement, it may have to be carried over into the following year, the employee may lose that holiday, or the employee begins to suffer from burnout as a result of not taking frequent breaks from work.
Having robust leave management systems and processes in place can help to alleviate and properly manage these potential issues.
See how edays can help you manage leave effectively
edays provides organisations with one configurable system to book and track leave. From easy holiday booking, to holiday accrual, overtime tracking, TOIL and actionable people insights, you can gain full visibility of how and when leave is being used for individuals, teams or across an entire global organisation.
