Category: Company

  • Legal Requirements For Working hours, PTO and Leaves in USA

    Legal Requirements For Working hours, PTO and Leaves in USA

    Starting from the number of working hours to the number of wages, it regulates everything, other than the paid leaves. It is here to note that it’s not mandatory for employers to provide paid vacations in the United States to their employees. The federal law is quite simple as far as the total number of days that the employers need to offer for vacation, be it about paid vacations or unpaid. It’s all about the Fair Labor Standards Act, which has been there since 1938 and is regulating it all.

    State regulations and company norms

    As the US law doesn’t make anything compulsory is not essentially meant that there wouldn’t be any time off for the working hours. Though the federal law is negligent, the state law certainly provides scope in order to have negotiation between the employer as well as the employee. In this context, those taking the help of a leave tracker should first check out the state laws.

    Noteworthy here is that every state has its own laws as well as limitations. As per these laws, it provides certain perks for the employees, though it may not acknowledge certain policies. Upon having clarity regarding these policies and guidelines, one can easily get clarity about things.   

    Apart from these, it’s the size of the company or its employee strength that also matters in terms of company policy. It’s this distinction that plays a major role in deciding about the kind of benefits that would be essential to be offered at the workplace.  

    Actual Vacation days

    Paid vacation is considered the foremost advantage that any company can provide. Moreover, the companies take a lot of pride while providing this advantage. This is also the reason that vacation tracker is highly demanded. Though not needed by federal law, the employers, in general, offer a minimum of 10 days as paid vacation, hence keeping the employees accomplished.   

    Sick days

    Though vacation leaves often get maximum attention, thus making demand for free vacation tracker, but there is another important leave that is the sick leave that must be given equal level emphasis. However, sick leave is explicitly meant for the health aspects of the employees. It can be equally applicable as well when any family member of the employee gets sick, though it is primarily given when the child or the spouse of the employee gets sick. In general, the employers provide 6 days of leave to the employee, though 9 days of leave can be provided as well.   

    Personal Days

    Norms about personal days are as important as all other aspects discussed above. As per this, the employees are given the freedom to make use of their time offs in any mode as they wish for the tasks they think are important. There are no strict restrictions regarding this; it can be anything, like a relative getting sick, for any kind of parent meeting, for healthcare appointments, funerals, or if the employee celebrates a national holiday.  

    PTO in terms of merit

    Incredible clarity can indeed be obtained by using PTO tracking software. However, it is more important to have clarity regarding the policies. It is important for employers to understand that the PTO policy can not treat every single employee with an all-inclusive norm. Rather, here meritocracy should be taken into account.

    In other words, there need to be different policies applied for different employees in accordance with the duration of the service and level of accomplishment. All that needs to be ensured is that the causes for taking a vacation are not the outcome of discrimination. Upon meeting well with the norms, the companies have the freedom of offering perks of vacations in such a way that it can meet well with their strategy.

    Moreover, upon meeting the federal laws plus state laws, it’s ultimately about making a deal between the employee and the concerned company. As different employers do provide different PTO in accordance with the nature of the job (whether part or full time), there is no firm rule that can be taken as a constant. This is where the role of an effective PTO tracker is highly felt.     

    PTO accruals

    As far as the federal level is concerned, there is no law that demands employers to offer any kind of vacation. There is no rule regarding time off as well. But, the rules regarding PTOs often do vary from one state to the other. At the same time, states don’t especially demand employers to offer paid vacations to their employees,

    though there are some that handle PTO accruals. Hence, the employers need to meet well with the state regulations prior to fixing their norms regarding PTOs. 

    PTO is, moreover, any kind of paid leave from the working hours that has been earned by the employee but has not been used so far. In case of PTO, the combination of vacation, personal leaves, sick leaves, etc., are considered to offer greater flexibility for the employees to use their time other than the work.  

    In accordance with the policy of the employer, the PTOs can differ. But, in general, it offers employees a break that can be useful for different purposes, like sick leave, personal holidays, paid holidays, pregnancy leave, etc.

    Eligible employees

    Employers often emphasize a lot towards managing leaves of their employees and thus make use of employee leave tracker app. In this context, the employers those work for 40 working hours in a week and the employees who work below 40 working hours in a week but not under 20 working hours can earn the eligibility of PTO working hours. Similarly, the employers those work for less than 20 working hours a week consistently, those who work on-call basis, and the temporary employers don’t fall under this category.

    Calculation of Accrual Rates

    Accruals are about paid hours of around 2,080 working hours in a year, which is about 40 weeks every week. Noteworthy here is that the overtimes don’t fall under this. Fresh employees initiate with PTO accrual advantages on initial day of the job. Also, the accrued time rates do differ in accordance with the job type of the employee or the years they have served.   

    The accrual rates often differ in accordance with the employees do earn, i.e., whether on a daily basis, monthly basis, bi-monthly basis, or annually.  Well, one may not necessarily have to remember all these things upon having an Employee time off tracker.

    The account of PTO working hours for every employee has an annual high and any PTO hours can’t be accrued going beyond the highest accruals noted. States those are having compulsory laws for paid sick offs can decide about the way employers calculating accruals.

    Overall annual time off

    In accordance with the duration of service of the employee, the duration can be about 26 days for PTO plans. It also differs in terms of states. For example, the duration of northwestern states is 11 days, which is 8,5 for south states and 9,4 days in case of western states.

    Use of PTO

    Those using Time off app or any kind of PTO tracking app need to remain aware of the rules regarding the use of PTO. The first rule in this regard is that the vacation leaves must be scheduled much prior. However, an employee can make use of the personal and sick off without any kind of prior notice. One can use PTO in increments of even one hour. An employee is essential to make use of PTO hours as per his/her scheduled workdays. An employer may need that the employees make use of accrued PTO hours upon taking parental leave for getting paid. 

    Rollovers as well as payout for hours not used

    It’s up to the employer to decide whether to offer rollover advantages to the employees in accordance with the norms of the state, as well as the rules of PTO payouts.

    Use-it-or-lose-it policy

    When the regulations of the state let employers execute policies, then the unused accrued PTO days won’t be rolled over. In those occasions when the law of the state doesn’t let the employer execute policies, then employer is essential to roll over accrued PTOs from the earlier to forthcoming year.

    But, an employer has the option to keep a cap upon both the total hours meant for rolling over, as well as the total hours accepted to be within the account of the employee. However, the states like Montana, Nebraska, and California don’t have this policy. Similarly, the states like Massachusetts and Illinois have exceptions in this regard, though they allow the same. Every other state allows this.

    PTO payout

    Certain states come up with payout laws for PTO, though on most occasions, the law is applicable only for the vacation time that is earned. For example, the states like California and Nebraska demand PTO payout. Similarly, the states like Oregon, Wisconsin, and Maryland require the same, though with exceptions. It is not essential for the employers to offer PTO payout in the end for other states.

    It can be easier to assess things upon taking the above aspects into account and upon making use of free time off tracker.

    Laws for new parents

    There are basically a couple of federal laws that provide protection for new parents. It is quite essential for anyone associated with HR management to remain aware of these laws. Below are those two laws. 

    The Pregnancy Discrimination Act

    This law restricts the employers from firing, declining to hire, or declining promotion to a woman, simply as the concerned woman is pregnant. However, it doesn’t offer any kind of job assurance to any pregnant woman, as well as the new parents.   

    The Family and Medical Leave Act

    This is another vital act that HR managers must remain aware of. It offers unpaid leaves post a child takes birth or on those occasions when the state of the child’s health is critical.  

    There are other states to offer bigger job protection to the parents for taking care of the newly born babies over the one offered by the FMLA, which is of 12 weeks. The prominent states those consider this include California, New Jersey, Tennessee, etc. At the same time, there are states to adopt their own laws regarding parental leaves, which include the names like Hawaii, Rhode Island, Washington, New Mexico, etc. Knowledge of these rules, along with a comprehensive day off app, can provide incredible clarity on these aspects.

    It is important to have clarity about the kind of leaves that fall under parental leaves. The first thing that falls under this is the family leave. Specifically, this kind of leave is meant for taking care of an ill family member, which also includes the one suffering from disabilities related to pregnancy or those related to childbirth. This is also applicable for the new parents in order to provide biological support for the child. It also includes family leaves of paid form and medical leaves.       

    Maternity Leave

    Maternity leave certainly needs no introduction. Basically, this is the most vital time in the life of a woman when she has to take off for giving birth to a child. Noteworthy here is that this rule is applicable for those who adopt a child as well. In fact, medical as well as parental leave also does fall under this.

    In accordance with the state law, varied types of benefits can be grated in relation to the given time regarding leaves that are allowed; job saved time and needs from different employees those fall under this. Employers might demand that the employees make use of the PTO time to ensure that she gets paid when she remains on leave.

    Apart from these paternity leaves, leaves in relation to jury duty, bereavement leave, voting leave, as well as military leave. So, these are the key legal aspects that one must know about a day off, PTOs, etc. It may not be easy to keep all these things in mind and keep track of the day-offs. In this context, downloading the Day off app can be a fantastic recommendation. It’s an all-inclusive tool to keep complete track of the day-offs and vacations of the employees. The best part is that the app is incredibly user-friendly in nature.

    Conclusion

    Understanding the legal landscape around paid time off (PTO), vacation days, and employee leave policies in the U.S. is essential for both employers and employees. While federal law provides minimal mandates, state-specific regulations and company policies fill in the gaps, often leading to confusion and inconsistencies in how leave is granted, tracked, and paid out. From sick leave and maternity leave to accrual policies and PTO payouts, navigating these rules can be complex without the right tools.

    That’s where a reliable employee time off tracker like the Day Off app becomes invaluable. It simplifies leave management, ensures compliance with relevant laws, and gives both HR professionals and employees clarity and transparency over their time off. Whether you’re managing a large team or a growing startup, adopting an automated leave tracking system is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity for operational efficiency and employee satisfaction.

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  • 5 Software Tools You Need to Manage Your Startup

    5 Software Tools You Need to Manage Your Startup

    Getting started with a start-up is easy, but it’s certainly tough to sustain with the same. There comes a wide range of challenges that these startups often have to confront. On such occasions, no startup can imagine functioning without having reliable tools and technologies. The startup culture in modern times is indeed much evolved with evolving scenarios of virtual workplaces and growing emphasis towards remote operations.

    Evidently, the use of right software has turned out to be the distinguishing factor for successful startups from the rest. Needless is to say that a startup enriched with high-end tools can achieve results in a much quicker time upon keeping things organized. For example, someone enriched with a professional vacation tracker is obvious to be more systematic in terms of dealing with customers, rather than those handling things manually. Naturally, they can be more productive than the others.  

    Importance of being strategic to find the best startup tools

    It’s true at the same time that there is a range of options that a startup can find in modern times regarding tools and technicalities. However, not all these can be equally trusted or relied upon. In addition, there remain budget constraints associated as well. After all, a start-up can’t just go with any of the hugely buzzed software that the top rankers often do boast. At the same time, they can’t also go with any random tool just because it is available for free.

    It can be confusing sometimes for a startup to find out the best option on such occasions. Well, being a little strategic can be helpful for the company to come up with the best options. In this context, it is advised that the approach should be about finding effective tools for the key segments of the business, like HR management, that actually matter for productivity, rather than investing in anything that could be dealt with manually.

    It can be understood that a startup might not always get enough time to think and figure out the best options. In this context, here we have come up with 5 best options that can actually make things easier for the startups in terms of easing down their functionalities for all domains, starting from HR management to communication. The best part, these tools can thoroughly align with the business goal of the concerned startup, irrespective of its scale. Streamlining the process, these tools can make things easier for the concerned startup to take the right business decision.

    Day Off Leave Tracker For Employees’ Leave and PTO Tracking

    Needless is to say how much it matters for a startup to make the most of its employees. In this context, Day Off app can be an incredible recommendation. This is one of the finest leave trackers in order to keep track of the leaves of the employees, as well as for tracking the PTOs.

    It can incredibly save the valuable time of the startup, as well as their efforts in terms of tracking the absence of the entire company in one place. In fact, one can establish the complete policy for leave as well as vacation aspects in a matter of few seconds. The tool can make things look absolutely easy to handle workflow approvals. 

    PTO tracking software has its mobile app for the managers, as well as for the employees. The app can be excellent in terms of keeping track of the vacations and requesting the same from anytime and anywhere. Through it, one can easily direct the leaves of employees to the most appropriate person.

    One can claim that it provides complete control in the hand of HR to handle its managers, as well as employees. If you are looking for reliable PTO tracking software, then also this can be your one-stop solution. Rather, it can be claimed that it’s currently the most popular PTO tracker at the moment.    

    There remains a comprehensive HR dashboard for greater control. There is a calendar view option available for the company, as well as its employees. It enables them to keep track of the vacations, as well as the time offs. Generating a comprehensive report for any period can be done quite easily through this incredible leave tracker app.

    The tool enables users to create a company account quite easily. All that one needs to provide is company details, ranging from name, mail id, location, to password. That’s all it takes to create the company account. It enables the users to add teams within the company with distinct configurations for every team. Next, one can add to every team a dedicated manager, as well as employees. All in all, this time off app can greatly ease down the work pressure from the HR department.      

    Flock

    Be it about a start-up or an established company; effective communication has been the key behind success of each. Better is the communication between the teams, or within the team, greater is the prospect of its growth. In modern-day scenarios, with growing reliance upon virtual communications, technology certainly has started playing a major role.

    This is the reason that the start-ups often remain in hunt for the most effective communication techniques that can provide them the needful ease and effectiveness. Keeping all these things in mind, Flock can undoubtedly be one of the finest recommendations. Just like the incredible employee time off tracker tool cited above, Flock too is also high on demand among modern-day start-ups.

    The best part about Flock is that it is much advanced as a tool than a mere messenger. Specifically, start-up houses looking for a powerful tool for facilitating effective team communication can indeed find it a great option. Rising above being another mere message sending tool, Flock has turned out to be a powerful concept making business collaborations happen with incredible effectiveness.

    It can facilitate things much faster than startups could imagine. It’s a completely unique tool that has changed the way start-ups would communicate with their teams. Be it about facilitating direct communication channels, through group messaging channels, through video sharing, through file sharing, upon preparing customized lists for mailing, to company directories; Flock can be the all-inclusive solution for all.    

    Flock has it all that a small business would need for facilitating effective communication, as well as collaborations. Interestingly, there is a free version available for it as well, along with a Pro edition that costs around 4.5 USD for each user per month.

    With growing dependency upon video conferencing for effective communication on all levels, Flock has turned out to be one of the finest recommendations for start-ups. It enables small businesses to host meetings, as well as webinars over the web. In fact, it enables the businessmen to initiate a video call straightaway through a conversation channel, as well as in sharing the screen through a live presentation. With Flock, it is possible to communicate along with anyone directly on-face in real-time, irrespective of the place. 

    Slack

    Slack can be another incredible tool for start-ups. In fact, it is currently one of the most popular names, at the same time being the fastest expanding software explicitly for the start-up in recent times. There are millions of users of Slack around the globe for connecting with their teams through a single platform. Interestingly, it is possible to develop several channels in order to discuss various projects or matters.

    At the same time, Slack can be a fantastic tool for those who prioritize one-to-one chats as well. A distinguishing aspect of Slack is its flexibility. The tool lets the users integrate the same along with various other popular applications like Gmail and drive. It can be integrated with Trello as well. The tool is quite user-friendly in nature that can be helpful in discovering messages as well as notifications.

    The factor that makes things explicit about Slack is the ease it provides for the users in simplifying things. In fact, a huge number of startups do make use of the software for facilitating effective communication, which includes Airbnb. Slack doesn’t just facilitate conversations; rather, it makes things thoroughly organized.

    One of the distinguishing features of the tool is the searchable history feature, which can be incredibly useful in assessing things. The tool is fantastic from a collaboration perspective as well. No matter you want to collaborate directly or through the shared screen, the software can be useful in all aspects. With well-incorporated file sharing features, it helps the start-up in maintaining thorough coordination among the team.

    Slack doesn’t disappoint users from price perspectives as well. To be specific, its standard plan starts only at $3.20 per month, which can range up to 6 dollars per month when it comes to the plus plan. However, for greater assurance of the start-ups, the software Slack comes up with a free edition as well.

    This free edition is meant for the smaller teams. In fact, the free edition can be enjoyed for an infinite period. However, one can expect greater perks through the Plus plans. Noteworthy here is that the Slack Plus plan starts at 12.50 USDs for every user per month.  On the other hand, the Standard plan starts at 6.67 USD per month. 

    Hootsuite for startup in Social Media

    Marketing is certainly an integral part of any business. Irrespective of scale, it is impossible for a business to survive without effective marketing and promotional strategy. Specifically, a lot of importance is being given to online promotions or digital marketing.

    For a start-up, it’s quite obvious for them to look for ways of promoting and marketing things for free or at lower costs. This is the reason that so much emphasis is being given to social media by start-ups. However, it’s true at the same time that the competition over social media is quite immense. One can’t just expect success with social media strategies without being strategic.

    This is the reason that marketers often emphasize using high-end tools. In this context, Hootsuite can indeed be a fantastic recommendation for startups. This is a high-end research tool that can even enable companies to know the way a user thinks about their products or services. Needless is to say, how it is valuable for any company to know the exact mindset of the customers. Where top companies spend billions for such data, there are tools like Hootsuite providing the same details at a comparatively much lesser budget.

    The interesting aspect about Hootsuite is that it is incredible in terms of managing social media account. It’s pretty much an all-in-one tool on this aspect, enabling users to handle the entire network of social media through just a single dashboard. It can make things simpler regarding scheduling as well.

    In fact, one can prepare the schedule of future posts well in advance over a range of social media platforms. Not just for scheduling, the tool is incredible in terms of tracking the contents over different platforms. The software can ease down things to a great extent regarding engagement with the followers. It can be the all-in-one tool for handling an entire team of social media.   

    There is a range of features that make the tool stand out. Automated scheduling of posts is one such fantastic feature. It comes with vital performance metrics for greater analytics of things. Its flexible workflows approval is another key feature that makes things strategic to manage things. Its custom analytics can be incredibly helpful for effective decision-making. One can export the reports as well through the tool for the entire team. 

    The good news is that there is a free edition available, though for 30 days of a free trial. However, one needs to go with the paid plans onwards. For a single user, the professional plan starts at just 17.56 USD per month, which can range up to 627.04 USD per month. Here it is available for about 5 users. Along with employee leave tracker app and video conferencing tool, this one is also one of the highly recommended tools presently among the experts for start-ups. 

    Canva (Design) is the best for startup

    Needless is to say, how crucial it has become for a startup to have an effective online presence. From this perspective, designing a catchy website enriched with incredible graphical elements has become extremely important. Startups emphasizing this aspect should definitely consider Canva. It can be a useful tool for fulfilling a whole range of graphic design demands. Be it about blog posts, social media posts, or any kind of design needs, Canva can fulfill all types of graphic design needs.

    Interestingly, Canva comes with a massive library as well having millions of photos and fonts, as well as the icons to select from. There is flexibility for the users to pick a suitable design template for creating a site from scratch. In fact, it is quite user-friendly in nature, where one can simply drag and then drop to get the job done. It can be an effective tool for all types of editing jobs as well.

    Coming to the pricing, the Pro plan starts at 9.95 USD per month, in which one can enjoy over 4 million photos. Well, just like the free time off tracker, there is a free edition available for it as well. One can use it to design just anything through this free edition.

    Conclusion

    Modern-day technology goes far beyond simply simplifying business operations, it empowers organizations by offering immediate access to critical data, streamlining decision-making, and enhancing overall efficiency. For startups in particular, leveraging the right digital tools isn’t just a convenience, it’s a strategic necessity.

    In today’s competitive environment, early-stage companies must prioritize building a solid tech foundation that supports both their short-term operations and long-term growth. Whether it’s managing team communication, handling finances, or tracking employee time off, having access to the right software solutions can mean the difference between scaling efficiently and falling behind.

    The tools mentioned above cater to a wide range of operational needs, from a free vacation tracker that helps manage leave policies effortlessly, to platforms that facilitate secure video conferencing, seamless collaboration, or smarter financial planning. These solutions are designed to work for businesses across various industries and team sizes, offering scalability, automation, and real-time insights that help startups stay agile and informed.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

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  • Tips to manage leaves of different time zone teams

    Tips to manage leaves of different time zone teams

    The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced every business across the world to let employees do remote work. On the other hand, the experts have been predicted that the remote work facility will rise in the coming days. Instead of going office, experts are expecting a long-lasting shift to the remote workers where employees do remote work from different places and from various time zone.

    Remote working has become a new way of working. On the other hand, since the recent COVID-19 crisis, it has also become a new normal for most employers as well as employees. While this facility has brought a lot of benefits, HR managers are now facing challenges in managing leave of different work-from-home teams with different time zones.

    So, when it comes to working holidays as well as taking time off, employers can get a lot of requests. However, the fact that leaves for the remote working teams can be different than the leaves for the physical teams as well as a regular team. For example, a PTO related to COVID-19 needs to be tracked in compliance with federal, state, and local governance.

    Across the world, every company is performing all possible things to keep up with this. After all, this is a time when ignoring leave management can be a costly affair for the company. So, how to deal with all these things? How can the HR management manage the leaves of the different remote working teams?

    Well, the advancement in technology has made it a little easier for employers and companies. Now, one can easily manage the leave requests from multiple teams by using professional PTO tracking software. Now, let’s discuss this in detail and explore some tips to manage multiple leaves.

    Before diving deep into the matter, let’s understand why employees prefer to work remotely. Here are some reasons to consider.

    A great level of flexibility and freedom

    It has been proven that most remote workers with different time zones love their freedom. Why? While working remotely, they can easily plan their Day that will match their home and work life. Having a decent level of flexibility to visit the hospital, spend time with family, and attend to their important task can lighten the load. On the other hand, there is no need to seek permission or follow other members while working. This will lower the pressure. When companies offer such a level of freedom, it develops the trust factors, and employees enjoy a better level of job satisfaction.

    It is cost-saving

    A lot of employees think that going to the office can be a little expensive. For example, they are going to the office means dealing with the cost of travel, coffee, snacks, colleague presents, work clothes, and more. With remote working across different time zones, they can easily save on such expenses. As a result, they will save more money. Besides, it has been proven that remote working can also help in lowering childcare costs. Why? Well, parents will get more time to take care of their children.

    No location restriction

    Another major benefit of remote working with different time zones is that employees can work from any place they want. Employees don’t have to be in a particular city. As a result, they can easily avoid unnecessary traveling. In fact, they will get more time to work.

    Better health and happiness

    Different studies show that traveling each day and staying in the office for hours is not the healthiest way. The remote teams with different time zone have the biggest advantage of not getting into contact with other people. This is something quite crucial during this pandemic. Besides, remote working also facilitates better mental health.

    Why are some companies emphasizing remote working?

    It has been seen that some companies are now giving importance to the remote working model as they have understood that this is an ideal way to attain a higher level of productivity. Let’s talk about some other major benefits of having remote teams.

    Better productivity

    Different studies have proved that remote employees can easily complete an entire day’s work each week compared to other employees. Remote team members with different time zones can work during the time that suits them the best and can stay out of the regular office distractions. So, they can concentrate on the task without being disturbed. They can set their own working environment that can inspire them. So, it can be said that remote working can easily lead to a greater level of productivity among the employees

    Of course, to enjoy the maximum benefits, the company needs to offer all the facilities to the members, including Day off facilities.

    Efficient communication

    Gone are those days when frequent catch-up and unnecessary meetings can affect working hours. It has been proven that remote teams with different time zones meetings are to the point and purposeful. Meetings are organized with a clear goal, action plans, agenda, and more. In general, advanced video software programs are used to organize meetings. The employees will get more time to work as they will spend less time on those unnecessary matters.

    Creative unleashed

    To begin with, some businesses may feel comfortable letting their best employees work remotely with a different time zone.  Why? This way, the best employees can be offered perfect work-life flexibility. The best part of remote working is that companies can bring out the best in their employees.

    Easy access to the global talent

    When a company follows a remote working model, the company no longer needs to keep the recruitment process limited by a particular physical location. Besides, the companies don’t have to compromise in locating the right talent for the post. A company can get access to the vast pool of talented candidates and choose the best one.

    Well, with all such amazing benefits, the remote working model can look very attractive. But when it comes to managed leaves, companies face trouble. So, how to deal with leaves and enjoy the remote working model? Keep reading to know more.

    Why is vacation or leave important?

    No matter whether it is for physical employees or remote teams, vacation or leave is a good thing for both the business and the employee. Some studies have proved that every year, around 700 million leaves go unused by employees. Besides, around 200 million leaves were forfeited by staffers.

    Some employees think that taking leave will make them appear less dedicated to their company. On the other hand, some worry about leaving their unfinished tasks. It has also been seen that some companies don’t encourage their employees to utilize their leave. But this is not a good idea.

    Different studies have proved that offering vacation time as well as encouraging them to use it can promote a healthier workplace. Offering required time to employees to refuel is a great way to prevent burnout. However, there are also some other benefits.

    Researches prove that employees who work for companies that encourage leave are happier than those who work for silent companies about taking time off. Some other studies reveal that around 70 to 72 percent of managers think that employees can handle extra time if they are offered time off facility. Most of the managers think that employees return from a holiday with a better level of creativity and focus.

    So, if you want to maintain the perfect growth of your company and keep your employees motivated, then giving them a vacation will be a great idea. Now, here are some tips for managing the leaves.

    Some of the best ways to manage the leaves

    Create a clear leave policy

    If you don’t have a leave policy, then it’s time to work with your HR department to determine what type of framework the leave policy should follow. For example, you can create a policy considering different factors, such as accrued time, rewards for tenure, and you can also set the maximum number of leaves for employees doing remote work. Once done, distribute that policy to all. This way, your employees will know when they can apply for leave.

    Stick to the leave requirements

    As per the BLS- Bureau of Labor Statistics, American employees, on average, get ten days of PTO- Paid Time Off every year. However, the number can go down or up based on the region and industry. In general, the days off increase with the employee’s service period. In some companies, every five years, employees can earn around three to four additional days off every year based on their longevity. 

    For cultural celebrations, special occasions, and holidays, there is a huge requirement for managing days off. Besides, some industries follow the vacation regulations set by the government. Fair Work in Australia, the UK’s Good Work Plan, and Fair Workweek in the U.S., all these regulations talk about the maximum number of leave an employee can take.

    You can make leave compliance easier using a professional Day Off app that comes with a built-in compliance feature. Using this, you can easily block the time off or leave requests automatically for the dates when you want your employee to be there to work without affecting the leave requirements.

    Make sure the work can get done

    Most of the companies, as well as teams, don’t have the required deep bench. What does that mean? Well, then, one is on leave, the others need to find out how to get the work done with one less person.

    So, what should you do here? Well, you need to ensure that you are encouraging all your employees to collaborate as well as cross-training. As a result, if one employee is out, other employees on the team can quickly fill that person’s place and complete the task. Remember that you don’t make a single employee so critical that if that particular employee is taking a leave, it can affect the entire team.

    Another way to ensure that work doesn’t suffer from the leave is that the team needs to make sure that the work is completed before the vacation. For this, you should provide every member with a checklist so that they can know that they need to finish before they can take leave. You can easily do that by using a well-designed PTO tracking software. The checklist should include:

    • Important deadlines
    • a summary of their ongoing projects
    • location of the important files
    • Important contact information

    When you have all the information, you can enjoy peace of mind by knowing that the work will be completed on time.

    Set a deadline for the leave requests

    To avoid staff shortage issues, you need to make sure that the remote working team members submit their vacation requests before a fixed day. This will help you in understanding how many employees have applied for the lead. If you think you will lack coverage, you can ask some employees to postpone their leave requests. Besides, you will get enough time to find out why so many employees want to leave at the same time.

    Consolidate the leave requests on one platform

    Text messages, emails, or sticky notes, what method do you use to manage the leave requests? Well, the fact is that you will not get enough time to manage this thing using spreadsheets, papers, or voicemails. However, you can use a Free vacation tracker to manage the leave from just one place.

    When you have a professional time-off app that can offer you a centralized leave management feature, you can easily view leave balance, different leave types, and more in one place. With this, you can make the process of applying for leave comfortable, and you can also easily approve the requests.

    You need to encourage the employees for planned leaves

    It has been proven that unplanned leaves can greatly affect business activities and can also lead to financial losses. On the other hand, planned leaves can help you in developing an efficient attitude among the staff.

    So, it will be better for HR managers to encourage both physical and remote employees to plan their PTO or leave in advance. This is where a company can use an Employee leave tracker app. Using such apps, companies can track the leave balance and current time off status. As a result, it will be easier to maintain a better workflow for the team and employees.

    Offer ongoing communication using a simple tool

    To maintain a smooth business operation, you need to keep all the lines of communication open. This is very crucial. Let the employees know when they should or can contact you for the leave questions. You need to create an environment of understanding. Besides, make sure that the team knows there is no need to worry about asking for time off when they urgently need it.

    It will be better for you if you can set a time limit between the actual days off and the leave request. Unless the condition is extreme, the employee should not apply for a leave request just one day before the actual date of leave. Using a Vacation tracker, you can check this thing.

    It’s time to use leave management software to manage leave efficiently

    A leave management system, or you can say an Employee time off tracker or software, is designed to provide both employees and the company with the ability to manage leaves. Many automated leave management software programs enable employers to view the leave balance and leave status.

    Using a vacation tracker, you can easily save valuable time and track leaves in one place. Besides, you will be able to set the vacations or leave policies within a few seconds using a Free time off tracker like Day off.  By automating all the tasks, you won’t face any issues in managing leaves and looking for the best app. Well, it’s time to try our Day Off app.

    Conclusion

    Remote work across time zones isn’t a hurdle, it’s an opportunity to build a healthier, more productive culture when time off is managed well. Clear, compliant policies; early, planned requests; cross-training and handoffs; and open communication keep coverage steady and burnout low. The right PTO tracking software centralizes requests, balances, approvals, and compliance rules (including COVID-19–related leave), so HR isn’t juggling spreadsheets and managers can see gaps before they happen.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

    Sign up for free
  • Mastering Team annual Leaves: Work Life Tips

    Mastering Team annual Leaves: Work Life Tips

    Work-life balance is now more relevant than ever. With mental health and wellness on the line, employees have to take time off every now and then to maintain efficiency. Apart from doing the obvious, which is reducing the stress level in employees, leaves boost morale.

    There are a bunch of mental and physical benefits linked to annual leaves, so it’s pivotal for a company to make sure the employees are using up their quota.

    HR managers often struggle with keeping track of yearly leave, especially since there are different leave cases complicating the process. Stress leave, sick leave, and parental leave are some of the many options. Finding a system that allows easy monitoring of employee availability within the business is key.

    Manual record-keeping is time-consuming and expensive. Consider utilizing a smart leave management system to keep digitized data. Collecting data from a leave tracker at the end of the year is much easier. Assume Day off app as an example. The employee leave tracker app lets HR admins keep track of employee availability, balance, and much more.

    What is Annual Leave?

    Before we get into annual leave management tips, let’s be better acquainted with the concept of annual leave. It’s basically paid time off that employees get in work life. They can use it for whatever purpose they wish.

    Now, this raises an important question: “Are part-time employees and full-time employees entitled to an equal number of leaves in Work life?”

    How Employee Leave Is Paid

    The rate for time-off payment for an employee is the same as their regular wage. Based on the country, part-time workers are given 4-week vacations. But, this isn’t a set standard; it’s not in the USA. Typically, casual workers don’t get any vacation entitlement. Instead, they get a compensatory amount to make up for the annual leave payment.

    Are Employees Entitled to Time-Off?

    There is no state or deferral statutory minimum paid public holiday or public vacation. The employer decides whether they want to grant paid leave or not. Some companies do, some don’t. Needless to say, the former is definitely more liked by the workforce. 

    The average count of paid leave days granted by private employers is ten days after a year of service, two weeks after five years, 17 days after ten years, and 20 days after 20 years. In comparison to paid leave in Europe, the numbers are quite shocking for the USA.

    Statistics suggest that the United States has many of the most toxic work environments in the world. 

    Neighboring nation Canada gives employees at least a week or two of paid leave per year. In Australia, full-time employees are entitled to 20 annual accrued days. 

    Reasons Annual Leave Management Can Be an HR Nightmare

    By its very nature, annual leave management is challenging for small to medium businesses. It doesn’t matter if they manage small teams.

    According to the process, someone from the team has to review the remaining leave days and balances. Based on Work life, they must decide whether to approve leave requests or not.

    Just one decision made by a single entity can turn the entire business cycle upside down if the holiday requests overlap with each other. Besides, manually keeping accounts and updating them every time there’s a request is too lengthy to be effective. This is where a good PTO tracking software can be a true savior.

    The Issue with Annual Leave Management

    Many companies still rely on the conventional Excel staff leave planner to conduct annual leave management. A few more orthodox businesses will use on-the-wall calendars too. However, these methods have proven to be both ineffective and error-prone in the long run.

    Wall calendars quickly become overwhelming, and the seemingly never-ending amount of post-its doesn’t help. Plus, they don’t track disposable leaves or the balance.

    You might now ask, “What about Excel leave planners?” Surely those are better at tracking employee absences in Work life, but they can still be prone to error. One incorrect formula is all it takes for the whole spreadsheet to be full of mistakes. 

    Most employees will request absences by email, paper forms, or even just inform the manager physically without any official documentation. 77% of employees hope to get routine tasks like requesting leaves done more easily, making it increasingly important to find and establish an effective annual leave management system.

    Tips to Form the Best Annual Leave Management

    A leave management software, such as a vacation tracker or PTO tracker, combined with a bit of human intervention, is what your company needs to make annual leave management most convenient. Here are some tips to keep you at the top of the game in Work life.

    Create a Fool-Proof Annual Leave Policy

    The first step to making an effective annual leave plan is creating a clear policy that is easily accessible to the staff. The policy should outline what’s permissible while the administration makes sure the management and staff is all aligned.

    When employees are sure about what’s expected of them and how to do it, they are more likely to stick to the best practices.

    Ask yourself what would be in the best interest of your business. If you’re expecting a rush period at any time of the year, it’s best not to grant leaves during that time unless emergency absences are requested. 

    Once your policy is fixed, share it with the staff. Upload everything to a shared drive so anyone concerned can access it at any time. Make sure it’s included in the onboarding process.

    Communicate the Policy through Training

    Only when everyone is aware of the policies can the annual leave management policies be successful. Set expectations and communicate those properly.

    Let new hires know that getting leaves during peak periods could be hard. Encourage them to inform HR of their holiday plans in advance so you can stick to the annual leave management goals.

    Make Leave Transparent

    HR departments and managers can be rather squirrely with annual leave trackers. Closed documents, secret files, and whatnot,  but this isn’t the wisest decision.

    Make leaves visible so your employees can see who is available and who isn’t in Work life. The process shouldn’t be too long nor too short to the point that it doesn’t include necessary information.

    Monthly emails are a good way to do this, but you can try investing in a vacation tracker for the best results. Day Off is a time off tracking software with a great pro version for an affordable rate of a dollar per employee per month.

    Employees can check out how many leave days they have and send in requests from the mobile app. It will be redirected to the right person.

    Streamline the System

    Can your staff apply for annual leave easily? A common reason why the staff chooses to wait till the end of the year to apply for leave is that requesting one day off is too time-consuming and complicated. Set up a new system or streamline the existing one – make it easy to use and simple in Work life. 

    The request forms can be made available online so employees do not have to bother HR for them. Alternatively, a rota-planning software such as Day Off will allow staff to directly send leave requests to the manager via the app.

    Whichever option is selected, be transparent about it and make sure all the staff know.

    Start the Annual Leave Policy from Autumn

    Employees tend to lose track of their early leave and then try to avail of whatever is left at the end of the year in Work life. This could coincide with a peak pre-Christmas period when more than half of the office is away.

    Try to start the annual leave policy in autumn. That being said, it’s natural to deal with many requests for leave during Christmas, but hopefully, it won’t be a case of employees desperately trying to get time off to empty out the last of their leave allowance. 

    In addition, when you start the annual leave sometime during September, employees are already thinking about Christmas leave. Therefore, they’re more likely to inform in advance.

    Encourage Vacation Planning Well in Advance

    Depending on the industry you’re in, the timeframe to plan holidays will vary. For example, employees are asked to plan their vacations for the coming year in the manufacturing sector. In healthcare, medical professionals are expected to plan 3 to 5 months. 

    Some employees can feel burned by the thought of planning for an entire year from the start. Encourage them to inform you four to five weeks before their leave so you can adjust operations better. But at the same time, try to remain flexible.

    The Perfect Digital Solution

    Day Off is the perfect employee time off tracker that’s both affordable and effective. A digital approach to HR management issues like annual leave will help the administration to free up more time to focus on other important topics. This is why you should use the free vacation tracker:

    • Make a company profile and customize it.
    • Employees can make leave requests on any device from anywhere. It will be directed to the assigned person for super-fast processing.
    • Send email notifications to the whole team from one place. Define leaves and allowances for those leaves. Vacation, PTO, time-off, or make something of your own. Assign employees to the set policy and maintain vacation accruals.
    • Enjoy auto-updated leave balances free of error. The remaining absence balances of employees can be checked from a single source. 
    • The dashboard provides a clear overview of leave applications, which may overlap with public holidays as well as other leave appeals.
    • See the consolidated calendar showing the entire business’s annual leave. Employees can synchronize it with their calendars.
    • A centralized overview of yearly data provides information to make correct decisions based on employee behaviors and trends. Know when employees are becoming unavailable the most and try to adjust the workload according to that.
    • Say bye-bye to paper records. You can now save your storage space and save annual leave management data in a digital, clutter-free zone. 
    • Create sub-teams and define leaves for each member.

    Employees can send requests from the Day Off app from their mobile on the go. Any sort of unforeseen emergency calls for instant information.

    What to Know Before Granting Holiday Requests

    You, as an employer and manager, must be aware of a few important things before granting a vacation request to your employee.

    A business usually has adequate resources to fill the absence of the employee in a way that productivity isn’t harmed. An employer and employee should discuss and mutually decide on leave.

    HR has to make sure not too many employees are on holiday simultaneously and/or that there aren’t many conflicting requests.

    You can always go for the “first-come, served” approach when sorting through leave requests, but a better, more efficient system would do much for the company. Poor annual leave management decreases employee satisfaction and raises the chance of employee turnover.

    Unused Annual Leave

    While it’s good for employees to get off work once in a while, not everyone needs the break sometimes. There are the typical workaholics who are too dedicated to the task. Or employees just couldn’t take a break because the company was short-staffed during a particular period.

    Employees at the end of the year are often concerned about what happens to their unused accrued days. Do they lose that or can they roll those over into the next time?

    Usually, companies don’t allow the leaves from the previous year to be rolled over into the next. You should outline that clearly in the policy so the managers and employees can refer to it on the online employee portal.

    Bottom Line

    Employees who work nonstop burn out faster, get sick more, and ultimately produce less, bad for people and for business. That’s why absence and leave management is a core HR function, not a nice-to-have. A modern time-off app centralizes balances and requests, reduces spreadsheet errors, and gives everyone real-time visibility. It also encourages planned time away, improves coverage, and provides simple reports for smarter staffing. The result: healthier teams, smoother operations, and better retention.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

    Sign up for free
  • Tips for Better Annual Leave Management

    Tips for Better Annual Leave Management

    Work-life balance is now more relevant than ever. With mental health and wellness on the line, employees have to take time off every now and then to maintain efficiency. Apart from doing the obvious which is reducing the stress level in employees, leaves boost morale.

    There are a bunch of mental and physical benefits linked to annual leave so it’s pivotal for a company to make sure the employees are using up their quota.

    HR managers often struggle with keeping track of yearly leave, especially since there are different leave cases complicating the process. Stress leave, sick leave, parental leave are some of the many options. Finding a system that allows easy monitoring of employee availability within the business is key.

    Manual record-keeping is time-consuming and expensive. Consider utilizing a smart leave management system to keep digitized data. Collecting data from a leave tracker at the end of the year is much easier. Assume Day off app as an example. The employee leave tracker app lets HR admins keep account of employee availability, balance, and much more.

    What is Annual Leave?

    Before we get into annual leave management tips, let’s be better acquainted with the concept of annual leave. It’s basically paid time off work that employees get. They can use it for whatever purpose they wish.

    Now, this raises an important question: “Are part-time employees and full-time employees entitled to an equal number of leaves?”

    How Employee Leave Is Paid

    The rate for time-off payment for an employee is the same as their normal regular wage. Based on the country, part-time workers are given 4 week’s vacation. But, this isn’t a set standard; it’s not in the USA. Typically, casual workers don’t get any vacation entitlement. Instead, they get a compensatory amount to make up for the annual leave payment.

    Are Employees Entitled to Time-Off?

    There is no statutory minimum paid public holiday or public vacation. The employer decides whether they want to grant paid leave or not. Some companies do, some don’t. Needless to say, the former is definitely more liked by the workforce. 

    The average count of paid leave days granted by private employers is ten days after a year of service, two weeks after five years, 17 days after ten years, and 20 days after 20 years. In comparison to paid leave in Europe, the numbers are quite shocking for the USA.

    Statistics suggest that the United States has many of the most toxic work environments in the world. 

    Neighboring nation Canada gives employees at least a week or two of paid leave per year. In Australia, full-time employees are entitled to 20 annual accrued days. 

    Reasons Annual Leave Management Can Be an HR Nightmare

    By its very nature, annual leave management is challenging for small to medium businesses. It doesn’t matter if they manage small teams.

    According to the process, someone from the team has to review the remaining leave days and balances. Based on that, they must decide whether to approve leave requests or not.

    Just one decision made by a single entity can turn the entire business cycle upside down if the holiday requests overlap with each other. Besides, manually keeping accounts and updating them every time there’s a request is too lengthy to be effective. This is where a good PTO tracking software can be a true savior.

    The Issue with Annual Leave Management

    Many companies still rely on the conventional Excel staff leave planner to conduct annual leave management. A few more orthodox businesses will use on-the-wall calendars too. However, these methods have proven to be both ineffective and error-prone in the long run.

    Wall calendars quickly become overwhelming, and the seemingly never-ending amount of post-its doesn’t help. Plus, they don’t track disposable leaves or the balance.

    You might now ask, “What about Excel leave planners?” Surely those are better at tracking employee absences, but they can still be prone to error. One incorrect formula is all it takes for the whole spreadsheet to be full of mistakes. 

    Most employees will request absences by email, paper forms, or even just inform the manager physically without any official documentation. 77% of employees hope to get routine tasks like requesting leaves done more easily, making it increasingly important to find and establish an effective annual leave management system.

    Tips to Form the Best Annual Leave Management

    A leave management software, such as a vacation tracker or PTO tracking software, combined with a bit of human intervention, is what your company needs to make annual leave management most convenient. Here are some tips to keep you at the top of the game.

    Create a Fool-Proof Annual Leave Policy

    The first step to making an effective annual leave plan is creating a clear policy that is easily accessible to the staff. The policy should outline what’s permissible while the administration makes sure the management and staff are all aligned.

    When employees are sure about what’s expected of them and how to do it, they are more likely to stick to the best practices.

    Ask yourself what would be in the best interest of your business. If you’re expecting a rush period at any time of the year, it’s best not to grant leaves during that time unless emergency absences are requested. 

    Once your policy is fixed, share it with the staff. Upload everything to a shared drive so anyone concerned can access it at any time. Make sure it’s included in the onboarding process.

    Communicate the Policy through Training

    Only when everyone is aware of the policies can the annual leave management policies be successful. Set expectations and communicate those properly.

    Let new hires know that getting leaves during peak periods could be hard. Encourage them to inform HR of their holiday plans in advance so you can stick to the annual leave management goals.

    Make Leave Transparent

    HR departments and managers can be rather squirrely with annual leave trackers. Closed documents, secret files, and whatnot – but this isn’t the wisest decision.

    Make leaves visible so your employees can see who is available and who isn’t. The process shouldn’t be too long nor too short to the point that it doesn’t include necessary information.

    Monthly emails are a good way to do this, but you can try investing in a vacation tracker for the best results. Day Off is a free time off tracker with a great pro version for the affordable rate of a dollar per employee per month.

    Employees can check out how many leave days they have and send in requests from the mobile app. It will be redirected to the right person.

    Streamline the System

    Can your staff apply for annual leave easily? A common reason why the staff chooses to wait till the end of the year to apply for leave is that requesting one day off is too time-consuming and complicated. Set up a new system or streamline the existing one – make it easy to use and simple. 

    The request forms can be made available online so employees do not have to bother HR for it. Alternatively, a rota-planning software such as Day Off will allow staff to directly send leave requests to the manager via the app.

    Whichever option is selected, be transparent about it and make sure all the staff know.

    Start the Annual Leave Policy from Autumn

    Employees tend to lose track of their early leave and then try to avail of whatever is left at the end of the year. This could coincide with a peak pre-Christmas period when more than half of the office is away.

    Try to start the annual leave policy in autumn. That being said, it’s natural to deal with many requests for leave during Christmas, but hopefully, it won’t be a case of employees desperately trying to get time off to empty out the last of their leave allowance. 

    In addition, when you start the annual leave sometime during September, employees are already thinking about Christmas leave. Therefore, they’re more likely to inform in advance.

    Encourage Vacation Planning Well in Advance

    Depending on the industry you’re in, the timeframe to plan holidays will vary. For example, employees are asked to plan their vacations for the coming year in the manufacturing sector. In healthcare, medical professionals are expected to plan 3 to 5 months. 

    Some employees can feel burned by the thought of planning for an entire year from the start. Encourage them to inform you four to five weeks before their leave so you can adjust operations better. But at the same time, try to remain flexible.

    The Perfect Digital Solution

    Day Off is the perfect employee time off tracker that’s both affordable and effective. A digital approach to HR management issues like annual leave will help the administration to free up more time to focus on other important topics. This is why you should use the vacation tracker software:

    • Make a company profile and customize it.
    • Employees can make leave requests on any device from anywhere. It will be directed to the assigned person for super-fast processing.
    • Send email notifications to the whole team from one place. Define leaves and allowances for those leaves. Vacation, PTO, time-off, or make something of your own. Assign employees to the set policy and maintain vacation accruals.
    • Enjoy auto-updated leave balances free of error. The remaining absence balances of employees can be checked from a single source. 
    • The dashboard provides a clear overview of leave applications, which may overlap with public holidays as well as other leave appeals.
    • See the consolidated calendar showing the entire business’s annual leave. Employees can synchronize it with their calendars.
    • A centralized overview of yearly data provides information to make correct decisions based on employee behaviors and trends. Know when employees are becoming unavailable the most and try to adjust the workload according to that.
    • Say bye-bye to paper records. You can now save your storage space and save annual leave management data in a digital, clutter-free zone. 
    • Create sub-teams and define leaves for each member.

    Employees can send requests from the Day Off app from their mobile on the go. Any sort of unforeseen emergency calls for instant information.

    What to Know Before Granting Holiday Requests

    You, as an employer and manager, must be aware of a few important things before granting a vacation request to your employee.

    A business usually has adequate resources to fill the absence of the employee in a way that productivity isn’t harmed. An employer and employee should discuss and mutually decide on leave.

    HR has to make sure not too many employees are on holiday simultaneously and/or that there aren’t many conflicting requests.

    You can always go for the “first-come, served” approach when sorting through leave requests, but a better, more efficient system would do much for the company. Poor annual leave management decreases employee satisfaction and raises the chance of employee turnover.

    Unused Annual Leave

    While it’s good for employees to get off work once in a while, not everyone needs the break sometimes. There are the typical workaholics who are too dedicated to the task. Or employees just couldn’t take a break because the company was short-staffed during a particular period.

    Employees at the end of the year are often concerned about what happens to their unused accrued days. Do they lose that, or can they roll those over into the next time?

    Usually, companies don’t allow the leaves from the previous year to be rolled over into the next. You should outline that clearly in the policy so the managers and employees can refer to it on the online employee portal.

    Bottom Line

    Employees who are constantly working experience quicker burnout, lower productivity, workplace illness, stress, and more. Absence leave management is a crucial function of HR. A time off tracking software will help keep records of annual leave better than manual processing.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

    Sign up for free
  • A Guide to Efficient Leave Tracking for Global Teams

    A Guide to Efficient Leave Tracking for Global Teams

    Remote work is a newer concept for many companies. Thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic, many of these organizations were forced into the whole thing. Two MIT surveys concluded that about half of the American workforce has gone remote. 

    Regardless of size, companies have had to incorporate the work-from-home option into their operations. Apart from the obvious safety and health concerns, another important factor is childcare. Until educational institutes are conducting offline classes again, employees might need to be physically present in their homes. 

    The point is, having a plan for remote work is just the prudent thing to do; it doesn’t matter if your state has allowed in-person working or not. As long as there are employees who get work done outside the workspace, you need to consider leave tracking and PTOs.

    With that comes the responsibility of tracking said leaves properly. If the company falls under government assistance criteria, they may also need to track emergency leave and sick leave. 

    But leave tracking for remote teams is different than leaves for regular, physical teams. For instance, a recent PTO curveball requires leaves related to COVID-19 to be tracked separately in compliance with local, state, and federal governance.

    Companies are doing everything in their power to keep efficiency at an all-time high despite the limitations. In a time like this, ignoring leave management is a certified death wish for any organization.

    So, how exactly does tracking work for remote teams?

    A leave policy has to be made for all kinds of employees, whether they drive into work or get everything done from home.

    How Much Vacation Time Should Employees Get

    The answer depends on the company. There’s not a fixed number as employers aren’t required to offer paid or unpaid leave. Vacation time is another form of time off to consider. Some companies only grant vacation leave tracking to full-time employees. In contrast, others sanction leave for all levels of employees.

    An agreement between the employer and the employee determines the vacation pay. It could either be a collective bargaining agreement, an employment contract, or a company policy.

    The Many Advantages of Having Remote Teams

    A remote work model is the only method to achieve higher productivity in a few industries. However, even if you don’t necessarily have to form remote teams, there are quite a few pros of telework. To name a few:

    There’s no commuting cost, as well as a decreased need to operate from a physical workspace. This can increase savings.

    Less stress for employees and improved work-life balance are the other alternatives. In times like COVID-19, mental peace is important. The more satisfied the workforce, the more likely they are to give their best efforts and stay loyal to the company. Employee turnover rate can be expected to decrease.

    New generation employees greatly value flexibility. When a business is willing to hear and value new ideas, it attracts talent from all across the world, adds diversity to its teams, and ultimately increases competitive advantage in the long run.

    However, a prerequisite to gaining these advantages is managing the telecommuting teams properly and ensuring that the employee(s) is/are available when needed. Many big businesses rely on PTO tracking software or leave trackers to monitor which employees are unavailable and how many days they have left in their leave calendar. A good employee leave tracker app will also include payments and other important data.

    Before making any plan, the remote team’s characteristics must be taken into account; that’s a pivotal step. Not all teams will react to the same practices equally. Finding the one that aligns with them is essential.

    On that note, let’s explore a few options, shall we?

    A Complete Guide to Managing Leave for Remote Teams

    Implement a Smart Leave Management System Early

    A distinguishing factor of remote teams is the increased degree of flexibility. The very premise of telework relies on employers trusting their employees enough to know they will be able to perform their assigned tasks efficiently. This means that, in addition to choosing where they want to work, remote workers can also decide when to work. 

    With that said, devoid of any control, a commuting team’s progress can slow down, and they may go off track. A manager must ensure that the employees are putting in the right amount of hours daily and their schedules are accommodating effective communication. Performance bottlenecks are the last thing you want. 

    A time tracking solution can be implemented for the former issue. For the latter, it’s crucial to adopt a top-notch system for leave management and team schedules, as such a system offers the most convenient way to plan employee availability and timetable.

    Take Day Off as an example. This employee time off tracker comes with plenty of helpful tools for streamlining worker absence management. You can make sub-teams while setting different policies, working days, and balances for each. Once a leave request comes in, HR can get a consolidated view of the entire workforce’s vacations.

    The automated system allows employees to apply for leave directly from the mobile app. They can also check how many days they have available while helping the business set up the right workflow for the teams and employees.

    Let Employees Know What’s Expected of Them from the Start

    A leave management system is only as effective as the organization’s rules and policies. You can’t progress without structure, that’s an open invitation to chaos. The managers must communicate expectations of remote work to their team members.

    Designing and implementing a telework policy is one of the best ways to handle that. The document should cover issues like cybersecurity, communication, conditions of employment, occupational safety, and more. For improved leave management outcomes, discussion of the company’s leave requests, scheduling processes, and other relevant matters is key.

    You have to answer questions like:

      • How many hours should employees work on a daily or weekly basis?

      • Should employees be performing at a specific time of working hours?

      • How quickly is the leave approval process?

      • Which tools do they have to use to inform supervisors or managers about alterations in their personal routines?

    Consider the additional expectations you have when it comes to absence and schedule management in the business, and try your best to clearly communicate them to the remote team. Apart from the set telework policy, this can be done through group and personal discussion.

    Encourage Planned Leaves

    SHRM says that unplanned absenteeism cuts down on productivity as well as other financial processes of a business. On the other hand, planned leaves promote an efficient attitude in employees, letting them plug off to recharge only to come back with more zeal.

    Thus, managers are advised to encourage remote employees, in general, to plan their time off and PTOs in advance. Longer breaks are better.

    It’s good to utilize a vacation tracker app for this as well. For example, the Day Off app makes it easier for HR managers to track employees’ yearly balances plus approval status. You will now be able to set up a better workflow for your employees and teams.

    The app also lets you define an unlimited number of vacation types. All in all, it allows for error-free and effortless planning of PTO.

    Unplanned leaves are harder to avoid completely; employees will fall sick once in a while. Not to mention, unprecedented personal emergencies require utmost attention immediately. Circling back to a previous point, this is why staying flexible in terms of leave requests and scheduling is extremely important when dealing with remote teams.

    Organize Meetings and Video Calls Regularly

    Generally, team members are physically located quite far from each other. They may reside in different cities or even hail from different countries and continents. It’s natural for remote teams not to feel a strong sense of connection amongst the members.

    Employees can feel isolated from colleagues and lonely, and as a consequence, may be much less engaged in teamwork. In fact, they might not even be committed to their company as a whole.

    Situations like this can force remote employees to take more unplanned leaves or even resign from their jobs. There is no substitute for insightful long-distance communication for successful leave management in remote teams. 

    You can encourage employees to interact with their remote colleagues face-to-face using web-based conferencing tools. Organize brief daily video calls where employees will talk about their current performance and discuss any problems their team members are facing while working. 

    Furthermore, video calls can serve as a great means to increase team cohesion and boost employee morale. It doesn’t always have to be a serious discussion. Gather the employees in a chat room to engage in light-hearted conversation with them once a month. It will help everyone feel like a valuable part of the team and establish meaningful human relationships.

    Always Be Available

    A leader of a remote team must always be available for multiple reasons:

    When managers are present at work and show a great deal of attention to their managerial duties, employees become more motivated to produce the best results, too.

    Newly remote workers will experience troubles every now and then. If they do not have a superior to help them out instantly, chances are, they will become discouraged. Consequently, they might start to invest less time and effort into work when they feel nobody cares about the output or wants to support them.

    Without consistent manager-employee communication, it’s difficult to understand actual worker contributions. A manager can only provide unbiased constructive feedback and praise achievements when they’re constantly in touch with their team. In general, staying connected with employees is highly rewarding in any work environment.

    You, as a leader and manager, must be available to your remote teammates all the time and be prepared to help them.

    Inform employees how they can reach out to you throughout the day and try to provide multiple contact options: phone number, email, social media handles, etc. This simple yet effective measure will go a long way in making everyone feel heard and supported. 

    Gather and Analyze Employee Leave Tracking Data

    Data on any factor of team performance is extremely informative and useful to businesses. Employee leave statistics will show how good the management approach is when analyzed against the growth and output data.

    This way, you can identify the problems in a remote team’s conduct and fix those. Knowledge like that can help you enhance team management strategies in addition to fostering numerous improvements with a better approach.

    With the free time off tracker Day Off, employee leave data is readily available to the HR managers. Employees can self-serve and keep a better track of the leaves available to them. 

    One of the best time off apps available, Day off allows companies to input their information and customize everything according to need. Once done, all that can be accessed from the central HR dashboard.

    As a result, companies have greater transparency in the sector of leave management for remote teams. Collected data provides deeper insight into leave trends.

    A smart leave management system will optimize management as a whole. And the best part about it is that it’s a free vacation tracker. You can pay $2 a month for one employee to get the pro features. That will come with perks like a half-day balance. Startups and companies on a budget will find this app extremely useful.

    Bottom Line

    Don’t feel like you have to make all management decisions alone. As you try to come up with the best leave management policies for remote teams, feel free to get the input of your employees.

    Is there a certain policy you think will serve the interests of the company and employees the best? Communicate and educate the employees about the policies you will establish to put your business in a superior position.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

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  • Tips to Set Leave Policy in Your Company

    Tips to Set Leave Policy in Your Company

    Employees need a day off now and then to recharge, rejuvenate, and return to work with a stress-free mind. It’s their right to get leave for important matters. Some companies have set the standard for amazing leave policy that keeps their employees happy while maintaining the workflow smoothly.

    However, others have gained a bad reputation in the industry for their vague, often questionable leave policies. When a company starts valuing its work over its employees at all times, it loses credibility with its workers.

    What these companies fail to understand is that just because employees need leave, it doesn’t mean their absence has to create a huge dent in the operations. A well-planned leave policy gives the employees their rightful days off while making sure the company doesn’t accumulate major losses. 

    Leave tracker, otherwise termed vacation tracker, is a great way to monitor which employees are available at any given time. But before that, you have to know what an effective leave policy looks like. 

    Why Do I Need a Leave Policy in My Company?

    Today’s world is all about balance. Employees’ lives don’t revolve around their workplace. Leaves help them break away from the monotony of their regular work and focus on other aspects of their life. It’s a part of being human.

    Apart from that, there are certain laws in every country dictating the rights of employees when it comes to leave policies. Straying from that hurts the employer’s reputation, and it can also cost you fines from the government. 

    A Leavy Policy is a set of rules outlining all possible protocols and procedures for employees to avail leaves. Your workforce is the biggest asset of your company.

    Absence of a proper leave policy can result in:

      • Lower productivity

      • Unapproved leaves of employees

      • Decreasing productivity hours

      • Missing important deadlines, targets, etc.

    All this and more can be solved with a good leave policy. For instance, if an employee goes on leave suddenly without any prior notice, their work suffers since the company wasn’t prepared to handle the unprecedented absence.

    On the other hand, if the stakeholders were aware of it beforehand, the work could be distributed among the other employees to handle the loss of productivity. This is where a solid PTO tracking software could do wonders for the company’s recording process.

    When drafted and implemented properly, a Leave Policy delineates an understanding between the employees and the employer(s) as to how they can avail themselves of leave during their tenure.

    A leave policy:

      • Defines the number of leaves an employee has.

      • The kinds of leaves they are eligible for.

      • How employees can apply for leave

    From the employee’s end, a leave policy gives them the assurance that their company will grant them leave to:

      • Recover from physical complications

      • Handle any issue they’re facing

      • Go on vacation and enjoy

      • Celebrate their cultural and religious festivals

      • Simply break off from work to relax

    The leave policy needs to be mentioned explicitly in the document of the hiring policy. Your employees must know the dos and don’ts of applying for leave. Furthermore, it’s important to ensure the employees aren’t taking advantage of the holidays and paid leaves offered by the company, which helps maintain a steady level between employee satisfaction and productivity. 

    If you’re struggling with falling numbers due to employees’ tardiness and sudden leaves? Ensure a proper leave management system using Day Off, a free vacation tracker.

    The Purpose of a Leave Policy

    As mentioned before, the purpose of a leave policy is to let employees know when they can ask for leave, the process of it, what leave with pay is, and what leave without pay is, and so on.

    All regular employees of your company are eligible for the leave policy.

    Guidelines of the Leave Policy

      • Employees cannot claim leave as a matter of right. They must know that any form of leave can be refused, as it can be granted depending on the company’s requirements. 

      • Taking a leave from work without receiving approval for it will subject employees to disciplinary action.

      • The calendar year lasts from January to December. 

      • Employees’ leave records shall be maintained in an optimized HRMS tool. 

      • They shall be eligible for Earned Leave after completing their probationary period. After confirmation, that shall be credited to the employee’s account.

      • A limit of 9 paid leaves can be brought to the next year.

      • An employee is free to avail paid leaves based on the leave balance they have. Also, unpaid leave starts from when the leave balance is over, but an employee is still in need of leave. The approval can be granted by a manager, HOD, or HR.

      • An employee cannot use the leave until it has been approved by the reporting manager.

      • Leave without approval shall be counted as leave without pay.

      • Weekends, as well as holidays falling within the sanctioned leave periods, shall be excluded and not be considered as earned or casual leave.

      • Leave for the upcoming year cannot be used in the present year.

      • It is the employee’s responsibility to apply for leave in advance in case of a planned leave. But if it’s an unplanned leave, an employee has to regularize leave under two days of resuming duty.

      • LTA leave is counted as earned leave, not casual leave.

    Cancellation of Leave

    An approved leave can be canceled at any time, depending on the company’s demand, but cancellations must be within reason. Once canceled, the notice will reach the HR and the employee through an automatic message. HR will update the leave balance.

    Leave Extension 

      • Due to any unforeseen circumstance, if the employee has to extend their leave, they must inform HR beforehand. 

      • If an employee overstays without gaining proper approval, that will be considered as absence from duty and call for disciplinary action.

      • An extended leave without permission shall be treated as a loss of pay.

    Calculating Leave on Termination/Resignation

    In case an employee is terminated from the company or resigns, privilege leave shall be calculated until their final working day. They will be paid in full.

    Types of Leave Policies

    A number of leave policies could be effective for your company. Generally, leave policies fall within one of these three types:

    Fixed number of credited leaves

    This kind of paid leave policy fixes the number of paid leaves an employee can get on a fixed date. Thus, following company guidelines, you can grant (credit) all the leaves at the beginning of the calendar year or the financial year.

    Set the amount of accrued leaves on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis

    A specific number of leaves is accrued based on a daily, weekly, or monthly calculation.

    Unlimited leaves

    There is no fixed number of leaves. Employees can use an unlimited number of leaves.

    How to Choose the Best Leave Policy for Your Company

    The three types of leave policies entail a different set of rules and regulations. As the main decision-maker of the company, you have to consider a few things to know which leave policy would work best.

    Ask yourself: which leave policy would do the most for your employees? It goes without saying that the unlimited/flexible leave policy encourages employees to apply for as many leaves as they want, whenever they feel like it. However, there is no limit to this policy, meaning employees may abuse this opportunity.

    Thus, industry leaders recommend that companies take the opinions of their employees on the leave policy. This will make employees realize that they are valued and kept in the loop while the company will be able to narrow down on the policy serving the best interests of their workforce. 

    Why You Should Create Varying Leave Categories

    There are a bunch of reasons an employee would use their paid leave, such as personal emergencies, sickness, vacations, and maternity or paternity leave. Once you know which leave policy would suit your company the best, you need to know how to categorize them.

    The majority of companies like having distinguished leave categories like earned leave and sick leave, as clean differentiation helps them to track employee absence better. Plus, you would be abiding by Labor Laws.

    Now, how do you decide how many leaves to account for each leave category? The count of casual and privileged leaves that your employees are entitled to is decided by the State you are operating in. The number is determined by the State’s Shops and Establishments Act.

    Considerations about Leave Management

    At this stage, you’ve already implemented the best leave policy. The next step is to learn how to manage leave accruals and leave applications alongside calculating leave balances. An employee leave tracker app, such as Day Off, can help you track everything from one place conveniently. It’s best to use digitized methods as manual recording is time-consuming and takes too much effort.

    Managing Leave Applications

    Designing a process for applications

    The key to a smooth employee leave management process is timely organization and clear communication. Leaves play an important part in activities such as payroll, which is why it’s even more important to set a fixed process for applying for and approving leaves.

    You might ignore this procedure as you think it’s too obvious, but clarity will do wonders for your company. It’s as important as the job description.

    Administer the approval power

    You must then decide who will be responsible for approving employee leave applications. Is it going to be their immediate supervisor or the HR manager? Employees need to know where to send their requests to decrease processing time. 

    Tracking Leave Requests

    Leaves are directly connected to the payroll process. Collating leave requests at a month’s end from leave request slips or emails is a crucial task. Track these efficiently on an employee time off tracker app to manage everything with the least amount of effort and time. 

    How to Track Leave Requests Efficiently 

    Using an intuitive employee time off tracker, such as the Day Off app, helps companies track employee leave applications quickly and efficiently. Here are the reasons you should consider this time off tracking software.

      • For starters, you can get this service for free! Set up your company profile and fill in the information for a unique, personalized experience.

      • The mobile app is super convenient. It keeps the managers and employees connected to the database at all times.

      • The system automatically sends the employee leave request to the appropriate person.

      • HR has total control over the workflow. That means defining teams, managers, and employees.

      • Increase transparency between line managers and employees.

      • The HR dashboard – Calendar view for both employer and employee. You can monitor workflow and team absence, generate detailed and consolidated reports for any period, and send notifications to the team. 

      • You can add new leave types and define balances for each. There is also a half-day option.

      • Manager’s Web Dashboard – Get a full overview of the team, their leaves, and statistics from one point. 

    Small businesses will love this impressive free time off tracker. You can also upgrade to the Pro version for the affordable price of $1 per employee per month. The free version has some of the basic options you would want in any PTO tracker, while the Pro version comes with some exciting features that would take your HR game to the next level.

    Final Thoughts

    A company that neglects the leave policy is directly ignoring the needs of its employees, and we know that’s the first step towards the fall of an organization. Do not take it lightly, as leaves are enough to get you sued too!

    Make sure to go through all the rules and regulations the state has set. It’s best to mention them in your company policy too. Lastly, have an attorney look at the policies. If they approve, you should be good to go. However, try to stay flexible for the best results.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

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  • Paper vs. Software in Leave Management

    Paper vs. Software in Leave Management

    The Day Off software or application allows you to tackle the absence, track PTO, vacations, and leaves, as well as enjoy an overview, saving your hours of effort and headache. You can easily scroll through the leave and vacation policies associated with your company using the application. If you are the employer, it can be quite useful as well. Let us take the topic of Leave Management, for instance, to take the Paper vs. Software decision

    Paper vs. Leave Management Software is a complicated, yet integral issue for all kinds of companies. Payroll and leave management, Paper vs. Software need to run hand in hand for the company to work efficiently, and it can sometimes be a challenge to do everything on paper. Yet, many companies today find it difficult to use software for this purpose.

    We have compiled this guide to talk about the different ways of managing the day off of employees within companies.

    Paper vs. Software, pointing out the pros and cons associated with the advancement of technology, which highlights the ability of software to do so.

    Why is Leave Management Necessary?

    If you own a business or work in the HR department, you must know the importance of leave management: Paper vs. Software. It can be quite challenging to deal with such day-offs, PTOs, or vacations across different departments. Starting with the different types of leaves. Distinguished laws specific to states, and the added tensions of teams regarding the time-offs of some employees, can be quite a headache.

    Though it might seem quite straightforward to handle leave management within smaller companies, it can start to become both expensive and complex with the increasing number of employees.

    Paper leave management remains a viable option for small businesses, but when the number of employees goes over 20,000, the companies start switching to outsourcing leave management. This might also differ between industries, but it is an issue for most.

    Leave Management through Software vs. through Paper

    When we are talking about leave management for employees, we are talking about a huge amount of data. There is probably going to be quite a lot of paper documentation crammed in the office cabinets, where you can find tons of employee information that has to stay undamaged and easily accessible. That might be one big reason why HR systems, even today, avoid going paperless.

    It is essential to understand that the more you rely on paper, the greater the effort you have to put in to manage it all. One solution can be attempting to scan all the hard copy data into a soft copy format.

    This can take some time to kick off, but once done, the integration of the paper-based content can be quite simple with a software HR system, for day-off trackers, PTO trackers, etc.

    Some managers argue that paper is no hassle, given the fact that all the printed documents are usually filed in a relevant sequence, more often than not according to the name of the employee. You can, however, maintain this sequence when converting the papers to a digital form to track the information well.

    Sometimes you may wonder why software is essential to management or tracking the leave of employees when you have dedicated HR within your company to keep an eye on the issue. We have some benefits here that you might consider.

    Time and Energy

    At the end of the day, you need your company to run all its operations in a streamlined manner. This means you need to save the time as well as the effort that your employees put into it. When you use the software as your PTO tracker and leave tracker, you can integrate both the payroll systems and the leave-management parts of your company and reduce the double work of data processing.

    Since both payroll and leave-management systems deal with the information of the same employee, it makes sense to have them handled through a database or software instead of having an individual go through different paper files to keep the account.

    You can simply enter the information once and easily track attendance, leave, pay, and all kinds of records. It can automate a lot of the functions that would take hours through the paper system. Sometimes, employees can also enter their details, hence saving time and effort for your HR.

    More Accessible

    Usually, the vacation tracker, PTO tracking software, or leave tracker app can be installed on different devices. When the software is available in the form of an application, for instance, an Employee leaver tracker app or an Employee time off tracker, it is easily manageable through different smartphones, tablets, iPads, etc.

    Accuracy and Compliance

    The computer software or application is likely to make fewer mistakes in terms of calculating payroll based on PTO or leaves than paper leave-management methods. The latter runs the risk of more mistakes occurring due to human error.

    When you are required to stick to paper for handling leaves, it increases the bureaucracy. Someone who wants to apply for leave first has to complete a form, hand it to the manager, and wait for him or her to sign and approve. The manager then has to pass it on to payroll for further processing. This tends to be quite inefficient and risky, requiring additional labor.

    The paper management can require between 73 and 124 minutes, while the software or application will cost you a maximum of 30 minutes. In the latter case, you simply have to make the minimum number of steps.

    Even considering that you make multiple changes, it will take less than 1 minute to update the online form. The system is automated to go into contact with the relevant parties whenever any change arises. The redundant tasks will be avoided.

    If there is an error in the leave management, it can badly harm the business. In the worst situations, business owners or HR can even be sued or fined for miscalculations or underpayments for the smallest of mistakes in timekeeping systems.

    Limited Manual Interventions

    There have been issues faced by several businesses, whereby some people have made unauthorized changes to the leave management system through manual interventions in the paper-based system.

    This results in fraud- employees taking a vacation, a day off, or leave and then removing the record, or taking one day less than how it should be, or manually making changes to the number of leave days available to one individual.

    When you switch to a software or application, this opportunity to commit fraud is easily minimized.

    Transparency

    When you use software or an application to input planned vacations or unplanned leaves, all the data can be accumulated by a comprehensive dashboard. This will allow you to have a clear overview of all the metrics related to the day-offs of your employees.

    There is no way the approval of the managers can be skipped. Furthermore, you can also track if anyone is abusing the policies associated with leave or underutilizing the vacation hours, and even working below standard.

    In short, the application or software, unlike the paper management system, can easily spot the leaks in employee performance or tackle the issues of absenteeism more efficiently. You can also see if your company needs any specific improvement and make changes to the current approach depending on the requirements.

    Customizable for every location

    If you have employees working in different parts of the globe, a free time off tracker or Day Off App can highly benefit both your employees and your company. The free vacation tracker can help both of you keep an eye on the status. These apps can also be customized (with the required settings) for different locations across the globe.

    Furthermore, when you have an overview through the app,

    HR can ensure that key employees plan their leaves at the same time. You can also try to make the settings suited to your preferences.

    Cost

    You can highly contribute to saving on the cost of paper,

    time, as well as disputes arising from leave and vacations of your employees. The cost of hiring extra professionals to run the leave balance or HR overheads can be avoided with the software versions. It can also help to remain fair in enforcing the policies related to PTO and leaves.

    Reporting

    When all the day-offs are planned using the Day Off App or through an employee time off tracker,

    you can have all the employee-related data and company-wide information in one place. Most of these applications come with an integrated reporting module that makes it quite simple to analyze patterns,

    as well as to get the proper insight into the employees.

    Data Loss

    Even if your company goes through an accident,

    like an unavoidable fire or a simple spilling of drinks on the paper lying around, if you depend on software for leave management, you can avoid the data loss. You can store the information in the cloud and access it anytime from anywhere you allow.

    Values

    With software or an application working as a leave tracker or time-off app, you can start to build a strong company culture, where you highlight transparency and compliance as the main factors that cultivate trust among the employees, regardless of who they are.

    You can start to promote other company values based on these aspects as well. If you do not have these strong values, you will soon end up with people working in your business for nothing more than the remuneration.

    Simpler Audits and backward reviews

    You can easily keep an eye on what edits and audits have been made to the different leaves or vacations associated with the different employees throughout your company if you are using the software system. This is quite impossible or difficult to do easily when you depend on paper for leave management.

    You may need to check the archived information, for instance, when making a deal or agreement with an employee or former employee, the employee rights control agencies, or some external parties, by checking your audits. The software can be regarded as a more reliable source of providing this information in the most convenient and fast manner. You can avoid penalties or even earn a better image in the eyes of the investing organizations and individuals.

    Environment

    Paper is better than plastic- we often hear. Indeed. But it is still a waste that needs recycling. Why not go paperless altogether when possible? It will not only minimize the workload of the HR management but also help your company act more responsibly towards our planet.

    You can eliminate unnecessary waste. When converting the paper to digital form, you can decide to remove and get rid of the ex-employee data altogether. 

    A recent report depicted that the negative impact on climate brought about by cutting down over 350 trees, carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, production of solid wastes as well as extensive wastage of water due to office paper use. An honest switch to a software system for handling leaves in your company can help to combat such negative impacts.

    The leave management through software can be seen as an all-in-one hub that can take care of maintaining all the requests relevant to employee vacations, whilst also ensuring that their operations run smoothly.

    To summarize, you can get rid of paperwork, reduce manual interventions, improve communication, get a real-time overview of the status, ensure compliance with the law, and reflect on the organization’s health all at the same time when you use the software.

    Concluding Remarks

    The online or software method of leave management, or a mobile Day of the tracker, can serve as the perfect example of a feature that can perform great in the back-end without any effect or any distinct visibility in the main activities of the company.

    It can serve as the perfect optimization tool for your business, delivering the advantages as discussed in the guide. Once you start trying it out, you will soon realize how irreplaceable this application, Day off, can be and how your company can benefit from it.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

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  • How Poor Leave Management Process Can Affect Your Company?

    How Poor Leave Management Process Can Affect Your Company?

    Leave Management and PTO are two important terms when it comes to employees. Taking time off work allows them to unwind and return to work with newfound energy. However, relaxation isn’t the only reason an employee asks for a leave – it could be an emergency too. Whatever the reason be for your employee to take a day off, absence and leave form an important part of the company’s payroll.

    A leave tracker, also known as a vacation tracker or PTO tracker, can be one of the best ways to oversee employee attendance. Today, we will also be looking at one such software that companies can use to optimize their HR functions in the sector in debate. But, before that, let’s discuss the challenges of the leave management system.

    Challenges of Leave Management Processes

    The HR department can find it hard to gather real-time data via manual paper processes. And even though managing PTO and leave seems to be an easy thing to do, many companies handle it rather negligently. Ignoring this process is a big mistake as it can harm your company’s productivity to a great extent.

    The bigger the company, the more employees. And the more employees, the more traditional paper spreadsheets and forms pose a challenge while reviewing leaves. 

    These days, many businesses have considered and even invested in different software solutions to reduce their HR team’s stress. These tools help automate the lengthy tasks of leave management while significantly decreasing the chances of error.

    Let’s look at the challenges of the leave management process.

    Keeping account of leave

    Employees truly appreciate a flexible employer regarding taking time off work. While that’s convenient for the employees, line managers often struggle to keep track of who’s taking time off work and for how long. The fact that each employee has a different number of vacation days available further complicates the situation. Line managers must then keep track of the remaining days. Believe us, it’s much harder than it seems.

    Leave request reviewing

    If your company has many employees, your line managers will surely grow tired of reviewing multiple leave requests simultaneously. A lot of employees can submit their leave requests at the same time, for instance, a few weeks before a holiday. Some would send it in via email, some through a paper form, and others could verbally request their supervisor or manager for the PTO.

    It goes without saying how hard this job could be on the managers to properly review every request. Adding to that is the incorrect submission of requests. Managers will be less efficient if they have to go through error-filled requests and lose track of pending ones in the middle, setting up the scene for an even bigger issue, such as understaffing.

    Due to such challenges, management would find it difficult to gather the necessary information to plan and implement decisions. Why is this important, you ask? Because the right data gives the management a better estimate of the total picture.

    Distorted data can confuse managers, making them make decisions that might not always be in the company’s best interests. Top management is convinced that the manual mode of data collection is the most effective way, resulting in them losing interest and becoming discouraged in the responsibility. There are many possible negative implications of this for the company.

    This is exactly why a PTO tracking software is necessary. In this digitized world, doing manual work only slows a company down, i.e., a competitive disadvantage.

    Why Employees Don’t Take Leave

    The employees aren’t taking leave and the management thinks that’s great. After all, more work is getting done in the office, right? While it may seem beneficial at first, it causes more harm in the long run. When an employee doesn’t take time off work, it accrues weeks, sometimes even years of leave. This is a major liability to the company because if an employee suddenly resigns, they would have to be paid in a lump sum. Unpaid leave gets registered as a debt in the company’s books and can cause a hindrance if you ever try to sell the company.

    Listed below are two reasons why some employees prefer not taking leave and risk burnout instead:

    They want to seem dedicated: Many call it “office-martyrdom.” A handful of employees want to showcase their dedication and commitment to the job. An employer can resolve this issue by mentioning that they value performance over 100% attendance. Let your employees know that they should take time off work so they can rejuvenate and get back with a fresh attitude.

    They worry about the overwhelming work waiting for them upon return: Employees feel skeptical about leave benefits if they fear their employer will drown them in a sea of work after they return. You, as an employer, should converse with your employees on the first day of their return and provide a sense of direction for the future weeks.

    Negative Implications of Poor Leave Management Process

    Poor leave management can have multiple negative effects on the company, and these are only a few of the many:

    Higher costs

    Your company could be losing money thanks to inefficient leave and PTO management. In isolation, the cost of processing an employee’s updates and leave changes might appear as a small figure, but add that up and the sum will increase significantly. 

    You also have to consider the cost of correcting employees’ or inspection errors in the manual system.

    Disorganized staffing

    When the leave management system does a sub-par job at giving the company insight into how many employees are available, the organization doesn’t have an accurate picture of how many employees can be spared for a particular task. You could approve leaves more than what your business can afford to handle at any given time. 

    In the end, it’s just the higher management panicking due to understaffing before an important project. On the other hand, some companies actually hire more people than required to ward off any possibilities of skill shortage. This phenomenon is termed overstaffing and is an additional cost.

    Legal implications

    Countries vary in their rules and regulations regarding leaves. If a leave management software is ineffective, you may unknowingly make decisions that are non-compliant with government standards. Companies have to pay fines when something like that is reported. 

    Any alterations to the law can be input into the system quickly. An employee leave tracker app automates the manual labor for supervisors and managers, allowing them more time to focus on critical issues at hand.

    Decreased employee morale: Employees will not like it if their leave isn’t approved because your leave management process is inefficient and the policies are vague. Their morale takes a steady blow.

    Low morale makes them lose interest in the work, not to mention the constant dissatisfaction. Subsequently, this increases employee turnover, generating increased costs due to hiring and training needs. An optimized leave management system helps managers systematically review and approve leaves while communicating the leave policies. In some cases, it can also auto-approve leaves.

    Consider a coordinated leave management process as a bridge between you and your employees. It shows that a company truly values it, employees.

    Problem with reconciling leaves

    You shouldn’t depend on spreadsheets and registers for in- and out-time as attendance proof because this data can easily be tampered with. With manual systems, presenting proof gets difficult. Thus, if an employee starts arguing about their leaves, you won’t have enough material to point out their error.

    Even small companies aren’t immune to these effects. You might think that it will be easy to remember how many leaves were taken by an employee but let us tell you, you are wildly underestimating how complex this factor can be. It can cause problems with additional leave approvals and payroll management in the long run.

    Abusing sick leave

    Sick leave is an essential benefit for the employees. However, due to a lack of proper management, many companies suffer from “sick leave abuse.” Not only does this cost a company a large sum of money, but this also decreases employee engagement in the organization. This brings us to the question: Why would employees resort to abusing sick leave?

    If the employees realize that the leave management system of a company is flawed, they will try to take advantage of the poor condition. They actively violate the attendance policy. Two such examples of sick leave abuse are:

     

      • Employee not informing their supervisor or manager that they will be taking a day off

      • Employee not providing a medical certificate where required

    Resource crunch in the time of need

    At any time, if a company isn’t aware of how many employees they have on leave versus how many are available, a pending project deals with the damages. Keeping track of available human resources is crucial for managers – specifically when a deadline is looming over their heads. 

    Project delivery schedules are a good indicator of a company’s efficiency and punctuality. Meeting them on time strengthens company image.

    Employee burnout and overtime: When you are poorly managing the leaves of 10 employees in your company, another 10 are forced to “pick up the pace.” Available employees may be asked to work double shifts, overtime shifts, and postpone any necessary vacation time they would request.

    Overtime costs are a major concern for HR managers and business owners over the world, but employee wellbeing should definitely be the top concern. Employees who are constantly asked to cover extra shifts, work overtime, or quicken their pace because a company is running short on employees for a shift are more vulnerable to burnout. You run the risk of losing productivity as some of the better employees get less efficient over time.

    Burnout isn’t a part of the job – that’s a common misconception used to normalize many toxic traits displayed by employers that forces the employees to distance themselves from their company. In reality, burnout is a result of a lack of support from the management, unmanageable workloads, nonsensical time pressure, unclear job description, and unfair treatment. This chronic problem has cost organizations productivity losses worth billions of dollars worldwide.

    Burned-out employees tend to have lower productivity, higher absenteeism, and more disengaged. They may also call in sick more often. At the end of it all, they might also decide to quit. 

    How to Avoid the Risks

    You can implement an efficient free time off tracker like Day Off to optimize the LMS. It’s time to bid adieu to spreadsheets!

    Day Off is available in two versions – Basic and Pro. You can use the Basic version free of cost while you have to pay just $1 per user/month to get the Pro services. So, Day Off can be a great free vacation tracker for small businesses running on a budget.

    Through the Day Off App, you can create a company profile for free and customize it. The HR dashboard makes it easier for the management to keep track of everything. All leave requests are directed to the right people. Managers can add different types of leaves and manage balances for each one. You can also make announcements and send invites via email and phone.

    A few of the salient features of this unique time off app include:

      • Unlimited employee database

      • Customizable leave types

      • Management reports

      • Calendar view

      • One-step approval.

    For the Pro version, you get all that plus two-step approvals, the ability to create sub-teams and control calendars for those units, reset monthly balance, and more.

    Final Thoughts

    In conclusion, a solid, smooth leave management system can help the employees manage their time better, empower the management, and significantly improve employer-employee relationships. Proper initiatives from the company’s end can do wonders in preserving employee satisfaction. And an employee time off tracker is one of the best things an employer can do in this sector.

    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

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  • HR and Leave Management Tips for Startups and SMEs

    HR and Leave Management Tips for Startups and SMEs

    Leave management becomes troublesome when you are at the first stage of your business.

    Whether you run a startup or an SME, employee management is tough. This initiates urgency for the right HR management tips to maintain the workforce.

    This article will help you step-by-step on setting up leave policies. You can use some outstanding tools to manage better. Keep reading to find out what they can be!

    Tips for HR Management in Startups and SMEs

    Managing people is a hectic task. Even in the smallest company, you will need to maintain your workforce effectively. Otherwise, you might end up losing precious time from your work life.

    So, whether you are a business owner or an HR manager, you should follow some management tips. Here, we have a few HR management tips you can check. These guidelines will make your HR job easier than before!

    Receive Updates on Regular Reviews

    Reviewing the performance of your employees is a must for any HR personnel. We encourage checking up every three to six months. This will allow you to evaluate if the business goals are being met.

    So, you must track the performance and engagement of the team. For this, you can use software to ease the process. Software helps to automatically boost appraisals and update both parties. This will help to increase employee morale and work for the growth of your business.

    A time off app can be very handy in this case. Employees can track their request status in the company workflow. The company can set up the correct amount of workflow for the employees as well. 

    Using a paid time off tracker is much efficient. Day Off has a well-designed time off tracker, which can benefit both employees and HR.

    You might want to use a free time off tracker if you have a very low investment. Still, you won’t regret using one as it balances the workflow much smoothly.

    Secure all the Documents in a Cloud Software

    With the pandemic hitting, almost everyone now works remotely. As such, recording and retrieving all of the working documents became necessary. In this crucial time, you certainly have nothing but to provide extra flexibility to your employees. This means you have fewer options to control the wide range of work.

    In order to synthesize workflow, you must secure all the documents in a cloud software. By accessing the software, the employees will be able to work from home. At the same time, you can supervise how they are working.

    There is a benefit to this idea. Both employees and the authority can access those files whenever they want. This will tremendously boost productivity. Also, it’s easier to measure who is really serious about his/her work.

    Not to mention the benefits, reminders, and alerts promote. You will get your task done at the right time. Time management is safely secured!

    Use Software for Everything

    We all used spreadsheets at some point in our work lives. It’s not really an inconvenience, but you should adopt better measures to make things faster.

    As an HR or business owner, try switching to different management software instead of spreadsheets. This will provide you a huge advantage in the long run. Recording employee information, keeping up with the training schedules, and assigning tasks all of them becomes easier.

    You will be able to save time and focus on other revenue focused work. Also, some software enables users to automate the regular tasks. Tasks will get reduced and you will find the perfect work life balance.

    Maintain Leave Requests Appropriately

    We’ll now introduce the most crucial tip, leave management. Your employees will take leaves. They can either request leaves according to their convenience or the company may arrange some paid leave policies.

    For startups and SMEs, it might be hectic at times to manually manage this. It usually becomes a problem when the workforce is huge and diversified.

    So, the best way to tackle this problem is to use leave management software. For example, the Day Off app allows organizing employee leaves and requests in one place.

    To maintain employee leaves, you can follow the basic steps below:

        • Keep a calendar to update employee leaves.

        • Assign leave allowances for each employee.

        • Use software to track leave requests.

        • Share the leave planning updates with the workforce. It will help to mitigate the upcoming clashes of tasks assigned.

      This is just a glimpse of how to manage leaves in a startup or in an SME.

      Don’t worry, we’ll provide more in depth leave management procedures in the next section.

      Leave Management Tactics in Startups and SMEs

      There is a reason for us to emphasize leave management too much. It’s because employee sentiments and salaries are related to leaves. Whether your employees take a paid leave or an unpaid leave, both will tremendously affect your business.

      And if you are unorganized regarding this matter, it will cost you both time and money. You don’t want that! Do you?

      This leads to the fact that you must devise a full-proof leave management policy. These policies must be in favor of the company as well as the employees.

      While devising these policies, you must keep in mind the following.

          • Employee Salary

          • Performance

          • Appraisals

        Step-by-step Employee Leave Policy

        Set Eligibility Criteria for Taking Leaves

        Before you sanction any leave to an employee, you must ensure if the employee is eligible to take a leave. Not all employees will receive the same facilities. You have to clearly state rules for each position an employee belongs.

        Let’s jump on to the factors that influence Leave Management Policies.

           

            • Leave during probation period

            • Taking leaving while serving a notice

            • Simultaneous leaves

            • Entitled annual leaves

            • Quantum of approved leaves at a time

          Another most crucial indicator is the type of leaves. Every leave has a different pattern and timeline. A maternity leave and sabbatical can’t get the same weightage. So, you must ensure that you are devising the correct policies for each type of leave.

          Some crucial leaves are:

          Statutory leave

          This type of leave is built by the government to provide facilities to the working class. Government and private firms have different rules and regulations to measure statutory leaves. An employee has the right to get these leaves and get paid in due time.

          Maternity leave

          Maternity leaves are for expected mothers. Even after the baby born, mothers get maternity leaves. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) states that US companies are bound to allow unpaid maternity leave for 12 weeks. In this case, the company must have 50 or more employees.

          Paternity leave

          Along with maternity leaves, firms now also allow paternity leaves. It is to encourage fathers to take care of the newly mother in this crucial time. Thanks to Facebook that helped in raising such good initiative. The leave type varies from company to company. In the US, some companies even allow up to 17 weeks of paid paternity leave.

          Bereavement leave

          Companies should focus in valuing the employees’ emotions too. Bereavement leave allows employees to take a week (minimum) leave for the death of a close family member. By being emphatic, companies can increase employee morale and receive better output from them.

          Roll-over leaves

          Sometimes employees work more than their usual leaves. Where every employee has some fixed leaves, some just do their work without hesitation. As they are providing value to the company, they deserve to get a little sensitivity. In other words, companies can issue roll-over leaves for these employees.

          Sabbaticals

          It’s hard to continue job at a stretch. To retain work life refreshments, companies offer sabbaticals to employees. This type of leave allows an employee to take a long-term vacation.

          Structure all these leaves on a week or monthly basis. It will help you to build up a strong engaging management style.

          Now, let’s move on to the real deals!

          Build a Requisition Form

          First of all, let’s be clear what a requisition form is. A requisition form is a document that describes the type of leave an employee wants to take.

          Here, you must include the purpose of the leave clearly. Ask your employee to provide details on his vacation and rejoining date.

          This form will work as a record for the employee’s performance. Also, it can help you to dictate work availability for other employees.

          To sum up, maintain a requisition form to be updates on when and why your employee is taking a leave.

          Grant Leave Approvals to the Eligible Candidates

          Let’s be honest. It’s not possible to provide leaves whenever an employee wants. As the authority you must check if an employee is meeting all the criteria to take a leave.

          Here’s when you evaluate the requisition form, we discussed about earlier. Smaller organizations can authorize about this matter with the help of only 1-2 HR professionals. On the contrary, larger organizations should set up an approval authority for expediting the process.

          You can also keep records using an employee leave tracker app. It will cut your budget and time in case of leave approvals.

          You might have noticed the tech talk a couple of times by now. It’s because we think, incorporating technology to your business can smoothen all your work. Keeping this in mind, we will show you some tracking systems to speed up your leave management techniques.

          Incorporate Tracking Technologies for Leave Management

          A leave tracker is efficient in maintaining leave policies. There are a lot of tracking software which will allow you to document every information regarding leaves.
          Use a vacation tracker when your employees seek long-term vacations. In this case, we recommend for the free vacation tracker to cut the budget. It is mostly useful for small businesses.

          Try keeping a PTO tracking software to ease Paid Time Offs. Day Off has a wonderful PTO tracker tool that helps both the employees and HR professionals.

          Want to know how? Let us walk you through the path in short.

              • As an HR, you first have to download the app

              • Invite all of your employees

              • Provide proper guidelines on how employees can request Time Off and vacations

              • Evaluate the requests. Make sure direct managers are also involved

              • View all the reports and balance workflow accordingly

            Remember, Paid Time Off is only for those countries that support the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Example: The USA.

            Similarly, an employee time off tracker measures the requested leaves. It analyzes employee salaries and appraisals to properly evaluate time off.

            Set the Right Guidelines for Your Employees

            The effectiveness of your leave management techniques depends on the application. You might have several brilliant technologies to support you. What if your employees are not quite clear how to use them?

            Suppose, even if they know how to use them, they are using for personal benefits. They pull out the loop holes which directly affects your revenue. This will be huge threat to your business.

            That’s why, it’s important to set industry level guidelines. You must research the industry norms and then devise a policy.

            The policy must be flexible for employees to increase employee retention. But it can’t be something that jeopardizes your business.

            So, in order to devise a guideline, you must keep in mind the following rules.

                • Guidelines must be bold and straightforward

                • Cut off any ambiguous word from the guide

                • Prepared well-organized documents and circulate among all employees

                • Define the culture, location, location, ethnicity, and diversity of the company in detail

                • Input all the eligibility criteria to take a leave

                • Ensure transparency among the employer and employees

              Final Words

              In summary, using different types of leave management tools can help you to be ahead of the game. You manage your employees well and also save yourself precious time. We encourage applying the techniques above for better results. Only your strategic gestures can bring success to the business.

              Smarter time off tracking starts here.

              Sign up for free
            • Leave Policies Around the World: An HR Handbook

              Leave Policies Around the World: An HR Handbook

              It will be amazing to know how the world is managing its Leave Policies by using the PTO tracking software and Employee time off tracker. With the Day Off App and free vacation tracker, not only is smart leave record and attendance management possible, but the organization can have quick access to all leave and attendance data. Worldwide leave policies almost circulate around eight to eleven heads: annual leave, parental leave, paid time off, sick leave, public holiday, sabbatical, long service leave, vacation, religious holidays, bereavement leave, unpaid leave, compensatory leave, medical leave. Under the above cited heads, worldwide leave policies and their management can be observed.

              Annual Leave:

              Annual leave includes paid time off that an employee can spend freely. Monotonous routine and heavy work load put everyone under stress. That is why everybody needs some vacation annually as a reenergizer .So that he can provide his best input to his organization after refreshing his energies.

              Paid time off boosted the performance of employees. Peru, Algeria and Brazil allow 30 Paid Vacation days to their workers. Russia offers 28 days Paid annual leave to their working force.

              European countries have also set their own standard of leave policies but these vary country wise. As Spain allows 25 annual paid days off to its employee’s .In Portugal 22 calendar days paid leave is guaranteed to the workers. According to the labor law of Egypt,

              there are 21 paid annual vacations. But it is 30 days for the personnel above 50.According to Employment contract Act of Argentina, this leave is allowed for 14 days. Canada guaranteed 2 weeks annual paid off to his employees. But for the worker with 5 year of consecutive working experience, it is 3 weeks. Federal labor law of Mexico grants 9 annual paid days off. In China, a worker can enjoy only 5 annual paid days off during 10 years of service but he can enjoy 1o paid annual leaves during 10 to 20 years of service and it extends to 15 days for more than 20 years of service. USA is the only country in the world that does not gives any annual time paid off to its employees.

              Vacation tracker and PTO tracker software make it possible for the organizations almost in every country to manage annual vacations fairly and easily.

              Parental Leave:

              Parental leave includes paternity and maternity leaves as well as child care leaves. It has its different names in different countries and different standards country wise. In some countries it is non -transferable right of both the parents. Both the partners have individual entitlement of equal leave. But in some countries it is transferable right or the collective family right. Both the parents can use this right equally or according to their suitability. This type of leave is generally considered a leave for child care. It provides equal opportunity to both the parents to care their children. Some countries deal maternity leave and parental leaves as separate heads. In such countries it is mostly availed right after the maternity leave.

              In Australia, according to Fair Work Act 2009, it is unpaid 12 months leave that can be extended to 24 months. But, according to Paid Parental Leave ACT 2010,

              it is eight weeks paid leave but do not extendable. The European Union has set the minimum standard of 14 weeks paid maternity leave in which two weeks are mandatory. But these standards vary among different European countries. As in France, it is 16 weeks with 3 weeks mandatory, in Germany ,

              it is 14 weeks with no mandatory weeks, in Ireland ,it is 20 weeks  it is 42 weeks with 2 weeks mandatory, in Italy , it is20 weeks with 4 weeks mandatory and in United Kingdom, it is 52 weeks with no weeks mandatory.

              The data presents that UK has better maternity leave provisions as compared to its neighbors. According to ILO findings, the United States provides no paid maternity leave under its federal law. But its states have and followed maternity leave policy individually. Contrarily, many Asian countries follow more easy maternity leave policies.

              Time off tracking software make it easily possible to manage the maternity leave both for the employee and the employer. It ensures the direct submission of leave to the right person without bearing any middleman mess. It has removed the issues of all extra submissions. Free time off tracker is also playing its role well and has made it easy to manage the days off for the organization.

              Sick Leave:

              Days off allowed to an employee during their illness for recovery and health care procedure by an organization, company or an institution are called sick leave.

              Such leaves are necessary for all employees and an integral part of every country‘s leave policy. This kind of days off eases the employees during their bad time.

              They feel relax that they are being paid for this time off. They can easily manage their treatments. In case of sick leave employees are urgently required to inform to their employer when they get ill. For prove all medical certificates are required as a proof. 

              Wages are paid to employees during sickness according to law or applicable collective agreements. When the sick leave right is over the employer is not granted with more wages. The employee is also granted the social security benefits by the Social Security Department. According to European Commission, an employee can apply for sick leave maximum for four times in a year. Free Vacation Tracker and employee leave tracker app allow the managers to manage such leave records smartly and sharply.

               Public Days off:

              Public holidays are those leaves that are allowed by every country to its nationals. But the number of these holidays varies country wise. A report of the Center for Economic and Policy Research presents the following data regarding public days off of the different nations. Peru allows 12, Brazil allows 8 and Algeria allows 11 public holidays to their nationals. There is only one public holiday is guaranteed in France. In Russia,

              there are 8 public paid days off. In the European Union Spain grants 14 public days off,

              Austria grants 13 public holidays,

              Sweden allows 11 public holidays and Denmark allows 9 public holidays to their nationals. In Portugal and South Africa,

              workers enjoy 13 and 12 paid public days off respectively. In Egypt, there are 13 paid public holidays. In Switzerland there are 4 paid public days off for the workers.

              Casual Leaves:

              Leaves are that are availed for travelling, taking rest, attending emergency events and managing family events. These are times off taken to manage any life issues. Use of PTO tracker or employee time off tracker can be the best source in managing this kind of leaves. Such app and tracker make the managers to manage the best leave system.

              According to European Commission, it is essential for employees by law to allow every employee a minimum 12 hours leave with pay annually for urgent indoor and outdoor issues. The total hours availed as leave by employee as casual leave for critical family reasons is subtracted from their annual leave right. Contrary wise, U.S federal law do not provide any such paid leave to the employees.

              Medical Leave:

              In Europe, Family and Medical Leave Act grant 12 weeks leave to the eligible workers for his own care, spouse care, parents care or child care. Australia grants full 10 days paid time off with all the benefits. Austria grants 6 weeks medical leave with full salary. Employees can extend their leave by 4 weeks with half pay by providing their medical documentation. Belgium allows one month paid time off in case of any medical emergency to white-collars and 7 days paid time off to blue, collar workers that can be extended up to 2 weeks with 60 pc salary. Canada grants 12 weeks leave but salary depends on the employee. Denmark allowed 2 full paid weeks leave. Finland allows first 9 days with full salary, after that it pay some part of his salary to the employee.

               France purposes a fractional salary, 50%, of 12 months during a 3-year period. 

              Germany awards 6 weeks full salary. If the sickness prolongs, its workers can avail 78 weeks leave in 3-years with 70 percent salary. New Zealand gives a five days salary over the 12 months while the policies vary company wise. Workers in Norway can avail 16 days leave.

              If they are still sick, they can extend their leave up to 52 weeks with medical proofs. Time off app allows the organization to manage such leaves more bitterly. Spain also gives16 days off, but deduct the 40% of the original salary. Most organizations offer up to 20 days at 40% deduction. Though,

              after 20th day, 75% deducted and it can be extended up to 12 months. Sweden lets the first 14 days off. For more days 20 % of salary is deducted and it can be extended up to 364 days. It can be further extended up to 550 days with 75% tax.

              Switzerland allows 3 full paid week medical leave. United Kingdom offers employees 28 weeks off .In case of persistent sickness 13 weeks assessment phase is observed and further decision is taken. Such leave managements have now become very easy with the help of employee leave tracker app and free vacation tracker.

              Bereavement day off:

              Losing closed ones is natural and unavoidable phenomenon of man s life. In such situations employee has to take leave in emergency. There are not much defined policies in most of the countries. Apparently .no clear central policies but on organizational and institutional levels such policies are determined and followed worldwide. Such policies are determined and implemented to console the employee in its grief. These can be paid or unpaid according to the company’s policies. Employee time off tracker is proving best in managing accurate times off of the employees.

              Religious times off:

              Religious paid times off are observed in every country according to their religion and custom. Holidays according to the main religion off the country are the public holidays of that country. But the minorities’ religious days off are not observed as public holidays, those are just granted to minorities according to their religious festivals. And it is obligatory to all the countries to grant the religious holidays to all the majorities as well as minorities.

              Overview of European Commission Leaves Rules:

              Following leave rules are the part of the European Commission leave policy.

                  • 30 days annual leave is allowed but cannot be exchanged by financial compensation.

                  • 15 days leave is allowed for marriage.

                  • In case of any death or accident 2 days leave is allowed, but in case of travel it is 4 days.

                  • 1 day leave is allowed for house shifting.

                  • For antenatal examination .required working hour leave is granted.

                  • In case of hospitalization of newborn, one hour leave per working day is allowed.

                  • Total one hour absence in one working day is allowed for breastfeeding mothers.

                  • For appearing in the court or to jury, required necessary leave is granted.

                  • To perform trade union services according to law required leave is granted.

                  • In all above cites cases, worker is bound to inform to the employer prior to time.

                  • 14 public holidays under European Commission rules as Christmas Day, New year‘s day, national day etc.

                  • Unpaid leaves are also granted as per will of the worker but these are not followed by law. But these times off are recorded properly by the worker‘s organization. For which employees leave tracker apps are being followed by many organizations.

                  • Sick leave rules vary country wise in European Union but many countries are generous in case of sick leaves.

                  • Parental leave is 16 weeks.

                  • Leave for care of family members is also the part of European Commission leave rule policy and it is granted maximum for one year for spouse care, child care or parents care.

                Overview of U.S Leaves Policies:

                U.S is the only developed country that avoids in providing paid family and medical leave because it is generally considered that national level business interests do not let the government to make such policies .As U.S considers that such policies will cause profit loss and it may lower the competence ability. Following holidays are also not considered by the U.S

                    • Any paid sick leave

                    • Not any clear rules for annual holidays

                    • No premium pay for holiday work

                    • No meal or rest time

                    • No immediate pay for urgently discharged worker

                  Overview of Asian Leave Policies:

                      • No overall leave rules are defined in Asia. All leave rules and policies differs country wise in Asia but generous leave policies are applied in Asia.

                      • In Australia 4 weeks annual paid leave, 10 days paid personal leave and 52 weeks unpaid parental leave is granted.

                      • In Indonesia 12 days paid working leave is granted after 12 working months.

                      • In China 5 paid days off are granted during 10 year of working period.

                    By having a view of worldwide leave policies we revealed a new surprising knowledge that how leave policies varied worldwide. But for their quick and smart implications Day off app is always there in every continent, in every country and in every organization.

                    Sign up now for free and get the best leave management experience!

                    Smarter time off tracking starts here.

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                  • Leave Management Tips for Managers

                    Leave Management Tips for Managers

                    In any professional company or organization, members or employees who work in that specific institution have serious concerns regarding their acceptance or rejection of leave. In an employee’s life, leave Management or vacation is an authorized time that an employee spends away from the company, depending on any special circumstances or reasons. Some leaves are paid and some are unpaid. It all depends upon the rules and regulations, and some policies of that company.

                    Representatives and employees of a company who go on vacation come to work with a positive outlook and are charged with taking on difficulties. Giving your representatives an incidental leave from the everyday routine will help advance wellbeing, usefulness, and bliss over the long haul. You can’t anticipate the best from individuals without permitting time to rest and re-energize.

                    Depending upon your request, you might keep on accepting a check and worker benefits during your downtime.

                    Purpose of Leave Management

                    Leave management is a system that handles the duration of an employee, worker, or even an HR manager to run the business and organization smoothly.

                    Leave management is one of the primary responsibilities and an important component of the HR department. Employees also get benefits from the policies and rules of the company.

                    Types of leaves in any professional decorum

                    The sorts of leaves and their accuracy depend upon the rules of a company, and the rules of one could be different from the rules of another.

                    Many companies offer their employees some extra relief in vacations or leaves when the matter is serious, but it overall depends upon the performance of that employee.

                    All nations have work laws that qualify representatives for some sort of leave for various reasons. For managers to agree with the law, it’s important to comprehend the different principles of administering paid leave.

                    But in a general way, the type of leaves that we often see in a company’s main ordinance is given below.

                    Privilege leave

                    In this type of earned leave, employees are given a long time of work. This is also called vacation leave.

                    According to work laws, giving pay to your employees on their leaves is obligatory.

                    However, the policies may differ as the rule of work is different from state to state.

                    This type of leave is determined by the specific number of days but it does not include the off days, holidays, or other days of special occasion.

                    Casual leave

                    Some organizations additionally give a leave type called casual Leave. Such leaves oblige any earnest/unanticipated individual necessities as against privilege leave being arranged leaves.

                    We see some examples of this type of leaves as; if you got dire pipes issue at the house and require half or an entire day of casual leave and set everything straight. If you need to go to the child’s school for some confirmation-related work, then this type of leave acts as the hero.

                    Giving this kind of leave is obligatory in numerous states, yet not so in some different states. There is a consolidated qualification for casual leave in cities like Lahore.

                    Sick leave

                    This type of leave is additionally called Medical Leaves (ML), these are given on the grounds of infection or if there should be an occurrence of mishaps.

                    Sick leave is another regular leave type ordered by the law. As these leaves are inclined to abuse, bosses as a rule look for a clinical declaration if the quantity of long stretches of leave surpasses a few days all at once.

                    In certain cities like Lahore, there is a consolidated privilege for both casual and sick leave.

                    Maternity leave

                    Maternity Benefit Act of 1961 necessitates that, businesses need to give 26 weeks of paid leave to any lady who has worked for at any rate 80 days in a year going before the normal delivery date.

                    While state laws administer the former three kinds of leaves including privilege leave, sick leave, and casual leave, the Maternity Benefit Act is a focal government act.

                    Marriage Leave

                    A few organizations give a unique leave to representatives or employees that are working in their company getting hitched called “Marriage Leave”. The marriage leave award is for anyplace between 1 to 15 days. Be that as it may, most organizations will in general give three days of marriage leave as a standard.

                    The HR office may require either a greeting card or a marriage authentication as narrative confirmation for endorsing the leave.

                    Further, the qualification is for just a single time during the worker’s whole business time frame in the association. Along these lines, in remarriage or different relationships, representatives should use their yearly leave adjusts or even go on leave without pay.

                    Paternity leave

                    Paternity leave is a type of leave conceded to new dads or maybe spouses or accomplices of a pregnant lady, proxy parent, or somebody who embraced a kid to deal with their newborn with no concerns at all.

                    Dissimilar to maternity leaves, new dads for the most part get fourteen days of leave to deal with their kid post-conveyance. A few nations command 1 to about fourteen days of paternity leave for new dads.

                    Organizations seldom give paternity leave to the introduction of their kid since such leaves are not required by law. Nonetheless, it is significant that HRs perceive the burdens of acclimating to the infant and dealing with the youngster in their initial not many days.

                    Bereavement leave

                    Losing a friend or family member is an unavoidable circumstance and on such occasions, workers take abrupt leave. As HR, you need to have a loss leave strategy that furnishes the representative or an employee working in your company with an opportunity to bear their misfortune, deal with any obligations they may have because of the passing, and permit them to request a loss left with no issue.

                    Most HRs give their workers 3 to 7 days as deprivation leave, contingent upon the closeness of the family member.

                    Day Off Leave Tracker

                    This vacation tracker app saves your time and exertion and tracks your group’s absence in one spot or place. All the works that HR managers do, this leave tracker done 80% of that and in seconds you will arrange your leave and excursions approaches. This allows you to taste a unique experience of doing things on your own in a more effective manner and avoid any human error too.

                    A distinct setup for a leave management system for your company

                    In a variety of hundreds and thousands of other systems and management that have their own rules and regulations and policies when it comes to sending and managing leave requests and to keep a balance between vacations by keeping all the data original, safe, and secure, this Vacation tracker has its place in the market.

                    Following each representative’s or employee’s leaves is a hectic task. With the DAY OFF app, representatives can demand leaves directly inside and directors are sent directives for endorsement. When approved, each leave is naturally recorded inside the dashboard with the goal that you can screen the leaves taken and track whether a representative or employee is taking a larger number of leaves than they are qualified for.

                    Policy of leave management

                    The main thing you need to do is find out about laws and guidelines, from the government and nearby authorities, about workers’ privileges, and when representatives ought to be given leave. It also depends upon the rules and policies of the company in which you are working.

                    After you’ve got to know the laws around there, it’s an ideal opportunity to add cutoff times and consider different crises. Crises are something that can occur, and you ought to have an emergency course of action for some normal ones. Some unexpected situations are the most noticeably awful, so you need to arrange your HR’s activities in those circumstances. The last thing you need is to leave your organization ill-equipped.

                    And afterward, cutoff times. Cutoff times are vital and you should set various cutoff times for various situations. The first should be how long ahead of time does the representative needs to demand a get-away. Is it seven days, a month? See what works best, and make certain to tell your representatives about these cutoff times during your onboarding interaction. You can be done this by using the free time off tracker!

                    Likewise, consider the period of the expedition. Could your representatives require three weeks on the double? If not, compose that in your leave the executive’s strategy. That is how there will be a bad situation for shocks as it were.

                    Be aware of the requirement for an all-inclusive getaway. In the case of something occurs, and your worker should remain longer than arranged, be chivalrous. Furthermore, having that alternate course of action can help in these circumstances.

                    Tips for leave management for the employees and managers

                    Leave management is one of the vital duties of HR chiefs and staff. Even though it is a regular undertaking, it is surely not a simple accomplishment. Indeed, numerous HR faculty regularly end up in hot waters with regards to nonattendance/leave the board.

                    The tips that are useful in most companies and professional institutes include the following common tricks.

                    Using leave management systems to recognize the trends

                    If there should arise an occurrence of continuous unplanned leaves of workers, it gets basic for chiefs to follow the nonattendance patterns. Here, having a robotized leave the board framework would be of incredible help. An online leave global positioning framework will help HR supervisors to distinguish patterns at the snap of a catch.

                    Likewise, the PTO tracker online leaves the executives’ framework can be consistently incorporated with a biometric time participation framework or gadget empowering the HR directors to monitor representatives or employees leave in a hurry!

                    Be conscious when you are dealing with some extra leave

                    In a few cases, state or public laws too as your organization approaches could command the privilege to expanded leaves. In this manner, preparing the line administrators in how would they react to such asks for and display sympathy gets vital.

                    Continuously recollect that the approval for a leave in the event of any authentic reasons, for example, clinical or family earnestness lays to a great extent on the director.

                    A negative reaction from the director can enrage the representatives in this manner, bringing about disengagement among workers, the executives, and the managers.

                    Set a realistic schedule that you will get back to your work!

                    By using the employee leave tracker app, you can set your leave schedule very efficiently and nicely!

                    Perhaps the greatest concern is that the more you realize what’s in store, the better it would be for the group. This is the reason it is very significant for HR directors to set practical review of work leave plans for their representatives.

                    For example, if a representative applies for seven days in length for some clinical reason (medical procedure or treatment), at that point setting up a severe re-visitation of the plan for getting work done is essentially a mood killer.

                    Have a plan of in action’ for employee vacation

                    The more your HR administrators know front and center about who is going out, when and for how long, the better it is.

                    This is the reason HR directors should be proactive and smart when managing get-away demands from representatives by using any employee time off the tracker. It would assist them with planning just as a guarantee that usefulness doesn’t go for a throw during top excursion times.

                    Know when to respond to leave requests

                    HR administrators ought to consistently react to free day demands briefly. This PTO tracking software permits administrators to get and accept leave demands in a hurry. Consequently, workers don’t need to trust that ages will get endorsement for their leaves. Indeed, this leave tracker help representative commitment and fulfillment levels incredibly, and furnishing the HR supervisors with the correct apparatus to do this is a genuine mutually beneficial arrangement for everybody.

                    Conclusion

                    The above-mentioned tips would be the best strategies that could assist you to approve your leave request in a very nice and quick way.

                    Moreover, by using these tips, there is a good way to smooth the path of the employee to employee or manager to manager bond and relationship that further supports optimism and even could support long term productivity and approval of short term or long term leaves.

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