Leave Management

Leave management (a.k.a. time-off management) is the process of managing time-off requests — such as holidays, sick leave, vacation, emergencies, and parental leave — through a series of policies, guidelines, and rules that are specific to your business.

One of the most important aspects of leave management is to organize and handle everything in a fair and accurate way so that your team members receive the benefits to which they are entitled and your business continues to run smoothly when they’re gone.

Leave management involves four key activities:

• Manipulating staffing requirements to keep your business functioning
• Ensuring legal compliance
• Verifying adherence to business policies
• Maintaining employee satisfaction

That’s a lot for one person to handle. If you’re an owner/manager who does it all, we suggest starting a human resources department — it can be an individual or a team — or outsourcing the leave management to a trusted and professional third-party (much like many do for payroll).

Regardless of whether you control it yourself or contract it to a partner, here are some tips to keep in mind for running a successful leave management program.