How to Keep Track of Employee Time Off: Simplify Your HR Processes

Effective workforce management is crucial for any successful business, and a key aspect of that is understanding how to keep track of employee time off. Today’s hourly workforce values benefits, including paid time off, as much as their wages. These benefits are directly connected to work-life balance and well-being. So, businesses know that providing paid time off is a key component of their retention strategy, and managers must address leave requests fairly and consistently.

But, there are many seemingly conflicting issues regarding time off. Managers are challenged with balancing business needs with employee time-off requests while ensuring fair and timely approvals to avoid perceptions of favoritism.
This isn’t just about ensuring everyone gets their well-deserved breaks; it’s about driving productivity, maintaining budget adherence, and boosting employee morale. Legion Workforce Management Software enables you to manage all time-off requests simply, fairly, and accurately by automatically computing accrual earnings based on flexible distribution rules. Let’s take a closer look.

Why Tracking Time Off Matters

First, let’s discuss why mastering how to track employee time is so essential. Imagine the holiday season in a new retail location, which is expected to see a lot of foot traffic in the coming weeks. Management is scrambling to collect and approve time-off requests to craft a perfect holiday shift schedule, while employees are anxious to nail down their vacation plans. It’s a recipe for disaster, potentially leading to an understaffed store, unhappy customers, and unnecessary stress.

This scenario highlights how crucial accurate, easy time-off tracking is for operational efficiency. It enables you to anticipate and manage absences, ensuring smooth workflow and business continuity even when some team members are away.

This directly impacts productivity as well. Having a clear view of who is out and when enables better task delegation and efficient resource allocation.

Proper paid time-off tracking allows businesses to respect their employees’ earned time and actively promote its usage, leading to a happier, less stressed, and more productive work environment.

Embracing Technology: Automated Time-Off Tracking Systems

An automated system that tracks PTO requests and approved time off is important when managing employee satisfaction, operational efficiency, and cost reduction.

Our 2024 report on the State of the Hourly Workforce highlights two main challenges hourly employees face: inconsistency in hours and a lack of control over their schedules.

Legion Time-Off Management enables you to manage all time-off requests simply, fairly, and accurately. Employees can request time off in the Legion mobile app or on the web console, making it a self-serve, simple experience. Employee adoption is easy because time-off requests are made using the same app employees use to check schedules and record time worked.

Time-Off Management makes it easy for managers to see which employees already have approved time off, ensuring adequate coverage. When coupled with Legion Automated Scheduling, approved time off is automatically factored in during schedule generation, so employees aren’t scheduled during that time.

The Advantages of Dedicated Software

There are a myriad of time and attendance tracking software options available. Selecting the right software depends on your specific business needs and goals.

1. Reduced Administrative Burden

One of Legion Time-Off Management’s most significant advantages is automating otherwise tedious manual tasks. For example, once time off is approved, a shift is automatically opened to replace the employee.

This frees up valuable administrative time, allowing your HR and management team to focus on more strategic initiatives instead of constantly updating spreadsheets and managing leave request forms.

2. Real-Time Visibility and Control

Legion WFM provides a centralized platform where employees can submit time-off requests and easily keep track of time-off balances.

Meanwhile, managers gain a real-time overview of approved and pending requests in a single location. This visibility facilitates better workforce planning and decision-making.

3. Accuracy and Compliance

Automated systems drastically reduce the margin for human error, leading to accurate record-keeping. This is especially valuable for maintaining compliance with labor laws regarding working hours, breaks, and various types of leave.

Legion Workforce Management Software can also set different accrual rates for various types of time off based on employee type. This allows you to easily enforce probation periods, maximum carryovers, and reinstatement rules.

Businesses can also open a bidding window, allowing employees to bid on vacation time within a specified period. Vacation time can then be allocated based on factors such as seniority and other predefined rules, including limits on how many employees in a specific role can be off simultaneously.

A Holistic Approach to Time-Off Management

Efficient time-off tracking isn’t merely about implementing a system; it requires cultivating a company culture that encourages a healthy work-life balance. Here are a few ways to ensure a smooth transition and widespread adoption.

1. Promote Open Communication and Transparency

This fosters an environment where employees understand the paid time-off policy, feel comfortable submitting requests, and are informed of their balances and approvals. Managers can also ensure all requests are approved fairly and promptly based on set rules to avoid potential perceptions of favoritism. Transparency is key to a healthy PTO policy.

2. Establish Clear Time-Off Policies

Clear policies should encompass accrual rates, request procedures, approval workflows, and blackout periods. For example, will you offer paid holidays, sick leave, or volunteer hours as part of your PTO policies?

These policies should be documented and easily accessible to all employees. For example, with Legion Frontline Communications, you can link to important policy docs within employees’ portals, making them easily accessible from their mobile app.

Clear communication of policies helps avoid misunderstandings and potential disputes while enabling you to integrate them more accurately within your chosen time-off system.

3. You Choose Where to Manage Accruals

Legion Accruals allows you to easily comply with labor laws and business processes using your HCM system for accrual balance tracking or Legion as the record system.

Legion Time-Off Management allows you to handle your accruals and time-off requests directly or import accruals from your HCM solution into Legion WFM. This approach enables you to manage your rules for accruing time within your HCM system while providing a streamlined experience for employees to request time off through Legion WFM. Balances are uploaded into Legion from your HCM system. Time-off requests occur in Legion WFM and are routed to managers for approval. Once approved, Legion can automatically offer the newly opened shift to best-fit employees.

Intelligent Automation Intelligent Enough to Boost Employee Wellness

Understanding how to keep track of employee time off efficiently and respectfully is vital to a thriving and productive workplace.

Choosing Legion WFM to track employee time off and integrating it effectively into your company culture can significantly benefit both your employees and your business’s overall success.

Schedule a demo with us today. Together, we will help you devise a plan to demonstrate the value you place on employee satisfaction and overall well-being.