Mirror mirror on the wall, why does leave of absence management make me bawl?
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Hello?
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Hey mirrrrror. You still there my lil’ ovular reflective buddy?
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Kind of need an answer on this one…any day now would be great.
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*Sigh* Another product that doesn’t deliver on its promises…typical.
As an HR and People Ops leader, you’re frequently put in a tough position. It’s your responsibility to provide the best support possible for your employees and help drive your organization’s business objectives forward, but sometimes that requires relying on more than your grit, creativity, and ability to map out and execute a strategy.
The truth of the matter is that sometimes you have to rely on software to achieve your goals, and that requires trust that the software you invest in actually does the job you need it to do. Perhaps no responsibility is more susceptible to sending your strategy sideways than a leave of absence management software that does only some of, or perhaps none of, what it promised you it could do.
By taking an honest look at modern leave management software, you can uncover where exactly your current solution is falling short, or if you’re looking at implementing a dedicated leave management software for the first time, the functionalities you should make certain it delivers on.
How Modern Leave Management Software Can Help People Ops
Emphasis on the word “can” here, modern leave management software can promise administrative relief and employee support, but it needs to not only promise much more than that, it needs to actually deliver.
When evaluating stand-alone leave management software solutions, here’s what you need to take into consideration.
Software that Manages All Leave Types
When evaluating a dedicated leave management software, make sure that it can, and does, manage all types of leave for you. Questions you should ask are:
- Can it be customized to manage your organization’s specific leaves of absence policies?
- Does it cover intermittent leaves?
- Is it staying current with federal, state and local leave laws?
- Is it able to navigate leaves that change part-way through a leave (i.e. a parental leave that turns into a bereavement leave) or have the ability to accommodate obscure leave scenarios?
A modern leave management solution worth its salt not only needs to be capable of managing all leave types, but it also needs to be able to administer the leave process for your employees consistently across the board and across the country.
Automate Administrative Leave Management Tasks
When it comes to leave management, we don’t need to tell you that the list of administrative tasks that HR and People Ops pros are saddled with is lengthy. That’s why being able to manage all leave types is so important. If your current solution can’t handle all leave types, you’ll still be stuck with the manual administrative tasks you have today.
That’s assuming the software actually automates all of your administrative tasks in the first place. Identifying a solution that manages all leave types and automates things like employee eligibility, deadline reminders, leave tracking and payroll (more on that later) is vital to improving the level of service you’re providing your employees and increasing your capabilities to optimize your operations as a department.
Leave Management Solutions that Integrate with HRIS
The importance of your leave management solution talking with your HRIS can’t be understated. Supporting leaves for your organization requires an accurate representation of your employee population, which as you’re well aware changes over time and can do so rather frequently. An employee you supported last year in California who now lives in New York may have drastically different requirements for their leave of absence.
Your dedicated leave management software needs to be able to pull data from your HRIS on a regular basis to ensure the demographic data is accurate at all times. Without integration with your HRIS, your leave management software is operating without outdated information that’s getting more outdated by the day.
This is a critical process to effective leave management that can’t be ignored. Without it, you still may be manually pulling data from your HRIS for each leave, which can slow down your operations tremendously and put your organization at risk of clerical errors.
Provide Employee Leave Support and Work with Carriers
“Employee support” is an ambiguous term that gets thrown around with about as much clarity as “it’s on our roadmap” and “innovative.” So what should you look for when a leave management software says they provide employee support?
- All the questions employees were sending your way? A dedicated human handles them, not a 1-800 call center where it’s a robo-operator and new “representative” for every call.
- They work with the STD carriers for you and your employees to help ensure coverage questions get resolved on time should they arise.
- Empathy. Leaves are a human experience that should be handled by humans who are empathetic to your employees’ leave situations.
- Included in the process. A successful leave shouldn’t isolate employees from important parts of the process like applying for state benefits. If a 3rd party manages this for employees there are serious compliance risks and employees can be put in a compromised position (more on the risks of 3rd-party form filing here).
This is why it’s so important to dig into what your leave management software means by “employee support.” It’s one phrase that can have a drastic effect on how your leaves are managed and your employees are supported.
Compliant Leave of Absence Management
Compliance is another term that gets bandied about and can make or break the efficacy of your leave management software. From data security, to consistently administered leaves, to educating managers, to always being current with the latest leave of absence laws around the country, vetting a modern leave management software’s definition of “compliance” is vital.
Questions you might want to ask a vendor are:
Is the software administering leaves in accordance with the latest leave laws?
Are they SOC II compliant?
Is their data encrypted?
Is the way they house sensitive information and documents secure?
Do they actually have leave law experts in-house?
Do they educate managers on how to not cause employment violations?
Compliance isn’t a “nice to have” when it comes to leave of absence management. Your leave management software should be taking it as seriously as your compliance department is.
Ensure Leave Management Payroll Accuracy
Speaking of taking things seriously, payroll accuracy is of the utmost importance to both your organization and your employees on leave. Paycheck uncertainty is a major concern for your employees who may be worried about whether or not their taking a leave of absence will impact their ability to pay bills.
When most employees are used to a steady paycheck, it can be unsettling when now their pay is potentially reduced or is coming from multiple sources like your STD carrier, a state benefit program, and your payroll department.
Similarly, your payroll department will need accurate information about how much your employees are getting paid, and from where so they can ensure they aren’t overpaying or underpaying your employees.
Ensuring payroll accuracy not only makes life better for your employees but can save your organization major dollars and excruciating headaches, so it’s important that your leave management software provides accurate payroll data, auto-adjusts any for prorations or shifts in leave details, and clearly breaks down how your people are being paid.
Tilt’s Approach to Modern Leave Management Software
The foundation of Tilt as a leave management software is to ensure that everything mentioned above is not only a top-priority promise, but a top-priority delivery.
For starters, Tilt customizes leave plans to accommodate and manage all types of leave and can incorporate all of your organizational policies. You can take a walk around the platform to see how it works for yourself.
From FMLA automation to HRIS data transfers, we ensure employee demographic data is always current and that the entire leave journey process is automated. You’ll always have a window into every step of every leave should you want it, but Tilt removes all of the administrative burden you used to have to deal with.
Our dedicated Leave Success Managers (LSMs) are that. They’re dedicated to your employees. This means that the Empathy Warrior (what we call them here) your employee meets when the leave gets underway is the same one they’ll have when the leave ends and the employee is reintegrated into your organization. They can call, email, text…no more inbox questions you aren’t quite sure how to answer. And yes, our LSMs can work directly with your carrier, no matter which carrier you use.
Our in-house team of leave law experts live and breathe leave. They don’t just respond to shifts in leave laws, it’s their passion and hobby (they’re kind of nerds like that, but that’s why we love ‘em )to be aware of what’s coming on the horizon well ahead of time. Our platform will always be current to the latest leave laws, and our support team will always have the in-house experts to provide the guidance that will keep you compliant. As for our tech’s security, you can read all about it here.
Lastly, payroll. We automate payroll calculations, adjust for potential updates, and even give platform access to your payroll team (don’t worry, they’ll only see what’s necessary for payroll purposes. We clearly break down how much your people are getting paid, and from where, so there’s never any question or uncertainty about how much they can expect to receive.
To put is simply, modern leave management software needs to make sure your operations are running smoothly and compliantly. Your employees need to be empathetically supported and your burdens need to be removed. It needs to accomplish this for all leave types, and do so consistently.
About Tilt
Tilt is leading the charge in all things leave of absence management through easy-to-use tech and human touch. Since 2017, our proprietary platform and Empathy Warriors have been helping customers make leave not suck by eliminating administrative burdens, keeping companies compliant, and providing a truly positive and supportive leave of absence experience for their people.
