Why Compliance Can’t Be Left to Spreadsheets, Guesswork, or Gut Instinct
If you’re an HR leader overseeing leave of absence across multiple states, you’re not just managing logistics, you’re walking a compliance tightrope.
It’s a true highwire act trying to balance between federal mandates, state programs, municipal ordinances, and company policies. Factor in the fact that leave needs can shift midstream (say, from caregiving to bereavement), it’s not a question of if something will fall through the cracks, it’s when.
For too many organizations, the only net below that tightrope is a spreadsheet or an old system with limited automation and visibility acting as a blindfold.
Let’s call that what it is: risky, outdated, and a recipe for sleepless nights.
You’re Not Just Managing Time Off, It’s an Evolving Leave Law Labyrinth
Thirteen states currently have some form of state-mandated leave.
That’s over a quarter of the country, and the list keeps growing. But don’t let the number fool you, each of those 13 has its own rules, requirements, timelines, and definitions. And to make it extra fun, none of the states are consistent with each other and change year-to-year.
“There are tens of thousands of different leave combinations,” said Jen Henderson, Founder and CEO of Tilt, in a recent conversation with Bereave CEO Justin Clifford. “So we are continually flabbergasted as to how many big companies manage leave in spreadsheets, or whiteboards, or any 1995 tool you want to throw at it. It’s become completely untenable.”
Consider a situation where your team is based in Indiana, but you’re managing leave for an employee in California. Suddenly, you’re fielding questions about job protection, partial wage replacement, documentation requirements, and overlapping eligibility, all under California’s notoriously complex web of leave laws.
Meanwhile, the leave itself may evolve. What starts as a mental health leave could shift into caregiving, or bereavement, or both.
If you’re using a spreadsheet or cobbled-together workflow, every twist in that leave journey becomes a potential compliance misstep.
And here’s the kicker: this isn’t static. “It’s such a dynamic space,” Henderson explains. HR teams are “having to comb the legal updates and they’re having to stay up to date on these changes.”
The Hidden (And Not-So-Hidden) Cost of Getting Leave Laws Wrong
You might think, “We’ve been getting by with our process so far.” But getting by doesn’t mean getting it right.
Henderson has seen it time and again, even knowing that HR teams have the best of intentions: “It has become more the norm than the exception that HR will say, ‘I’ve been doing this wrong the whole time.’ We completely understand why, but we don’t need to do that anymore. It’s litigiously risky. It’s compliance risky. It’s financially risky. And not to mention all the human elements.”
When policies are misapplied or deadlines are missed, companies expose themselves to lawsuits, fines, and audits. But the impact runs deeper. It erodes employee trust, strains HR teams, and often results in unnecessary turnover.
Built-in compliance isn’t just about keeping regulators happy, it’s about creating clarity, consistency, and confidence for both your HR team and your employees.
Spreadsheets Don’t Scale Leave Law Protection, Technology Does
Let’s face it: the stakes are too high, and the landscape is too dynamic, to rely on human memory or fragile formulas to manage leave. Manual methods weren’t built to scale with a workforce that spans states, or with a legal landscape that shifts as often as leave itself does.
That’s where technology comes in. When compliance guardrails are baked into the system, HR can stop being reactive and start being strategic.
Modern leave technology “has very direct-line impacts to reduce administrative burden…compliance risk, and the dollars and cents associated there,” says Henderson.
Instead of worrying if you missed a new city ordinance, a tech-forward platform can keep you compliant with the latest regulations. Instead of manually calculating entitlement changes mid-leave, the system can adjust automatically. Instead of hoping someone remembered to inform payroll, notifications and workflows can be automated.
Built-in compliance means you’re not playing catch-up. You’re leading with clarity.
The old way of managing leave simply can’t provide the assurance HR teams, and the organizations they support, require in the modern world.
How Tilt Makes Leave Compliance Less of a Maze (and More of a Map)
Leave of absence compliance shouldn’t require a legal degree or a leap of faith. Tilt’s platform is purpose-built to manage the messy realities of modern leave, codifying all of the complexities so HR teams don’t have to carry that weight alone.
Because we’ve seen it: the overwhelmed HR manager juggling multiple cases across different states. The spreadsheets that break. The sticky notes that miss something critical or peel off the monitor and into the trash. And the moment someone says, “Wait…have we been doing this wrong the whole time?”
And leave management is only one of the countless responsibilities HR teams manage.
Tilt eliminates compliance concerns across federal, state, and local laws, for all leave types. Tilt even adjusts when a leave type changes mid-leave, and provides consistent guidance to your team, your managers, and your employees.
No guesswork. No scrambling. Just clarity.
Because at the end of the day, compliance isn’t a box to check, it’s the foundation of trust, safety, and operational confidence.
Leave law certainty starts where manual processes end. And Tilt is where that certainty begins.
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.
