In a perfect world filled with puppies and…more puppies, money would be no object and your People Team tech stack would efficiently handle all of your least favorite to-dos. If you’re like most, managing leaves of absence is near the top of that list. In this perfect world, you’d have ample time to focus your time and energy on the parts of your job that bring you the most joy, like supporting your people in ways that truly matter to them.
In the less-than-perfect world we live in filled with budget approvals and decentralized systems, however, it’s critical to be able to convey how streamlining your leave processes can not only free up your bandwidth, but also provide a real financial boon for your organization.
Where to Begin: Run a Systems Audit
Whether you have multiple systems in place to effectively manage your leaves or you have one system in place that doesn’t manage all leave types, auditing the effectiveness of your current systems provides a great opportunity to consolidate your solutions, reduce the number of vendors you’re currently on the hook for, or at the very least get a single solution in place that can handle all the leaves you need to manage.
With an average of over 16 HR systems within an organization, you can have a real positive impact on your org’s financials by streamlining your leave process and reducing the number of platforms you use to manage your leaves.
Compliance Risk Mitigation
Streamlining your leave process with the right solution can also have an impact on mitigating compliance risk. The more convoluted your leave management process is the more likely you are to have a serious compliance risk on your hands. Managers are one of the most frequent perpetrators of employment law violations, for example, so overlooking their involvement in a leave of absence could be costly. How costly?
The average cost to defend an FMLA lawsuit can run your company is $78,000, damages typically ranging from $87,500 to $450,000 (yes, they can go even higher than that) for employers found liable for wrongful termination related to FMLA.
Having one system in place to handle leaves of absence while keeping managers educated and in the loop not only makes life easier for you and your employee taking leave, it also mitigates major compliance risks that can lead to serious financial impact for your company.
Maximize State Benefits
Without a streamlined process for you to manage leaves and for your employees to take a leave, you might be missing out on paid state benefit programs. If you work for an organization that fronts 100% of your employee’s paid family leave, having employees apply to programs like California’s Paid Family Leave (PFL) program, for example, could be a $1,540 windfall per week for your company.
If you’re currently taking advantage of these programs then you know each one evolves over time, and tracking employee progress when applying for them can lead to administrative migraines. Without a system that makes it easy for employees to go through an up-to-date claim filing journey the chances for employees not getting paid properly go up, as does the likelihood your company won’t be capitalizing on the financial perks of paid state benefit programs.
This becomes even more important to your org’s bottom line as more and more employers embrace the mobility of their employees and you have to manage leaves in new states.
Time is Money
Just because a trope is overused doesn’t mean it isn’t packed with truth. In the corporate world of tracking hours and proving ROI, it oftentimes can be tricky to quantify the “R” when the “I” is time and not actual dollars. And yet if you’re spending hours every week managing an ever-growing list of leaves the connection between time and money becomes quite clear.
By prioritizing the removal of administrative burdens surrounding leave management you are quite literally saving hours in your work week. That’s real, tangible financial impact on your business and allows you to spend those hours doing impactful work for your people that you actually enjoy.
Money Burn Over Turnover
Having a decentralized leave management process doesn’t only impact your day-to-day, it can also negatively impact your employees’ leave of absence experience. When an employee feels dissatisfied with the way in which they’ve been able to transition from work to life and back to work again, the job hunt is more likely to begin…if they come back after their leave at all.
A study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) revealed that it’s the equivalent of six to nine months of an employee’s salary in order to find and train their replacement. It can’t be overstated how important it is to ensure your leave management process runs smoothly not just for you, but also for your employees taking leave who deserve the best support and who you’d rather not have to spend the time and money to replace.
Streamlining Your Process Makes Cents
By tracking leaves in one system that supports your people, ensures compliance, makes applying to state benefit programs a snap, keeps managers from accidentally breaking the law, and frees up your valuable time, you’ll be dramatically improving the leave experience for you and your people while making a positive financial impact for your company.
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.
