It’s not you, it’s not us, it’s more like being stuck with the status quo that’s to blame. A comfortable slow dance with the way things have always been done, and regardless of if your toes are constantly getting stepped on any time you inch towards departmental progress, most organizations stay married to the idea that any change is scary.
Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re being bogged down by repetitive tasks and antiquated systems until we step back and see other people with much more attractive solutions and how happy they seem. Change shouldn’t be viewed as scary. Change in the workplace is necessary for company progress, increased productivity, and employee satisfaction. In the case of you and your team’s daily workflow, there’s a good chance your Human Resources or People Ops departments are in need of a major glow-up.
How to get rid of repetitive tasks from your workflow
When it comes to completing work objectives every organization, and everyone within that organization, operates a bit differently. So the first step to living your best life is to take stock of how you plan, prioritize, develop and execute the work that’s required of you and your team and start there.
For the sake of choosing an undeniably convenient repetitive scenario given that you’re reading a blog written by a leave of absence management company, let’s take a look at the repetitive tasks involved with leave of absence management. It’s a function that all HR and People Ops teams are required to manage, and it’s rife with repetitive tasks that are likely hindering your productivity.
- Leave eligibility: Every leave journey starts with determining whether or not the employee is eligible for leave based on both company and legal criteria. This can range from verifying their length of service, hours worked, or may require medical certifications depending on the type of leave.
- Leave tracking and monitoring: Once a leave is approved, you’re now responsible for keeping track of leave start and end dates (and if you’ve managed leaves before, you know these can change like the wind blows), how much leave has been taken, when applicable state benefits start and stop and more. This typically is managed in a tangled nest of Excel spreadsheets that require repetitive data entry and QAing and troubleshooting.
- Communication and documentation: Your employees have questions, you may have answers. And whether or not you have the answers at the ready, you’re still responsible to communicate with your employees to help guide them through the twists and turns a leave can take. Since personal information and legal liability is at stake, you also need to keep conversations and personal information documented and securely stored. Doing this on your own is time-consuming, repetitive, and tedious to keep organized.
- Coordination between employees and managers: Managers are great at a lot of things, but leave experts they are not. When managing a leave of absence it’s vital to inform and educate both the employee and their manager on the rights and responsibilities of both parties every leave. By doing this manually you not only have to repeat the same information over and over, you also run the risk of not having a standard and consistent approach to employee/manager communication which can get you in legal hot water.
- Payroll and benefits administration: Payroll is perhaps one of the biggest repetitive task pain points when it comes to managing a leave of absence. Changing start and end dates and pay rates are just a few of the adjustments that you’re required to handle on the fly to make sure your employees are getting paid the proper amount and that your organization isn’t overpaying.
- Compliance verification: Different states have different laws, and even some cities within those states have different criteria companies need to adhere to (we see you San Franciscans). It’s on you and your team to ensure every leave is being administered in accordance with the law and when that process is manual it’s frequent Google searches and prayer sessions hoping that you’re keeping your organization compliant.
The purpose of this exercise isn’t to tell you what you already know, but to show that just by looking at a common leave of absence process today, there are six (and truthfully there are many more) repetitive tasks that are likely hindering you and your team from doing more meaningful work.
It’s time to evaluate just how many repetitive tasks you’re currently going steady with, and to consider trading in the old way of doing things for a new model that treats you how you’re meant to be treated. The truth is that from onboarding to talent acquisition to performance management, your team’s day-to-day is filled with repetitive tasks that today’s technology can take off your plate so you can be your best you and free up bandwidth to accomplish the initiatives that matter most to you.
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.
