As an HR leader you walk a fine line every day. You and your team need to be hands-on with employees while ensuring that essential administrative tasks don’t eat up every second of your time.
Nowhere is this balance trickier than in leave management, where there is so much oversight asked of you and so many to-dos that need to be to-done.
So is it possible that having more visibility in the leave process could actually mean less work for you?
True, HR teams need to stay informed on all things leave, but you and your team can no longer afford to drown in spreadsheets, compliance concerns, and never-ending email conversations.
With the right approach to leave you can take a step back from the manual grind and still stay on top of everything leave-related to ensure a smooth leave experience for everyone.
The Great Leave Management Balancing Act
It’s not controversial to say that you’re at your best when you’re guiding, supporting, and advocating for employees, not getting lost in the black hole of administrative paperwork.
But leave management is such an administrative beast, isn’t it?
It’s a nasty nest of legal compliance, payroll calculations, benefits tracking, and employee communication.
Managing it all in-house is simply asking for trouble. Outsourcing everything isn’t the answer either because you simply can’t turn a blind eye to such a critical function of your organization.
Employees on leave still need a trusted internal resource to turn to, and you know your people and company culture better than any third party ever could.
So how do you strike the right balance of relying on a leave management vendor without relinquishing control?
The answer lies in better visibility. Ensuring you have clear, real-time insights into leave data without being buried under it.
Leave of Absence Transparency Without the Chaos
Instead of scrambling to track down payroll calculations or cross-check leave benefits manually, technology should provide you with instant access to all the critical leave information you need right at your fingertips. You can see what’s happening, but you’re not the one pushing every button or answering every question that inevitably pops up.
A tech-powered leave management system should provide:
- Real-time dashboards that show the status of every leave case
- Clear pay calculations so you can verify accuracy without redoing the math
- Automated compliance tracking so you don’t have to Google “leave laws by (insert state you’ve never stepped foot in here)” at 11 PM
- Employee-friendly tools so your people can self-serve the easy stuff, but have 1-1 human support from leave experts instead of pinging you for every nuanced question that pops up.
With the right technology, you can step out of the weeds and focus on what matters most, being a strategic partner and trusted resource for employees.
Leave Management: Where You Should Lean In (and Where You Shouldn't)
You should always be part of the leave process, but not every part. There are two key areas where your time is best spent:
- Supporting employees: Your role in leave should be focused on the human element. Helping employees transition smoothly, answering big-picture questions, and keeping company culture strong.
- Big-picture strategy: Your focus should be on trends, forecasting, and optimizing policies and your workforce. With strong visibility into leave data, you can analyze patterns, improve workforce planning, and ensure policies align with business needs.
On the flip side, there are areas where technology and automation should do the heavy lifting:
- Personalized leave plans
- Sending reminders to employees about important dates
- Payroll calculations and adjustments
- Adhering to the latest regulations regardless of location
- Leave tracking
- Secure document collection
When these areas are automated and accessible, your team isn’t removed from the process, you’re just freed up to be more effective where it really counts.
The Leave of Absence Confidence Factor
If you’re like most HR pros, a big part of the stress around leave management comes from uncertainty.
Did payroll calculations get done correctly?
Are you compliant with state and federal leave laws?
Is the employee getting the right benefits from the right sources at the right time?
Without transparency, you’re left second-guessing and double-checking everything.
But when you have confidence in your leave management process to deliver accurate, consistent leave support, and you can see each step in an employee’s leave process, verify details at a glance, and trust that compliance is built into the process, you can finally step back without worry.
And that’s a game changer.
More Leave Management Clarity Without the Burnout
The ultimate goal of better leave management isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about empowerment.
You shouldn’t feel like you’re constantly putting out fires or stuck in an endless loop of administrative tasks. Instead, you should be positioned as a strategic business partner, equipped with the tools and data to provide your organization with clarity, support, and actionable employee insight.
Tilt’s leave management platform gives you the visibility needed and the automation required for efficient, effective, and consistent leave management. With intuitive employee support and all the information you need in one easy-to-use platform, Tilt’s leave solution ensures compliance, reduces HR’s workload, and with 1-1 human support to answer any questions delivers the best possible experience for employees.
By embracing leave visibility, automation, and strategic involvement, you can finally shift from managing leave to leading it, without adding to your workload.
It’s a win for HR, the employees you support, and your entire organization.
So, does more visibility in leave management lead to less work for you?
With the right tools in place, the answer is a resounding yes.
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.
