Challenge: As a growing organization with over 1,000 employees spread across multiple states, leave management had become a complex and time-consuming burden. Juggling various state laws, multiple types of leave, and limited visibility created inefficiencies, frustration, and compliance risks for the Total Rewards team and employees alike.
Solution: Partnering with Tilt gave the team real-time visibility into leave status, simplified compliance with multi-state leave laws, and drastically improved the employee and HR experience.
Results:
- Fewer missed state and disability applications
- Better alignment between HR, Payroll, Managers, and Business Partners
- Reduced errors in leave pay
- Centralized access to real-time updates for everyone involved
Keep reading to see how this team took control of complexity and finally got the clarity they needed.
Navigating Complexity as Leave Volume Grows
Leave management had always been part of the job, but for this Sr. Manager of Total Rewards, it didn’t stay simple for long. “A handful of leaves can be managed relatively easily,” she said,
“but as volume increases there are employees in different leave stages and keeping on top of the process becomes very difficult.
As employee headcount and geographic spread increased, the systems in place struggled to keep up under the weight of complexity. “Multiple leaves happening simultaneously in various states” had become the norm, and the team found that a few cases were manageable, but the moment volume picked up, visibility and consistency was hard to come by.
The biggest challenge? Keeping up with different state laws and leave programs, and trying to maintain accuracy as employees moved through different leave stages. “Keeping on top of the process becomes very difficult,” they explained. The team was also dealing with a frequent issue where employees simply didn’t know they needed to apply for state or short-term disability benefits leading to delays, stress, and lots of cleanup on the backend.
Leave Visibility Problems Trigger a Tipping Point
There was a clear moment when the team realized their current setup wasn’t cutting it. “We found that keeping everyone looped in on the process; Business Partners, Payroll, Managers, and Benefits, was not smooth,” they shared. The lack of visibility wasn’t just an HR problem; it was impacting the company’s ability to fully support employees during important life events.
That tipping point led the team to explore new solutions, and they were quickly drawn to Tilt. Unlike other platforms, Tilt offered a centralized portal where “everyone involved in the process could utilize the portal and have access to the same updates on leaves.” It wasn’t just a software upgrade—it was a complete shift in how leave could be managed collaboratively.
A New Standard for Leave Accuracy and Employee Experience
Since implementing Tilt, the impact has been both immediate and long-lasting. One of the most notable improvements has been the reduction in missed applications for state and short-term disability. “The number of employees missing state and short-term disability applications has decreased,” they reported, a sign that both employee education and process clarity had dramatically improved.
The payroll team also saw big wins. With direct access to leave data exports from the Tilt portal, processing pay adjustments became easier, faster, and more reliable. “Managing through leave cases where employees had multiple sources of benefits was tricky,” she recalled. “Trusting that Tilt is stacking these programs properly has made that process less difficult for us.”
That trust has been critical, especially when employees fail to submit paperwork correctly or miss application deadlines. In the past, those errors could result in employees waiting weeks for their pay; a stressful and avoidable scenario. “The major stressor was on employees…they could end up waiting weeks for portions of their pay.” But with Tilt, not only is the accuracy “significantly increased,” but the number of pay-related errors has also been “reduced significantly.”
Supporting Real Life Beyond Traditional Policies
The team also acknowledged how Tilt supports leave experiences that don’t always fit neatly into traditional policy boxes. The company already offers coverage for circumstances like caregiving and pregnancy loss, and Tilt has made a meaningful difference in how these more sensitive leaves are handled. “The main impact has been trusting that the process is explained and employees have access to the resources they need to go on leave.” That kind of trust, both in the platform and in the process, goes a long way in supporting employees through some of life’s most challenging moments.
Tilt: A Platform Built for Clarity Amid Complexity
Tilt didn’t just patch a broken system, it elevated the entire leave experience. From increased pay accuracy and fewer missed applications to improved visibility and empowered employees, Tilt proved it could bring vital visibility into a complicated process. “We’re still involved in the process, but in a much more meaningful way,” she adds.
Managing leave at scale doesn’t have to mean sacrificing precision or experience. With Tilt, this media company moved from reactive problem-solving to proactive support, and in the process, gained back time, accuracy, and peace of mind.
Tilt delivers where legacy systems fall short: making it easy to keep everyone aligned, every regulation accounted for, and every leave taker supported from start to finish. It’s not just about leave, it’s about providing the confidence for HR to focus on what they do best: caring for people, driving strategy, and leading from the front.
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.
