When HR leaders talk about their biggest challenges, “leave” often comes with a sigh. Not because supporting employees during life’s most vulnerable moments isn’t important – it’s because the systems and processes surrounding leave have been stuck in the past. For too long, leave has been managed through outdated outsourcing models and tools that remove HR from the experience, mask compliance risks, and leave employees feeling like a number in a system.
It’s no wonder many companies describe leave as “chaotic,” “confusing,” or “compliance roulette.”
But here’s the thing: leave is too important to be handled this way. It touches moments that define lives – new beginnings, sudden crises, long recoveries, and everything in between. And when companies fall short, the impact isn’t just administrative – it undermines culture, damages trust, and pushes talent out the door.
That’s why we believe leave deserves its own category: Leave Experience Management (LXM).
The Illusion of Easy
Traditionally outsourced models often sell an “easy button” for HR. Just hand over leave and it will be taken care of. But beneath that illusion lies a reality HR leaders know too well:
- Employees are left in the dark about their status.
- Managers struggle to support team members without clear visibility.
- HR loses control of compliance, all while the risk is still theirs to carry.
As Jen Henderson, Founder & CEO of Tilt, puts it: “Leave gone wrong ruins lives.” That’s not hyperbole – it’s the real consequence when an employee facing a health crisis, a new child, or an unexpected family emergency feels unsupported by the workplace they’ve trusted.
Listening to HR, Building for People
After managing more than 32,000 leaves, we’ve learned that HR teams don’t actually want to be removed from the process entirely. What they want is relief from the endless paperwork, compliance traps, and repetitive questions that come with leave administration.
“What made now the time for us,” says Jen, “putting it very simply, we were listening to our customers. They were telling us, we would really like for this to be less painful. The wishlist was curated and vetted and verified, and we looked at this list of jobs to be done and thought, man… this feels like the designing of a whole new category.”
That new category is Leave Experience Management (LXM).
Why Leave Experience, and Why Now?
Three forces are colliding in HR today:
- Shifting Employee Expectations – Employees expect transparency, empathy, and personalization in every interaction at work, including leave.
- Mounting Complexity – State-by-state regulations, overlapping federal laws, and shifting organizational policies make compliance a minefield.
- Technological Breakthroughs – AI and automation can finally take on the heavy lifting, freeing HR to focus on the moments that truly matter.
As Jen explains: “We kind of saw all the components of this recipe, and we’re like – we can do this. We can do this now, so let’s move quickly.”
Designing for Wow, Not Parity
This isn’t about copying what’s already in the market. In fact, Tilt isn’t interested in feature parity at all.
“I almost wish I could calculate the number of times somebody says, wow,” says Jen. “That’s the bar we’re holding all of this functionality against. We want users to look at a feature and say, I never knew you could do that before. This changes the game of leave.”
That’s the opportunity with LXM: to move past the patchwork solutions and create something that inspires confidence, clarity, and yes – delight.
What LXM Makes Possible
At its core, LXM is about shifting leave from being a burden to becoming a strategic advantage. Here’s how:
- Own Your Culture – HR remains central to the leave experience, ensuring employees feel supported by people they know, not faceless systems.
- AI Handles the Admin, Not the Human – Automation takes care of paperwork, compliance, and repetitive questions, while HR builds trust through personal conversations.
- Compliance with Confidence – Instead of outsourcing risk into a black box, HR gets visibility, transparency, and knowledge at their fingertips.
The result? Employees experience clarity and empathy when they need it most, while HR teams gain confidence and control.
The Future of Leave Experience Management
This moment in HR is historic. For the first time, we have the technology to hyper-personalize leave, the market demand to move past outdated systems, and the cultural imperative to treat leave as a cornerstone of employee well-being.
As Jen puts it: “There are a lot of companies in this country that don’t have leave support. Our intent is to widen the aperture, to help more organizations who have been inundated with legislation, complexity, and shifting employee expectations. They need help! And we want to meet them where they’re at, with configurability that uniquely solves the problem.”
That’s the heart of LXM: creating access, clarity, and humanity where it hasn’t existed before.
Introducing Tilt: The Leave Experience Platform
Tilt exists to humanize the leave experience at work. We built the first platform designed for LXM because we believe leave shouldn’t be an afterthought or an inconvenience. It should be trusted, seamless, and human.
By automating the admin with AI and surfacing the right guidance at the right time, Tilt gives HR visibility and control while keeping employees supported every step of the way. With Tilt, leave is no longer a disruption – it’s a defining moment for culture and care.
Leave deserves better. HR deserves better. Employees deserve better. That’s why Tilt is here.
