Updated on October 27, 2025
The Manager Visibility Gap in Leave Management
Imagine this common scenario: A valued employee requests a leave. Their manager, overwhelmed and lacking context on policy or process, rejects the request immediately. No clear reason, no coordination with HR, just a quick “no.”
For many HR teams, this scenario is painfully familiar. Managers face immense pressure to keep their teams productive. When they operate without real-time information about who is out, when, and what the plan is, missteps are inevitable. This lack of visibility quickly turns the HR team into a reactive help desk for every leave-related emergency.
Why Managers Struggle: The Leave of Absence Visibility Void
Managers typically don’t intend to mishandle leave, they’re simply trying to manage their priorities with limited bandwidth. Allison Whalen, CEO of Parentaly, shared in a recent panel discussion:
“For the person going on leave because they’re expanding their family, this is their number one priority. For the manager, it’s like number 19 on their list. It’s never going to be number one. And so even good managers, they’re just never going to spend all the time figuring out how to be an expert in handling this thing that happens once or twice every few years to them.”
Leave management is inherently complex, highly personal, and unpredictable. Few managers ever gain proficiency in it. Without access to real-time information—like leave timelines, transition plans, or key policy milestones—they’re left to guess.
This guesswork has immediate consequences: Managers repeatedly contact HR for basic details, or they make decisions that contradict policy. Jessica Winder, SVP of People at CoLab, notes:
“HR can enact all the policies they want. If the manager is saying, we don’t care what the policy says, we’re going to do X, Y, and Z, the culture is going to flatline.”
Equip Managers for Empathy and Consistency
While you can’t create a flowchart for every human emotion, you can provide the systems that ensure consistent, informed decisions. Consistency is the foundation of an equitable and compassionate leave experience. Justin Clifford, CEO of Bereave, speaks to this:
“They say you can’t SOP grief. While I get the sentiment I tend to disagree. The SOPs are the things you should consider doing every single time…making it an equitable journey for all.”
Managers don’t need a detailed script for every scenario. They need the right context, clear steps, and a complete picture of what’s happening. Equipping them with this information encourages them to lead with empathy.
“Train managers to lead a little bit with empathy,” adds Justin, “and a whole lot of understanding what’s available and that human touch is going to surface pretty quickly.”
This is where HR leaders can shift their focus. Instead of manually managing every step, you can implement systems that support both employees and managers without overburdening the People team.
The Risk of Excluding Managers from Leave Conversations
A common, yet damaging, misstep is cutting managers out of the leave conversation entirely in an effort to reduce legal risk. This strategy backfires quickly and hurts retention.
As Jen Henderson, CEO of Tilt, points out:
“We have seen companies take the posture of risk aversion to the point of excluding the manager from a leave conversation, which is always damaging, always.”
When a manager is sidelined, the employee on leave often feels like a burden, and trust erodes. The manager, left in the dark, may mishandle the employee’s return-to-work or inadvertently alienate their team.
That’s why visibility is an essential for a seamless experience, not a luxury.
Empowering Managers Without Creating Leave Experts
The goal is not to make every manager a leave expert. Instead, it’s to empower them to show up better for their people.
“Please don’t expect them (managers) to know exactly the right thing to do,” adds Jen. “Instead, empower them to say, ‘You know what? I don’t know the answer, but I’m going to find out and I’m here to help before trying to guess what the right thing is.’”
Empowerment means allowing the manager to participate meaningfully without draining HR’s bandwidth. By providing controlled, role-based access to leave timelines and status updates, managers can:
- Plan workload redistribution ahead of time.
- Support re-onboarding with intention.
- Ensure a consistent employee experience.
These focused moments of support matter. A written re-onboarding plan, a welcome-back note, or a dedicated colleague for re-entry shows employees that their experience was considered and valued.
“I would really encourage everyone to encourage every manager to build a written re-onboarding plan when folks come back from any type of leave,” says Allison. “You wouldn’t believe how good an employee feels from that.”
The Strategic Impact of a Positive Leave Experience
A positive leave experience is a fundamental driver to heightened retention and company culture. When surveyed on workplace culture, a significant majority (83.4% of employees) valued a positive work environment, and 68.1% indicated they were more likely to stay if their employer prioritized work/life balance.
Leave is a foundational, make-or-break moment in the employee lifecycle. Handling it poorly risks disengagement and departure. Handling it well strengthens the employee-employer bond for the long term.
How Tilt Empowers Managers in the Leave Journey
At Tilt, we take the weight off HR’s shoulders by delivering real-time visibility into team leaves without giving managers unnecessary control over the compliance process. Managers see only what they require: leave dates, return plans, and re-onboarding details—nothing more.
This clear, controlled access achieves three core outcomes:
- HR focuses on strategy instead of fielding repetitive questions.
- Managers support their people with empathy and confidence.
- Every leave journey feels consistent and connected, eliminating guesswork.
Managers cannot unilaterally deny a compliant leave request. By equipping them with the right tools, they won’t feel the need to.
Interested in empower your HR Team? Book a demo today to see how we can help.
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.
