Spreadsheets and Soft Skills: How Tilt Replaces One and Boosts the Other

We wanted to take this opportunity to issue a sincere, but not-so-formal apology to spreadsheets. There are some spreadsheets out there that do tremendous work (we see you vacation packing lists) and yet over the years Tilt and our customers have had some less-than-flattering things to say about spreadsheets. 

So when we talk about how spreadsheets cause HR teams managing their leaves of absence to react anywhere from keyboard flipping to mild aneurysms, we aren’t directing disdain toward spreadsheets themselves, just the maddeningly frustrating experience of trying to use them to navigate and store data for extremely complicated workflows like LOA management.  

We also want to take this opportunity to talk to managers of employees taking a leave of absence. Managers…we love you. Your jobs are impossibly hard and stressful and we get it, you’re not LOA experts. That said, there are important skills managers need to have when handling an employee’s leave of absence that they aren’t exposed to while climbing the ladder.

Go tab-less with Tilt

Leave dates. Payroll. Tracking multiple employees. Leave Laws. State benefit program deadlines. Yeah, there is a lot to manage when an employee goes on leave. Depending on which systems your information lives in, you might be pulling and compiling from all sorts of different sources that can make your spreadsheets a tangled tab nest of nastiness that you have to navigate every time a new leave pops up.

Tilt removes the need for spreadsheets by providing a single-source-of-truth software platform that’s as intuitive as it is efficient and effective for managing leaves. Not only is everything housed in one place for all necessary stakeholders (i.e. payroll and the employee’s manager) to access insights on a given leave, but you also have dedicated Tilters there to help answer any questions you or your employees taking leave may have. 

Our customer success and leave success managers are both backed by payroll specialists and leave law experts to ensure that when you hand off your leave to Tilt, all your leave woes go the way of the spreadsheet; bye-bye.

The hard truth about soft skills

Soft skills are like Maybelline, some managers are born with it…others have some makeup (puns are fun) to do. One of the most important obstacles Tilt faced when developing the industry’s best leave management solution was figuring out how to break down stigmas and eliminate bad habits from employers.

While managers continue to be one of the leading causes of employment law violations, many times they don’t even know they’re acting outside of accordance with the law.   

Educating managers about harmful stigmas and assumptions around taking a leave of absence is a way to level up the soft skills required to handle an employee going on leave. In this regard, the manager plays a vital role in the efficacy of a leave of absence. 

Throughout the leave journey, Tilt provides managers with education about the specific leave their team member is taking, as well as things they can and can’t do, or can and can’t say to their employees before they take a leave, while they’re on leave, and when they return from leave.

Pre-Leave: Tilt provides education to each manager so they can successfully support their employees
On Leave: Tilt offers guidance on what managers can and can't say while an employee is out on leave
Returning to Work: We customize every leave plan so when an employee returns to work they feel supported in the ways that matter to them.

Tilt makes life easier for everyone

Tilt’s holistic approach to leave of absence management means that People Teams are free to ditch the spreadsheets and focus more on the work they love, employees are given the TLC that matters when they need it most, and managers are educated on how to be better managers throughout the journey (and also help mitigate potentially costly lawsuits).

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.

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