Managing Employee Paid Time Off Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult

Managing Employee Paid Time Off Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult

Managing Employee PTO[/caption]Every worker deserves time off, and paid time off (PTO) is one of those perks many companies choose to offer. Reviewing and approving paid time off used to be overwhelming, but with modern tools in place, managers can now focus on more important things.

Similar to traditional leave, with paid time off, employees get paid when taking personal time off, vacation days, sick leave, time off during federal holidays, and parental leave. The only difference with PTO is that employees don’t have to give a reason for taking paid leave.

How much PTO should you offer?

Since paid time off isn’t federally required, you’re probably wondering how much time off should your company offer. Short answer – it’s totally up to you, but in this competitive work environment, providing PTO will contribute to happier, more productive employees.

Statistically, US businesses offer an average of 10 days of PTO per year, while European workers are guaranteed between 20 to 30 paid days off – that’s a whole month off! 

Before you get all envious, you should learn that modern businesses have recently embraced the concept of unlimited PTO, provided that employees still get their work done. It works great for young workers who value their autonomy and flexibility, although many of them end up taking less time off than the average.

How to effectively manage PTO requests

Leave management can become very complicated, especially if you have to handle a high number of employees. Many companies still log PTO requests manually inside a spreadsheet, which makes for an inefficient and expensive process.

If you’re an HR manager in the digital era, you’re probably balancing different types of employees – remote or on-site, salaried, hourly, or part-time. Logging mistakes when managing PTO could lead to unfair payment and open up your company to potential lawsuits.

This is why you need to run a tight ship and have great systems in place. The best way to do this is to establish ground rules and use modern time tracking tools that allow for seamless PTO management.

Define the rules in your employee handbook

Creating a standard policy on taking paid time off is the best way to go, especially if you have many employees and they all come to you with their individual problems and requests.

Inevitably, leave requests will overlap during times like winter holidays, and you’ll be the one prioritizing which employee gets time off. So how do you make that decision?

A few popular policies you could have in place are:

  • First come, first served. This type of policy takes out a lot of the guesswork and makes sure all workers are fairly treated.
  • Seniority-based. Time off is granted according to the employee’s “rank,” although, because of their vital experience, taking time off is not always feasible.
  • Reasons for making the request. Personal reasons such as sickness, burnout, parental leave, or family issues should be discussed and, if possible, prioritized.
  • Flexibility of the request. When completing the PTO request form, employees should mention whether their vacation dates are flexible or not.
  • Taking time off too often. You should set rules to prevent employees from requesting time off too frequently or during times when it impacts productivity.

Your employees may have personal issues, or they may be prone to burnout, and as a manager, you have the final say in allowing them to take paid time off.

But keep in mind that favoritism can get the best of you at times, so use your better judgment and adhere to company guidelines when managing your workers’ paid leave.

Use a tool that easily tracks time off

Time tracking has come a long way. Modern time tracking tools are now indispensable for efficient project management – everything gets logged, and time off is no exception.

Managing Employee PTO

Managing Employee PTO

 

Our leading time tracking tool for Salesforce, PK4 Time Tracker, is built to easily manage PTO days. Inside Time Tracker, the PTO Current Status displays Total Days, Available Days, and Pending Approval Days.

Users can log their desired PTO days by selecting the PTO type (personal, vacation, sick, other, etc.), the start date and end date of their leave, and send it for approval.

Managers can edit total PTO days for their employees and approve or reject requests. The available days get automatically updated as employees use their time off.

This entire process is organized within a simple interface, where you can have a bird’ eye view of your workers’ activity.

Needless to say that this automatic system of vacation management takes a lot of pressure off of HR managers.

There’s no more back and forth communication – all the information is out in the open, and employees can feel confident that they get fair treatment when it comes to their earned paid time off.

As a professional, you can’t run your business arbitrarily. Having a set number of PTO days, establishing a universal policy, and tracking hours, including time off, are all essential to your company’s productivity and your employees’ wellbeing.

Photo by Trend on Unsplash

Why Time Management Is Increasingly Important In The Workplace

Why Time Management Is Increasingly Important In The Workplace

Whether in our work or home life, we all have the same limited amount of hours in the day, and most of us report feeling overwhelmed and rushed. Time management in this era of hyperconnectivity is, essentially, stress management.

So why is time management so important? How can we condense our workdays into short bursts of productivity so that we can enjoy our personal lives stress-free?

Managers worldwide need to solve this conundrum because, according to numerous studies, employees struggle with procrastination, inefficiency, and office hours invading their personal time.

Why time management is more important than ever

Time is money, it’s true, but there are some things money just can’t buy. One of them is your employee’s happiness. We’ve gathered a few interesting facts to shed light on how employees really feel at work nowadays and how it could be impacting your business:

  • Most employees work on weekends. Full-time employees typically work 8.5 hours Monday to Friday and 5.4 more hours per day on the weekend to cope with the increased workloads.
  • Employees are connected to their work 24/7. Surveys show that 66% of workers check their emails 7 days a week and are expected to reply within a day.
  • Employees don’t have enough time to interact with their spouses or children. This explains the skyrocketing divorce rate, and working from home doesn’t shield family members from this. Instead, stress levels rise even more as there’s no clear separation between home and work.
  • Employees dread going to work. 80% of employees hate having to go to work on Monday. By Friday, this feeling of unease only slightly decreases, with 60% feeling the same way.
  • Employees procrastinate to cope with stress. Procrastination increases in lower-income employees and during shorter employment periods. Virtually all employees spend close to an hour on social media or their phones during work hours.
  • Employees aren’t passionate or motivated by what they do. If they had financial freedom, 97% of workers would choose to leave their employer and line of work.

So what does all this mean for your business? Frustration at work can be linked to two major reasons: working too much and not being able to keep up, and working on the wrong things, increasing feelings of futility and dissatisfaction.

This is where smart project management comes in, and it all begins with prioritizing, scheduling, and keeping an eye on how tasks get done.

How to use time management to banish employee overwhelm

Parkinson’s law states that work will expand to fit the time allocated to it. Give employees one important task per day, and it will occupy their entire workday. Give them 12 tasks, and while they won’t be able to complete them all, they’ll finish more than half of them.

Sounds productive, right? Not if you take the employees’ feelings of burnout and overwhelm into account.

Sometimes, the best time management technique is learning to say “no” to adding anything else to your workers’ To-Do list.

So how can you motivate your workers to achieve more in less time? Apply only a few of the suggested changes below, and you’ll be amazed at the difference in productivity and employee satisfaction:

Use the power of scheduling. Planning out the day in detail is the most powerful tool of time management. Delegate your most important tasks for the day and follow along on the progress as employees log their time and work. Time tracking is essential for measuring how effectively things get done, yet, less than 17% of people make use of it.

Using a product like our Time Tracker helps companies keep track of how their employees are spending their time and ensure they are fairly compensated.

Leverage the most productive window. Many workers report working most effortlessly between 9 and 12 AM. By delegating the most strenuous work in the morning, you will already set up your employees’ day for success.

Estimate tasks correctly. We all fall into the trap of underestimating how long a task will actually take, and managers are no exception. If you’ve done similar tasks in the past, you could have a look at the logged time and base your future estimations on reality.

Factor in breaks. Employees aren’t robots, and they need recovery time throughout the workday. Keeping breaks and meal times in mind will take some of the pressure off your workers and show them they are valued. Logging breaks, lunchtime, and even managing paid time off (PTO) are intuitive functions within our Time Tracker.

It’s safe to say that time management is a skill that we’re all struggling to master. When managing our employees’ time, we should have more than productivity in mind. 

Any good leader will first and foremost protect their employees’ emotional and physical wellbeing while challenging them with just the right amount of work. Do it right, and this approach will boost your company’s growth while also making it a coveted working environment.

5 ways to manage your business while on vacation!

5 ways to manage your business while on vacation!

Vacation time isn’t just a perk for employees – business owners and entrepreneurs need a break just as much, if not more. They are a time for spending much-needed time with your family and/or friends as well as for de-stressing and revitalizing yourself, while refreshing your mind with new ideas. But not only is it common for small business owners to not take vacations, they are known to worry when they do take one.

But the fact is that a vacation is one of the best things that you can do for yourself, your business and your customers:

  • A vacation gives you a physical and mental break.
  • You’ll learn that your employees and customers can live without you for a few days. Perhaps, you’ll even discover a key employee who can be your trusted lieutenant.
  • You’ll come back with a refreshed perspective and new ideas for your business
  • Most importantly, you’ll avoid burnout and resentment that can destroy employee and customer relationships.

With all the technology available today, you can thwart vacation anxiety and go on a relaxing vacation with things running smoothly in your absence. Here are some tips to get rid of vacation anxiety while you’re away, whether you’re relaxing on the beach, hiking up those mountains or chasing animals on safari.

  1. Choose the right person to hold the fort for you: The absolute first thing that you should do is to select a trusted employee to stand in for you. Make sure that it’s someone who knows your business well. Ensure that you transition smoothly by going over routine and unexpected tasks with her/him. Figure out what issues constitute an emergency where s/he should get in touch with you right away.
  2. Communicate with your customers and staff: Problems arise if customers expect you to be around but can’t get in touch. Tell them about your vacation plans in advance. Remind them before you leave. Let them know who’ll be in charge and what they should expect. Make sure you tell your employees too. Keep them informed of how much/little time you plan to spend on work-related matters. Clarify your expectations, so that your team knows how and when to reach out to you.
  3. Set boundaries for yourself: Just as you set boundaries for your customers and employees, set boundaries for yourself. Forty percent of travelers agreed that their smartphone was the most important thing that they take on vacation. And that they check work emails often. But let’s face it, it’s not a vacation if you stay glued to your phone all day. If you’ve committed to staying in touch via email every day, pick convenient time slots and stick with it. If you plan on spending an hour every day on work, ideally pick a 30-minute slot in the morning when the rest of your vacation group is getting ready and a 30-minute slot in the evening when you can check emails, calls, chats. Avoid the temptation to check in more frequently.
  4. Manage your phone and email: You may be on vacation, but the rest of your world isn’t.
    • Set up an email auto-responder and a voice mail message clearly stating the dates that you will be out of reach
    • Tell people that you will get back to them after you return if it is a non-urgent matter
    • Make sure that the message has details of who they should get in touch with for urgent matters
    • If there is an issue that you need to deal with, do it in the time that you’ve set apart for work
    • Only respond to critical matters. Make a note of the other matters, so that you can deal with them after you get back
    • If there is something really urgent and critical, then a face to face meeting with your stand-in or other employees or customers may be necessary. Use Facetime. Google Hangouts, Google Duo or Skype for a live video-chat.
  5. Stay in the loop with collaboration tools: If your team uses a web-based collaboration tool such as Trello, Asana, Slack or Evernote, use it to stay in the loop – but within the boundaries you’ve set for yourself. If your team uses project management or time tracking tools, you can check your daily/weekly reports. Again, within the time boundaries that you’ve set for yourself. With access to tools like this, you’ll realize that you can troubleshoot in real time, without being tied to your office desk. And that your business is running just fine.

Running a business on vacation, may be a challenge. But it’s definitely something that can be done. All it needs is some planning and preparation and making use of technology to stay in touch. So if you’re off on a vacation, go on. Have a great time!