The holiday season is approaching and for many organizations that can mean conflicts with scheduling and an increase of PTO requests. With kids off school, family in town, and employees planning trips back home, you can expect most your workforce to submit leave requests and take advantage of your PTO policy. With that said, meeting your staffs’ requests can be difficult since your organization’s operations will likely continue as normal. Here are some ways you can handle the holiday PTO stress while keeping your employees happy.
Plan in Advance
If your organization will be closed during certain days of the holiday season, or have different holiday hours, let employees know well in advance. One of the most important things to do to avoid scheduling and PTO conflicts is asking employees to request their time off as early as possible. This gives your organization ample time to determine what responsibilities must be covered while certain employees are out of the office and who is able cover those responsibilities in the mean time. By doing this you will be able to better prepare your organization for staffing gaps.
Be Flexible
Children’s school events, guests arriving early, and unexpected sick days are bound to happen during this time of year. Being able to accommodate your employees for these things by letting them work remotely, make up the hours, or allowing them to take the time off with no questions asked will make them feel valued. In return, employees will have a sense of appreciation for your organization and will feel a sense of responsibility in achieving their goals when they get back from their leave.
Manage Time sheets
Having an automated time and attendance tracker makes a huge difference during the holiday season. Addressing missing punches before payroll deadlines and sending automated reminders for timesheet submissions will give you more time to focus on what really needs to get done around your organization. Along with managing timesheets, absence management is easier than ever with tools like electronic leave requests, workflow approvals and full visibility into leave balances. Having the ability to view a calendar graph representation of which employees on your team have approved or have pending leave requests for the current, past, and future months will help you manage those requests all year.
Employee PTO is a critical benefit for employees, but handling leave requests can be stressful and chances are you won’t be able to please everyone. Helping eliminate these problems by using a time and attendance system to better manage absences and time sheets within your organization will give you ample time to prepare for the necessary accommodations during this increase of requesting time off.
This DATIS Blog was written by Dana Ciarlariello, DATIS, on November 13th, 2017 and may not be re-posted without permission.