How University of Toronto’s MD Program Improved Leave Management with PurelyHR

We’re proud to serve clients in a wide range of industries and help businesses around the world improve their leave management processes with our industry-leading HR tools. 

We recently had the privilege of chatting with The MD Program at the University of Toronto, one of our many post-secondary education clients, to discuss how they’ve improved their leave management since implementing PurelyHR in 2013.

Industry-Leading HR for a World-Class University

The University of Toronto is regularly recognized as one of the top universities in both Canada and the world. The MD program at U of T is no different. Their program was ranked sixth in the world for clinical, preclinical, and health programs by the Times Higher Education 2019 subject rankings. 

We were delighted to have the opportunity to speak with Gina John, Director of Operations for the MD Program. With strong leadership, Gina has successfully managed a broad scope of business areas, including human resources, financial resources, operations, student services and strategic planning.

With approximately 70 staff in the MD program, it’s safe to say Gina had her work cut out for her. Enter PurelyHR!

Simplified Leave Management

Gina describes their previous system set up as “impossible.” Using an SAP platform was standard at her organization, but with the size of the MD Program, managing time-off became a full-time position.

As you can imagine, Gina needed help with leave management and her story is one we know well. We’ve helped thousands of companies all over the world take back their time and simplify their leave management with our Time-Off™ module. 

The Benefits of Leave Management

The MD Program at U of T has now used PurelyHR since 2013 and uses it in both their administrative offices and for tutors within their clinical program at one of their academy sites.

Gina has noted major benefits in four key areas.

Improved transparency

Gina tells us that since starting to use PurelyHR, transparency has really improved around their time-off policies. Employees can now quickly see a snapshot of their leave entitlement at any time by logging in to PurelyHR. This makes for fewer time-off disputes and better understanding and communication of their policies.

Rockstar reporting

Reports were a must-have for U of T. With a range of automated reports included with Time-Off™, Gina can quickly pull reports on pending requests, balances used, month-end summary reports, and more.

Reporting gives her invaluable data in a flash and helps her recognize time-off patterns faster than ever before.

Shared leave calendar

We were excited to hear about how much Gina and her managers love the shared leave calendar. A favourite feature of many of our clients, the calendar gives them a snapshot of any given day, week, or month with a clear picture of who’s in or out of the office.

This is super helpful for Gina and her team and helps them ensure they’re properly staffed at any given time. 

Support with smile

Finally, Gina spoke highly of our Customer Success team. She had an issue with her banked time policy, but the issue was quickly resolved by our awesome experts.

We offer unlimited technical support with all of our plans at no additional cost. Plus, we offer a free 1-hour onboarding call to ensure your account is set up how you want it.

Thanks for the wicked feedback Gina! Our Customer Success team thinks you’re pretty great too!

Improve Your Own Leave Management

Since implementing PurelyHR, Gina and the rest of the MD Program at U of T have had an easier time managing their time-off policies. No more policy abusers, no more delays on request approvals, and they absolutely love the day-to-day snapshot of who’s in and out!

Want to know more about the benefits of automating your leave management? We saved Biodynamic Research Corporation up to 8 hours every week. Check out their customer success story to find out how they went from spreadsheets to automation with PurelyHR!

Ready to see how you can improve leave management (and other HR processes) at your own organization? Start a free 21-day trial today!

Originally published April 16, 2018. Updated January 9, 2020.