Time management
PTO payout: All you need to know
Learn about PTO payout, its benefits for employees and employers, and how to create a compliant and effective PTO payout policy for your organization.
Discover the importance of vacation trackers and how tools like PurelyHR can streamline leave management, boost productivity & enhance employee well-being.
With summer fast approaching, vacation tracking becomes even more important to take care of. To avoid any confusion, errors or stress, you need to know how to manage your employees' vacations properly. That's where vacation tracking tools come into play, making them a real ally for managers, human resources staff and employees alike. To effectively manage both summer and year-round vacations, vacation trackers can really improve processes.
What is a vacation tracker?
A vacation tracker can really change your internal vacation request process if you know how to use it properly. But you need to know what it really is to make good use of it. Basically, it's a tool that is used to keep records, track and document your employees' time off. This kind of tool is essential in an organization's human resources management to know when and for how long an employee is on vacation. It usually also lets you know how much vacation days each of your employees is entitled to. This kind of information is vital for businesses and that’s why vacations trackers are so important.
Formats of a vacation tracker
- Manual follow-up: This method is more often used in smaller teams or informal environments. Requests for time off can be made by e-mail and then recorded in a simple shared calendar or agenda.
- Excel vacation tracker: This solution may be suitable for some companies, as it allows them to organize vacations by employee and track balances, requests, dates, etc. It is also possible to add formulas to automatically calculate the number of hours, for example. This method is therefore more customizable.
- Cloud-based vacation tracking software: Vacation tracking software is the most efficient way of keeping a company's vacation records. This type of software automates all the tasks involved in leave management, making the process much simpler and faster. It also centralizes all employee data, providing a clear overview at all times and reducing the possibility of errors.
5 signs it’s time to upgrade your vacation tracking system
1. You spend a lot of time answering your employees' questions
When you receive a lot of questions from your employees about their leave requests or the number of days they have left, it's a good sign that your vacation tracker methods may no longer be up to date. Lack of transparency regarding leave updates can make employees dependent on human resources, which can become restrictive in the long run. With an efficient vacation tracker, everyone can check their balance in real time, making the process more efficient for everyone.
2. You juggle several files to avoid mistakes
Do you often end up with multiple versions of your leave request files and have trouble finding your way through all the paperwork? This is a good sign that you could optimize your vacation tracking methods. The more files you have, the more likely you are to make mistakes. A real tool lets you centralize data and update it automatically with little effort.
3. You anticipate vacation periods
If major vacation periods like summer or the end of the year cause you stress, it may be a good indicator that you're not using the right tools for your vacation tracking. Overlaps, oversights and poor overall visibility can be a source of stress when it comes to vacation management. However, by using the right tools, these practices shouldn't be so stressful and are much easier to manage.
4. Approval and long response time
Another sign that your vacation tracking methods are ready to be optimized may be that your approvals and response times to vacation requests extend over long periods. A high-performance tool lets you do all this in a matter of seconds, so you don't drag out these tasks for too long.
5. You have made, or come close to making, a considerable mistake
To make mistakes is human, but when several errors continue to accumulate around vacation management, and this affects the efficiency of your work or leads to frequent oversights, it may be time to change tools.
Benefits of using a vacation tracker
Vacation trackers offer a few important benefits to consider when it comes to managing employee leave.
Better productivity
With an efficient vacation tracker, approvals and leave requests can be made in a matter of seconds, not only improving the efficiency of the administrative staff who handle them but also simplifying the process for employees who want to request leave. So, a task that used to take HR staff several steps to complete, now requires just a few quick and simple steps.
More transparency
Vacation tracker tools provide employees and managers with greater visibility when it comes to time off. As a result, there is greater transparency and fairness when it comes to leave management within the company. It can also contribute to less favoritism and greater clarity for team members.
Employee well-being and independence
Employee well-being is always an important aspect to consider. Indeed, a vacation tracking tool that is easy for employees to use can make their process more enjoyable. What's more, they gain independence by being able to see their vacation balance for themselves. Facilitating internal processes helps create a healthy working environment in which everyone feels comfortable using the tools at their disposal.
More notifications, less forgetting
Another interesting aspect of vacation tracker is the possibility of receiving more notifications regarding leave requests and approvals, which means that forgetting is much less frequent. This can greatly help administrative staff to do their jobs efficiently, while ensuring that employee requests are not lost in the shuffle.
Why choose PurelyHR as a vacation tracker?
PurelyHR's Time-Off module makes vacation tracking very easy by automating tasks and offering you several features such as customization of policies, reminders, pre-built reports and more.
Easy to use and automated
PurelyHR automates all tasks related to vacation tracking. It allows, among other things, to automate policy changes, balance renewals, accruals, approvals, and more. In addition, the PurelyHR interface is very intuitive, which makes it very easy to use. In just a few minutes, employees and managers will be able to use it without too much fuss.
Less mistakes
With a tool like PurelyHR that automates vacation tracking, there are much fewer small errors that can slip into the leave management process. So, HR employees no longer have to spend hours going through paperwork to find errors that could have been forgotten. Their task is once again simplified.
Centralized date
All data related to request histories, approvals, remaining balances, leave types, etc are all in one place. This allows HRs and managers to have an overview of their teams and make better decisions for the benefit of their employees.
Efficient tool
PurelyHR is specifically designed to simplify leave management and make related tasks much more efficient. It is useless to spend many hours on these processes when everything can be done so simply with tools that are made to do so.
Vacations trackers are a real asset for companies when it comes to managing vacations. Software such as PurelyHR can optimize your vacation tracking experience and make your tasks much easier and quicker to complete through automation. See for yourself by trying Time-Off for free for 21 days or sign up for a demo for more information.
