Looking for a Holiday Request Form for your team?
Or perhaps how to calculate the amount of holiday someone has left if they have joined part way through your leave year.
The internet is full of basic tools. Free templates for holiday request letters you email to a manager, who then fills in a spreadsheet, after checking a different spreadsheet to make sure you can take the time off. There’s a pleather of pages offering formulas to calculate how much holiday each staff member has left, depending on the hours they work and your standard working week.
The trouble is, these methods are clunky, have numerous pitfalls and take up a lot of your time.
This is illustrated in the animation below. It looks pretty, but shows the number of touch points to get a holiday request approved and in a manual system.
We have a better solution for you.
Imagine, a member of your team would like to request holiday, it’s 8pm and they’re talking to their partner, planning their next trip. They find a great deal, within their budget and somewhere they’ve dreamed of visiting. Opening another tab on their laptop or even using the mobile app on their phone, they can check the amount of allowance they have left, and then request the dates. Perhaps they get a little nervous asking for leave, and you’re regularly reminding them to take it, not asking directly feels much easier for them. Your pre-set approval system sends them a message saying holiday is approved, they let out a sigh of relief, nerves weren’t needed!
Good news!
It’s within their leave allowance, and dates which the company and your department allows.
They book their holiday there and then.
The next morning, you open up your emails to find an automated email letting you know the holiday has been booked, how much leave they have remaining, when checking your calendar, you can see their leave is already in there too! As you catch them walking through the door, you ask then where they are off to this time.
Sound too good to be true?
It’s all possible, I’m going to talk you through why it’s time to switch from endless spreadsheets and holiday request forms to a self-service holiday system.
Get ready for 5 reasons why this will be one of the best changes for your business in the new year.
1 – It’s difficult to track holiday allowances using spreadsheets.
If you’re relying on a combination of holiday request forms, and your staff to fill in a spreadsheet there are so many places this can fall down,
- Staff forgetting
- The document getting lost
- Formulas failing
- The document corrupting
That’s a lot of ways days can slip through the net. If it means your staff aren’t taking enough time off, their mental and physical health deteriorates. In a recent study it was noted that most adults working full time (or equivalent if doing multiple jobs including being the main care giver for their family) need time out every 6 weeks.
There’s a reason children’s school holidays happen like they do! We all need a regular break to perform at our best. This includes what we’re capable of at work.
2 – Get rid of time-sensitive admin in your HR department
It’s another layer of admin to keep on top off. And it’s time sensitive.
Did you know that if a member of staff asks for holiday and you forget to disapprove it in time, they are legally entitled to take it? You must approve or disapprove holiday with at least the same duration notice.
3 – Create time savings in your HR processes
It saves time. Yes, there is a little extra upfront time investment to ensure that your business rules and team rules have been applied to each job role. But with a HR Management for Dynamics 365 solution, you can automate approval based on your business needs. You’ll be notified whether the absence is approved or disapproved, then you’ll be able to discuss it with your team member and find the best solution. The holiday is updated into their calendar and any others for whom it would be relevant too! Saving you additional admin.
4 - Use your HR solution to create happy employees
It creates happy employees and harmonious working relationships by allowing your colleagues to see when other members of their team are off and even work out a substitute for their work if that’s part of your working practices.
5 – Rid your HR department of complicated Excel Spreadsheets, including Holiday Request Forms
No more complicated formulas to understand how much time they have off. This is especially useful if you have staff who don’t work standard hours, or work part time. When you create a profile for each team member, the solution automatically calculates their holiday allowance and how quickly they will accrue it.
If you’d like to find out more about our HR Management for Dynamics 365 solution, including how it can integrate with your works packages and make your life easier, book a 30 minute session today.
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