Vacation Tracker for HR

Listen up, CEO's!  There's one area you're likely burning excessive human resource hours. It's PTO accruals and vacation tracking.

All Employee's Need a Vacation

Don't feel bad; most companies do it.

You've got a spreadsheet with rows for each employee, and columns for each reason they can take time off, right?

Screeeeeech!  Stop right there. That's where you're burning rubber every month. And you're introducing human error without even realizing it.

"Spreadsheets are the worst tool for PTO and time tracking"

Scroll down below this video, and let's talk.

Why does tracking vacation in a spreadsheet burn admin time?

Mostly because you're updating it to keep up with monthly accruals. Every month (or perhaps even weekly) employees earn new hours. And they earn those hours for more than just vacation. There's sick time, personal, training, FMLA, bereavement, and others. Your spreadsheet has to account for all the hours for all the reasons for all the employees.

"What if I mess up?"

If you mess up, you're working things out verbally. That's not only burning admin time, it's burning employee work time.

Spreadsheets are tempting, but the only thing they do well is compute numbers with formulas. They don't do all the other periodic accruals, so you end up burning admin and employee time just to keep up with those things.

Not a great idea.

How can tracking PTO be automated?

Here is a list of just some of the things an automated PTO accrual system can do (on it's own, without human intervention).

1. Add new hours to employee banks for each time off reason
2. Subtract hours when they use their time off
3. Prevent hording vacation hours (and then ransoming them for money later)
4. Send email notification when employees take time off
5. Send email notifications when managers approve time off
6. Reset hours at the beginning of the year (use it, or lose it policies)
7. Prevent too many hours from being taken, when they have not been earned yet
8. Prevent taking time off during special "blackout" periods
9. Show employees when their time off overlaps other employees
10. Show employees which meetings they will miss during their time off

"That's a huge list!"

You may be doing all these things manually right now. Or maybe just some of them. If you are, HR is burning way too much admin time.

"I think we can find a way to save money here"

How much time should I expect to save?

Total up the number of hours you spend on each item above. Is it ten hours per month? How about 50? There are anywhere from 176 to 184 working hours per month. You're probably burning somewhere between 5 - 30% of them on vacation tracking and PTO accruals alone. Automate that process, and expect to save $2,000 a month in manual labor.

"Eeesh, we hired somebody just to handle PTO"

Integrated with the timesheet

It turns out that ST is not just a vacation tracker. (Download here and see) There's an employee timesheet too. And here's what's cool about that. The time off tracker is built right into the timesheet. See the partial screenshot below.

The timesheet (as shown above) is displaying project time right next to time off. Employees see both next to each other, and in the totals at the bottom of the timesheet. That means you can manage your project time alongside PTO.

"Sweet deal!"

 This article Vacation Tracker for HR was first seen on http://www.stdtime.com