While it’s easy to track time off for your employees who get paid by the hour, things get a bit more complicated when it comes to doing the same for your salaried employees. In most cases, salaried employees have a certain number of paid days off built into their contracts. However, without a paid time off tracking system in place, you may not know how many of those paid days they’ve taken. That’s where paid time off tracking software comes in handy.
What is Paid Time Off Tracking Software
One of the most common ways businesses track paid time off (PTO) is through the use of a spreadsheet. You or someone in the HR department would put the employees’ names in one of the cells and then start marking the dates they took off.
Then, at the end of the quarter, half year, or another time period, you calculate how much time employees took off and look for any trends. Sounds simple enough, but homemade spreadsheets can actually make the process more complicated.
Worse yet, businesses that are rely on hallway conversations, post-it notes, and email. Untracked PTO can add up fast and charge your company money. Mistakes are easy to make, and other issues can lead to inefficient workflows that waste you and your employee’s time. That’s where paid time off tracking software comes in handy.
So what exactly is paid time off tracking software? Simply put, PTO tracking software is exactly what the name implies – a convenient way to track your employees paid time off.
Why Should You Use PTO Tracking Software?
The benefits of using PTO Tracking Software are many. Here are a few of the most common:
Approve Time Off with Ease
Instead of managers, team leaders, administrators or the HR department approving time off, the use of PTO tracking software makes it easy to select a single person to approve time off which in turn streamlines the approvals process. Plus a simple click is usually all it takes to approve or deny an employee’s time off request.
More Streamlined, Less Messy
Trying to stay on top of various employees’ needs, holiday allowances and time off requests can be confusing. Not to mention, the method used to keep up with it all can vary from person to person. For example, some of your employees may send email requests while others send a paper request. A lot of time gets wasted trying to find and sort through all the different requests.
Using PTO Tracking Software keeps all requests together on one, neatly organized place.
Better and More Organized Scheduling
No business wants to restrict when their employees can take time off, but if you can’t easily track who has asked off for when or who is already off for how long, then scheduling workloads and completing projects efficiently can turn into a hassle.
By using PTO tracking software, you can keep all of your employee’s time off details in one easy-to-access place. This, in turn, allows you to make more informed decisions about managing project schedules. You’ll be able to make business plans quicker and a lot easier without having to worry about any planning mistakes.
Makes It Easy for Employees to See Their Time Off
One of the most common questions about vacation or other paid leave is, how much time do I have? Most PTO trackers highlight an employee’s remaining vacation, sick leave, personal leave or another type of paid leave, so they can easily keep track of how much vacation time they have left on their own.
Keep Employees Compliant and Accountable
Keeping track of paid time off manually can, in some cases, result in employees taking advantage of the system.
However, by using PTO tracking software, you can keep tabs on the exact number of days they are entitled to as well as how many they have already used.
Final Thoughts
Companies are encouraging their employees to take time off report better retention and profitability. This is because their employees are better focused, more productive, and more fulfilled with their job. Using PTO tracking software can make scheduling time off much easier, quicker and more organized leading to better business outcomes.