Holiday Management software: purchase guide
What is Holiday Management Software?
Definition
A holiday management software facilitates and automates your employees' leave and absence planning procedures. The main functional features are:
- Planning for each employee, management of absence requests to modify, validate or refuse requests
- Real-time monitoring of meter balances (RTT, recovery, seniority, etc.)
- Provisional management of paid holidays, export of data to payroll, etc.
Holiday management is an essential step in managing your staff. Your problems will be solved with a suitable online software!
How Does it Work?
The SaaS holiday management tool allows you to access it from a web browser (PC) or a mobile application (tablet and smartphone).
Each employee has online access to a personalized interface to perform actions:
- Employees complete leave and absence request forms and submit them to their supervisors
- Managers view leave and absence requests submitted by their N-1s, observe the company's or department's schedule and decide to validate or reject requests
- HR managers and other HR administrators customize the application and manage the payroll
What are the Main Features of a Holiday Management Software?
HR self-service
All company employees have online access to the application (Web and mobile) to observe their holiday balance in real-time.
They can access an interactive calendar and view the holidays taken by their colleagues. Holidays are displayed by type (CP, RTT, splitting, etc.) and status (validated, or to be validated).
Based on this information, they plan their leave and absence:
- Select a departure and return date
- Complete a form that contains: name, duration, type of leave and any comments
- Submit the request to the N+1
Validating a leave request automatically notifies the HR manager by email. This email contains:
- The request
- The applicant's leave balance
- The team's schedule at the time of the request
A validated request updates the leave account of the employee to whom it applies to. An online dashboard centralizes all information related to their absences:
- Leave balance by type: acquired, taken, validated, subject to validation
- Ongoing requests (which can be cancelled)
- Absence history
Managing holidays: The HR Portal
Human Resource Managers have a special interface to manage requests submitted by their employees:
- One by one or in list form, they visualize the requests (type, duration, comments)
- An interactive calendar allows you to observe the planning of the company or a particular department at the time of each request
- A click allows you to validate or reject a request. The employee concerned is automatically notified
Of course, members of the human resources department can submit their leave information on the application, validate it themselves or submit it to their supervisor.
Managing the Payroll: The Administrator Portal
The Human Resources Manager has a customized interface to view reports and performance indicators (KPIs) to manage staff:
- Duration, frequency and reasons for recurring leave
- Absenteeism rate
- Breakdown of absences by gender, nature, services, etc.
As an administrator, HR managers can customize the application to perfectly illustrate the company's leave and absence policy:
- Add, modify, delete certain contracts or types of leave
- Add special periods on the team schedule: school holidays, weeks without possible holidays, etc.
- Define a multi-level approval workflow for certain profiles or requests, etc.
These tools are highly configurable. They manage all agreements and absences: work interruptions, time savings accounts (TSAs), leave in workdays, splitting, etc.
Simplify the Administrative Management of Holidays
Leave and absence management software can be easily integrated into the organization's internal HRIS:
- Absences are automatically transferred to the payroll software (Sage, Ebp, Cegid, etc.) to generate the pay statement.
- The counting of restaurant vouchers can be automated (from days of availability) and the order can be placed with a simple click
Who Uses Holiday Tracking Software?
Holiday management software is used by all organizations: VSEs, SMEs, large groups, international groups, public administrations, etc.
Internally, 3 user profiles are distinguished:
- Employees who request leave
- Managers who handle requests
- Human resources executives who are responsible for the payroll
In small and medium-sized structures, the role of manager and director is generally confused.
Why Use Holiday Management Software?
These HR software programs simplify the time-consuming administrative management of absences. However, these tools have some disadvantages.
Advantages
- Formalization of the leave request process
- Fewer errors related to the processing of oral or paper requests
- Statistics
- Saving time and productivity for managers who easily manage leave requests, even when traveling
- Automatic calculation of the remaining leave balance for each employee
- Visibility of the company's planning and services
- Possibility to manage leave and absence of international companies
Disadvantages
- Using a mobile application on the move requires a constant and high-quality internet connection
- Perfect interoperability with an HRIS can limit the choice or force a company to use the module offered by the HRIS software developer even if the tool does not perfectly meet the needs.
How to Choose a Holiday Management Software?
Choosing a leave and absence management tool is not a choice to be made lightly. Several criteria are to be integrated into the search:
- The ergonomics of the software must be simple, intuitive
- The presence of a mobile application can be a plus when employees travel a lot
- Interoperability with HRIS may be essential for important structures
- The overall cost of the solution must be evaluated: the price is generally based on the number of users
