At the turn of the year, most employees around the world usually set their eyes on national holidays. The goal is to look for the perfect time to apply for holiday leaves. As we all know, holidays are the perfect way for stress relief. The same tradition also applies to the 2019 national holidays.
For example, in April and May 2019, there are three days when you can apply for leaves. Those dates are; presidential election day and Good Friday in April and Ascension Day in May.
As an HR staff, you have to anticipate these national holidays. You don’t want to be stuck in the situation when most of your employees are out of town on vacation right? There are a number of things that you must emphasize to your employees before they decide to request leave. Here are some of them:
Submit the request at least a week in advance
Generally, this is the most important thing to emphasize by HR staff to other employees. If not, expect a lot of employees requesting leaves on short notice. As a result, you as an HR staff will have a problem when suddenly 80% of employees are out of town.
Do not hesitate to reject leave requests that are applied on short notice, especially without clear reasons. Once in a while, you must be strict with such employees. Emphasize to other employees to discuss their vacation plans with their superior at least two weeks in advance.
Make sure their work is done before leaving the office
April 17 and April 19, which are national holidays for the presidential election and Good Friday are the perfect moment for a long holiday. That’s why it is important to remind your employees to complete all their work before going on vacation. Thus, they will be relaxed during their holidays and do not need to think about work.
Delegate important tasks
In several companies, there are divisions who still working during holidays. For example, customer service and IT support division. In some manufacturing companies, it is during holidays where the number of customers increases significantly. Another example is the IT support team which always has to stand by in the office even during holidays.
For this kind of line of work, you must ensure that there is staff on-premise. Make sure the duty can be delegated to other colleagues who do not take holidays.
Make sure they can be contacted anytime
This is one of the employee’s bad habits during their holiday. More often than not, employees deactivate their cell phones so that their vacation can’t be interrupted. But there are times when work constraints come at undesirable times. For example, the server suddenly went offline, or the substituting employee suddenly gets sick.
This is why you have to ensure that employees on vacation can be contacted at any time. It doesn’t mean to interfere with their vacation, but only to ask what’s the best course of action when it suddenly happens.
Use the HRIS system
Imagine how complicated it would be if you had to take care of hundreds of leave requests using forms or paper documents. As a result, you will have difficulties tracking leaves, permits, and salaries.
Besides being time-consuming, this method requires you have to have multiple staff in the HR division. Not only inefficient, but the extra salary that must be paid for all your HR staff has to be considered.
This is why we advise you to start using the HRIS system to make it easier for you to manage leave requests in your company. With this system, you can easily monitor employee attendance. Your staff will also find it easier to apply for leave. All you need is to open an internet browser on your computer or cellphone.
The HRIS system also makes the approval process easier. When an employee input a leave request, you will be notified via email. This way you can easily track who is applying for leave.
Conclusion
Requesting leave is a normal procedure in any company. But there are some work ethics that employees must know related to requesting leaves. That’s why your job as an HR staff is important. You have to ensure that every employee adheres to the company’s ethics and regulations.
Therefore many say that HR jobs are difficult. Not only do you have to monitor the development of each employee, but you are also required to control attendance, leave, and employee salaries. That’s why many HRD staff no longer use paper forms or documents for requesting leaves and switch to using a more effective and efficient HRIS system.
For other interesting reading about HR information and HRIS systems, click the following link.
