Leave management, what works for you? A spreadsheet, or an online tool?


Leave management – what works for you? As an employer, you should be concerned about the welfare of your employees. You also probably are concerned about having enough staff working during busy periods! Imagine if everyone decided to take a holiday at once – chaos, right? That is why leave management systems are so important. Let’s discuss the differences between the two most common forms of leave management systems – online and spreadsheet-based leave systems.

 

Why the fuss?

In addition to the concerns over staffing numbers, there are many types of leave that are sensitive – for example compassionate leave. Maybe medical leave too. Some are less serious. As a modern business, do you have “mental health” days where you offer a day or a half-day off to staff without affecting their annual leave? Perhaps a duvet day? It is likely you offer some kind of employee benefits to retain staff; perhaps these benefits have something to do with your leave policy. If so, it is really important your leave management system is up to the task of balancing employee presenteeism and avoiding negative absenteeism.

The question you need to answer for yourself is if an online leave management system or a manual spreadsheet leave management system is better for the needs of your business and employees. This article will aim to offer a balanced view of both online and spreadsheet-based leave management systems.

 

The pros and cons of a spreadsheet system

Spreadsheets are great. You probably remember learning how to create spreadsheets in IT lessons at school or in workplace training scenarios – very simple coding instructions that enabled you to perform quick mathematical functions and to read data swiftly. That is the great thing about spreadsheets. Once they are made, they are easy to use, easy to read and are familiar to us. Learning how to use an online leave management system, as easy as they may seem, may seem a daunting task compared to the familiarity and certainty of the humble spreadsheet.

Spreadsheets are also, generally, free. Even if you do not have a Microsoft subscription (although, who doesn’t have one these days), spreadsheet applications are accessible for free in a number of locations, including Google Sheets. For a small business, generally with 10 or less employees in no more than 3 teams (so, 30 employees overall), maybe it is just financially wise to use a spreadsheet leave management system rather than an online leave management system.

However, as skilled as you may be as an employer or HR manager, we are all merely human. So, let’s begin with, arguably, the biggest con to a spreadsheet system of leave management – that being human error. Human error will crop up from time to time even when using the most bespoke of spreadsheets. All it takes is one mistake, a code is changed, and the whole spreadsheet grinds to a halt. As this article says, spreadsheets are at “high risk” of human error. Great.

If you work in IT, you may be aware of instances where, due to malware, companies have lost sensitive files or important documents permanently. Having known people who have had to deal with the fallout from such cyber-attacks, I can only imagine how stressful such eventualities are on a business owner. Losing your entire leave management spreadsheet system in a cyber-attack, a careless “delete” button, or in a broken computer destroyed by an accidental coffee spillage is annoying, frustrating and, quite frankly, infuriating! And, possibly, more likely than you think with 60% of laptop repairs being caused by rogue liquid. Maybe it is best to stick to cloud-based systems?

Talking about human error, perhaps it is also incredibly frustrating that, if the spreadsheet is not put in a shared area where all members of staff are allowed to access it (which, co-incidentally increases the risk of human error and also the leak of private, personal data), you as a manager or HR manager have to take leave requests in the traditional way, via email or face-to-face, and have to input that data yourself – after getting it approved and ratified by your superiors. Yawn.

Overall, spreadsheet leave management systems are a traditional choice that have been tried and tested for many years. They work well for small companies, are in an easily recognisable format, and are pretty easy to read. But they do have their troubles, as outlined, and it is really up to the business owner to decide which leave management system they wish to implement. Please download our free spreadsheet by clicking here, we have tried to make our spreadsheet as strong and infallible as possible to counter the common cons of spreadsheets!

 

The pros and cons of an online system

Essentially, leave management systems, in an ideal world, are centralised systems that are easy to access and simple to use. Basically, an online system. An online system will allow you to centralise all leave records in the cloud, avoiding any risk of accidental deletion and 24/7 access to employees and managers. The risk of human error is largely eradicated with an online system – there are no codes that can be broken by employees or employers by accident. And, if a rogue coffee does spill over your laptop, your leave data is nice and safe in the cloud.

One more pro before we switch to the cons, it is really essential that any business with more than 30 employees (including managerial staff) considers the adoption of an online system. At LeaveMonitor we are eager to assist people through our the latest insights page, but also through our free downloadable leave management spreadsheet as mentioned. However, we felt it was appropriate to limit this resource to 3 teams of 10 staff as the risk of human error increases exponentially beyond this number and, really, any business that large needs to consider the impact of keeping such important documents and services manual. With an online leave management system, the possibilities to make a bespoke system tailored to your business are, essentially, endless.

Ok, in terms of cons let’s start with the obvious – it is going to cost you. This will turn some people off the idea immediately, another cost in these difficult economic times is not an appealing option. However, it is wise to balance the cost with the benefits. It would also be prudent to shop around for the best-fitting option! For example, LeaveMonitor offers a pay-as-you-go style system to avoid unnecessary complicated contracts. We also offer a very competitive rate! But, regardless of what we offer, it is best to do your research before committing to an online system.

It is sometimes hard to think of cons for such effective systems, but one that may arise is the fact that your business will need to adjust to a new way of logging leave. As an online leave management system provider, we believe that any teething troubles will soon be fixed and no longer be a concern. However, in the difficult world we live in, sometimes it seems like there is no appropriate time to introduce a whole new way of leave management to a business. However, as I have said, within a short period of time, the benefits will far outweigh any minor difficulties initially experienced by employees or managers.

 

LeaveMonitor

At LeaveMonitor, we really enjoy providing the latest insights into the business world to anyone who comes across our page. We like to know that we are supporting employers and employees to be the best they can possibly be, staying informed through our website. However, primarily, LeaveMonitor is an online leave management tool. So, what can we offer you, as business owners, considering adopting or changing leave management systems?

We are very proud of our tool, developed over a number of years, which utilises the latest in leave managing technologies. Our system is 100% cloud based and is secure. We have a multi-region set-up tool which allows you to track employees across the globe as well as setting up various types of access level to ensure private data is secured.

Why not try our leave management system for 30 days, for free? Click here to sign up for your free trial and experience for yourself the ease an online leave management tool can bring you. If our online system does not initially appeal to you, please feel free to use our free downloadable spreadsheet template, as mentioned in this article, available here!