People leaders already have a lot on their plate. To ease the gravity of their responsibilities, more and more companies are investing in employee leave management solutions to alleviate them of one of the most complex HR/people ops processes.
Also known as LMS or Leave Management System, it simplifies requests, approvals, and scheduling for leave. While advocating for a more efficient work process, leave management solutions also make things simpler for employees.
For any growing business, time is money, thus making proper leave management solutions imperative. Inconsistent leave regulations can pose a significant risk for higher expenditures. Unplanned absences frequently result in missed deadlines and objectives, as well as financial losses.
Fortunately, employee leave management software allows you to track, approve, and manage leave requests — all without the need for time-consuming paperwork.
What Makes the Best Employee Leave Management Software?
The leave management systems should be able to handle the fundamentals. That is, to let employees set leave schedules, which management should monitor.
But the ideal software should also let you create time-off rules and holidays. All while automatically alerting managers and staff of requests. It should also feature a calendar that will indicate who is on leave on what date.
It should be able to keep you in compliance across the many federal, state, and county provisions. It should also have a customer service component to answer any questions or nuance between those geographic entities.
To give you the best leave management solutions, we looked at a multitude of options from the net and whittled it down to five selections, starting with Sparrow.
#1 Sparrow
Sparrow is the first authentic end-to-end employee leave management software linking leave experts with industry-leading tech. In return, it enables employers to value their people easily. Their services range from auditing and establishing compliant policies, automation, paperwork administration, and accurate payroll calculations to a successful return to work.
Overall, Sparrow handles every intricate detail in the leave process so employers can reduce legal risks, improve employee experience, and preserve resources.
The Sparrow team has your team covered when it comes to creating leave policies, monitoring intake and training, calculating payroll, and maintaining compliance. They have the data required to establish a competitive leave management system that considers the best practices.
Features
Sparrow is a one-of-a-kind employee leave management software that provides you with everything you require. Consequently, you can expect the following when you entrust your company with this LMS.
- Manager education and communication guarantee that managers and other stakeholders are informed of the principles and practices as well as modifications to the employee's leave plan.
- Easy onboarding and leave planning ensure that each leave plan contains information about the employee's salary and job security. Each plan takes into account the employee's particular objectives and circumstances, as well as federal, state, and local regulations.
- Automated filing and leave tracking allow your team to manage the timing, compensation, job protection, and return to work dates for each leave in one centralized spot. If you have questions along the way, your leave specialist can help you out.
- Individualized payroll plans assist employees in understanding how and when they will be paid, allowing them to budget accordingly.
- Robust payroll plans & reports: Considering data is critical to running a business, all leave and payroll data can be condensed into personalized summaries. When it comes to payroll, Sparrow offers automated payroll calculations, custom payroll reports, payroll reconciliation assistance as well as dedicated payroll support.
- Automated filing and tracking: Sparrow automates the most time-consuming aspects of completing state and insurance paperwork for employees, reducing employee time spent by 40 times.
Everyone is affected when an employee takes leave. To address this, the Sparrow team handles all of the hard liftings for Human Resources, payroll, management, and the employee on leave, making the process easy and free from all the hassle it gives.
The employee leave management software also automates employee onboarding, leave planning, document delivery, and notifications, giving you peace of mind that your procedure follows FMLA, CFRA, PPLO, and everything in between.
Pros
- Sparrow manages every aspect of employee leave, from auditing and establishing compliant policies, automation, and paperwork administration to accurate payroll calculations, claims management, and more
- Helps mitigate legal hazards, enhance employee experience, and manage costs
- Credible and trustworthy, so rest assured that Sparrow can handle every situation
- Has a dedicated team of experts employed by Sparrow in all time zones across the U.S.
- You can access a dedicated leave specialist who will guide you and your team through the entire leave process
- You have a dedicated payroll consultant who will monitor each leave's specific payment plan and the post-leave reconciliation
- Not only does it automate many facets of leave to maintain compliance. But it also provides a platform for both employers and employees to administer their leave.
Cons
- No freemium version
With both premium service and technology merged into one, Sparrow is the fittest choice to manage employees taking leave and other aspects that come with it. This is the time to rely on a system that can change your business in real-time. Sign up now for a no-hassle demo with one of Sparrow's great consultants!
#2 Calamari
Calamari is one of the most recommended automated leave management solutions. It offers the most features at the most affordable cost. In contrast, it provides several tools that the majority of the others lacked.
It provides document attachment features useful for special-case leave requests, such as those permitted by the Family Medical Leave Act, including internal usage. Another employee leave management software on this list allows your staff to write comments. For communication, some interface with Slack or Microsoft Teams.
On the other hand, Calamari includes built-in communication facilities that allow managers to debate leave requests with employees or other supervisors. Nevertheless, it can also integrate with Slack for better productivity.
Moreover, it allows you to track and engage with remote workers in-app. Speaking of remote workers, it offers vacation planning tools for over 70 destinations and is available in five languages: English, French, German, Spanish, and Polish.
From eligibility through a paycheck, Calamari only delivers six fundamental reports. Sure they are enough for compliance purposes. But you will need to download the data if you want bespoke reports, which might come off as a hassle to some.
Key Features and Advantages
- Document attachment for special-case leave requests
- Communication between management and employee
- Integrates with other productivity tools like Slack
- Tracks remote workers
- Available in over 70 countries
- Supports five languages
- Downloaded on phones for easier processes
#3 LeaveBoard
LeaveBoard is offered to enterprises in 44 countries and is suitable for multinational organizations. Among others, it's one of the rare sole leave management systems that provide a free subscription for up to 9 workers indefinitely. It delivers adequate automation features and allows managers to view and authorize leaves easily.
But above all, it boasts a comprehensive reporting function. You can create your customized reports and edit the leave reports it already provides. You must download Excel for additional analysis, such as chart generation.
LeaveBoard makes an excellent first impression on users with its colorful, easy-to-use design. The card-style dashboard keeps your most relevant information in one place. For businesses with nine employees or fewer, you can take advantage of its free plan before taking your business to greater heights.
You may program the leave management system to perform other duties, such as automatically approving departures or having staff automatically request a replacement. This is useful in service businesses such as restaurant chains. There are also methods to request leaves retrospectively and set up leave intervals to utilize expired leave first.
However, LeaveBoard is not yet mobile-optimized. Therefore, it does not provide a mobile application. Instead, you use a browser to access the cloud-based leave management solution.
Key Features and Advantages
- Intuitive interface and compatible with beginners
- The free version works for nine staff or fewer, suitable for those who are only starting out
- Customizable and comprehensible reports
- Extra leave options, i.e., ask for a replacement for the task
- Offers calendar with automated notifications to avoid overlapping schedules
#4 PlanMyLeave
In need of basic employee management resources, such as onboarding assistance and leave management, but you don't want to invest in a more expensive or comprehensive HR platform? You can check out PlanMyLeave. Besides being affordable, it also includes complimentary HR modules to help you manage your workforce.
PlanMyLeave is the only leave management system that can automatically compute comp time, incorporating extra time, such as time and a half for working on a holiday. On the other hand, other leave management systems will only allow you to add additional days manually.
Plus, it includes modules for recording skills and employment history, document management, onboarding and offboarding procedures, trip requests, employee recognition, and other HR responsibilities.
This employee leave management software is customizable in English, French, German, Chinese, and Turkish language, all with no additional cost. It works with payroll systems and supports Google Drive and Dropbox document storage. At the same time, it also interacts well with third-party calendars and productivity tools like Slack and HipCat.
Unlike the majority of the LMS on this list, it does not enable you to attach documents to requests. It does, however, support data storage.
Key Features and Advantages
- Offers additional free HR modules to manage documents, employee boarding, and other things to oversee
- The first and only employee leave management software to manage comp time
- Has free language customization with no extra charge
- Integrates with payroll software, calendars, and productivity tools
- Inexpensive even with additional features
#5 Timetastic
Timetastic is based in the United Kingdom and can function in various nations, with pre-loaded holidays for over 250 countries. Over 7,000 organizations utilize it, with many moving away from spreadsheets and toward old-fashioned wall calendars. The automation and paid-time-off (PTO) customization policies, like those of the other LMS software on our list, are particularly good.
If the manager is not present, most employees leave management software immediately warns all supervisors. Or better yet, it redirects user requests to an administrator. But it's different with Timetastic. Instead, it allows you to design your approval procedure.
Not just that, it also has accessible holiday dates available in over 250 nations and 3,000 areas. You specify the nation and employee, and the program chooses the holidays for you.
There are two small drawbacks to this leave management system. For starters, there is no implementation aid, whereas some supply it right away. However, they can still answer your inquiries. Then they can only provide phone and chat help via contact forms.
Key Features and Advantages
- Easy to use and beginner-friendly
- Comes with a preloaded holiday of 250+ countries
- PTO automation and customization policies
- Provides customizable approvals
- Email support
Final Thoughts
Both employees and HR managers deal with time-consuming paperwork, ineffective systems, poor management and communication, and inaccurate payroll projections. Employees are left abandoned at a stage when they need it the most, even with all of a company's valiant efforts.
But with an employee leave management software like Sparrow, all these worries will go away instantly. For other choices, if you prefer a basic leave management system, you can also check out Calamari, LeaveBoard, PlanMyLeave, and Timetastic.
