New data from Replicon, the market leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based time and expense software, shows employees are 31 percent more likely to use vacation time in June through August than any other time of the year. Based on data from approximately 100,000 users in more than 1,000 participating companies around the world, the Replicon Productivity Index tracks trends and presents insights about employee productivity throughout the year. “In today’s economy, a decrease in employee productivity can pose a greater challenge to businesses than ever before,” said Lakshmi Raj, co-founder and co-CEO of Replicon. “It’s critical that companies have complete visibility into workforce productivity trends and are able to implement tools and strategies that balance employee time off with critical activities to ensure business success .”

Key findings from the Replicon Productivity Index include:

• Summer Slump: Companies feel the summer productivity slump with employees 52 percent more likely to use paid time off to soak up the summer sun (June through August) than during the spring (March through April).
• Sick as a Top-Dog: While it seems likely that employees would take off more sick days than managers due to fewer vacation days, the Productivity Index found that managers actually take more sick days than non-managers per year.
• Weekend Hangover: Though many may assume people kick off the weekend early by calling in sick on Friday, the Index found that Monday actually leads the five-day work week pack as the most popular sick day among employees. Friday and Thursday, respectively, rank as the least common sick days.
• Jack Frost Takes a Toll: Cold and flu season is to blame for absences in the winter months (December through February). On average, 10 percent of employees call in sick during these months. This is 78 percent more than in summer months.
• Holiday Blues: According to the Index, many people kick off annual holiday vacations a day early or need an extra day to recover. The top three U.S. holidays that most often require an extra day of celebration or recovery include:
  • Memorial Day
  • Labor Day
  • Thanksgiving

“It can be difficult for businesses to strike a balance between accommodating employees’ vacation requests and ensuring their productivity doesn’t suffer,” said Raj. “Replicon allows companies to stay on top of out-of-office schedules so they can mitigate downtime and ensure they have enough people in the office to cover the workload and keep business moving as usual.”

Replicon offers companies a complete, hassle-free solution to track time and attendance policies within one end-to-end solution. In advance of the “Summer Slump” in productivity, Replicon offers several tools that allow managers and employees to track and maintain productivity to ensure companies do not feel the slump in the summer and rest of the year, including:

• An interactive calendar that allows employees and managers to book, view and calendar also allows managers to see which employees are scheduled to work on any given day to avoid scheduling conflicts to ensure proper team coverage.
• The ability to view schedules for a single department, or across multiple departments within the organization and make adjustments to account for vacation, sick leave, etc.
• Self-service for accrued time-off and vacation requests. Employees can view accrued time off and make vacation requests accordingly. Managers are able to approve time off based on how much is entitled and how much has been requested.approve time off.