Memorial Day signals the start of the Summer vacation season, and millions of Americans are already planning their vacation getaways with their families. While the challenges of vacation planning and coordination of family members’ schedules are sometimes formidable, they pale in comparison to those faced by HR managers and administrators. That’s because managing employee time off is a complex and sometimes arduous task for most organizations.

Administrative headache

The administrative difficulties start with ensuring there is adequate staffing to run the business without slowdown or interruption. Managers need to have readily accessible information to make decisions on time off approvals to ensure optimum staffing levels and fairness in dealing with their employees’ time off requests. Often, this information is not readily available, hindering visibility into time off schedules and leading to disputes regarding the lack of transparency in the process.

Moreover, HR departments have to ensure that they are in compliance—not just with internal policies, but also with Federal and State workforce regulations. Time off accruals must be computed and kept track of, along with annual resets of earned time off that either carry over or expire at year’s end. Adding to these challenges is the necessity to provide employees and managers with clear and current information on time off balances and usage.

Cloud solutions to the rescue

Confronted by all these difficulties, what can HR administrators and managers do to mitigate them? The solution is to adopt a modern, cloud-based time off management solution that promotes transparency and compliance, while keeping management and employees clearly informed about time off status. Today’s leading cloud-based workforce management solutions allow organizations to significantly enhance their ability to deal with paid time off and reduce liability on their books.

Here’s how cloud-based solutions help:

• Electronic capture of policies and time off usage
• Automatic calculation of accruals
• Real time balance information
• Browser or smartphone-based access for employees and managers
• Easy configuration of reports and approval paths
• Email or SMS notifications to ensure timely entry of time worked and time offs

Cloud-based absence management software provides the most agile and effective solution to resolve employee summer vacation challenges. With all the time savings associated with less administrative time spent on workforce planning, everyone can be spending more time at their favorite vacation spot.