An Easy Guide to Handling Employee Leave of Absence

Managing employee leaves are crucial for HR managers and business owners. Leaves are the fundamental right of employees, and providing enough leaves for your employees helps them stay refreshed. However, in some cases, your employees will need emergency leaves apart from the leaves your company allotted. Such leaves fall under the leave of absence we will discuss in this article.

As a business owner and HR manager, this article guides you to correctly manage employee leave of absence in your company. Understanding this enables you to help your employees who cannot work temporarily for some time due to emergencies.

How does leave of absence differ from paid leaves?

The leave of absence is the leave taken by an employee for a specified period due to emergencies which do not cover the paid benefits. The paid leaves are often marriage leaves and pregnancy leave. In contrast, the leave of absence is taken due to other emergencies. Some of these situations can be the loss of a loved one, taking care of a family member, medical conditions etc.

In these cases, your employees may be unable to work and need time off for a specific period. As an HR manager, you should reduce absenteeism in your company and need to devise your leave policies more clearly. Your company needs to prevent chances of absenteeism, but you should not confuse absenteeism with leave of absence.

Managing leaves of absence

The leaves of absence are not planned, so your employees cannot communicate with you at the earliest. As your employees request such leaves during an emergency, you should approve them quickly. Here are some practical steps to manage employee leaves of absence in your company.

Written Application

During emergencies, your employees will request a leave of absence with HR managers in person, and you may approve it immediately. However, you should officially document the leave request and approval over a written method or through email.

Ask your employee to request leave through the official communication channel of your company. The request should mention the exact period for the requested leave and the genuine reason for the leave. Having such a formal request will help your company to tackle any issues that may arise in the future.

Analyze the Leave Eligibility Criteria

Once you receive the leave request from your employees, check their eligibility. If your organization has clear policies for leaves of absence, check whether the employee has fulfilled the eligibility criteria. If the employee fails to fulfil the criteria, convey it to them in a friendly manner and let them know alternate steps.

If your company doesn't have a specific leave policy, you should create one to manage employee leaves effectively.

Offer Flexible Options

You should carefully analyze the leave request of your employees and find their genuine reason for requesting leave of absence. You should look for other options to help your employees avoid taking leaves.

The flexibility of your company comes in handy in such situations. If you can offer remote working or flexible shifts for your employees in these situations, then it enables your employees to continue work while managing their emergencies.

Being flexible helps enhance employee engagement in your company. So you can make your employees more satisfied with their jobs.

Integrate With the Payroll System

Your business needs a proper leave management system to manage your employees' leaves correctly. The leave management software in Bahrain streamlines leave requests from your employees effectively. Also, the leave management software in Bahrain integrates with your payroll system to calculate your employee salaries.

If there are any paid benefits available for your employees, they will be added to the payroll system automatically for precise salary calculation. Manual salary calculations make your payroll process prone to error. In contrast, automated calculations by the payroll system result in more accuracy.

Proper Task Management

As the leaves of absence are taken due to an emergency, it may affect your business projects. So you should take proper steps to avoid project delays and ensure client satisfaction. To make this easier to implement in an employee management system which helps you assign tasks to your employees.

You can utilize task management systems to substitute for the employee's absence and ensure your business runs smoothly.

Use HRMS Software in Bahrain

HRMS software in Bahrain comes with unique HR management systems such as leave management systems, employee management systems and task management systems. This helps you effectively manage leave of absence in your company without compromising your projects and client satisfaction.