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Vacation days are a vital part of employee wellness. There’s nothing like a few days off from work to recharge and rejuvenate morale.

These happy employees tend to exceed expectations, enjoy their work, and create a positive work atmosphere.

With remote work on the rise, the question becomes; how do you manage vacation days for team members across multiple locations? Especially if you have international employees.

In this article, we’ll discuss some of the things to consider when creating a vacation calendar to manage time off for your remote team.

We’ll also talk about the best ways to create a vacation calendar that doesn’t disrupt your workflow.

Things to consider when running a remote team

Remote teams present some unique challenges when it comes to creating a vacation calendar and and managing time off for your team. Here are a couple of factors you should consider.

An easy system for requesting vacation days

In a remote team, you should make it clear and easy for employees to request time off, HR to approve or deny requests, and employees to know if their request has been approved.

If you try to do it informally through email or private messages, the process can become inefficient, especially for teams larger than just a few people. It also invites confusion, when it’s not clear whether a request was approved or denied.

Your system should also allow you to easily view the entire vacation calendar for the year so you don’t end up short-staffed at any point.

International holidays

If you have an international team, you also need to factor in local holidays in the various countries where your team is living.

For example, if you have employees in Vietnam or India, then holidays like the Lunar New Year and Diwali need to be a part of your vacation calendar for the people living in those countries. 

Do some research on the official holidays for each country of residence represented in your team. That way, you can plan and manage the vacation calendar accordingly.

How to create a vacation calendar for a remote team

Now that we’ve covered what you need to consider with a remote team’s vacation calendar, let’s talk about how to actually create one.

One of the most common methods of managing a vacation calendar is to use Microsoft Excel. It is relatively simple to create and manage, and an Excel calendar could be all you need.

But depending on the size of your team and how many locations, Excel might not always be the best solution, as we’ll discuss below.

But first, let’s take a look at how to manage a vacation schedule with Excel.

How do I create a vacation schedule in Excel?

Follow these steps to create a vacation schedule in Excel.

Step 1 – Open Microsoft Excel and click on “New”

Step 2 – Type in “schedule” in the search box. Depending on what version of Excel you’re using, you’ll find something similar to an “Employee absence schedule”. Click on it and select “Create”.

You should see something similar to this.

Step 3 – Replace Employees 1-5 with your team member’s names. Edit the year to make sure it is current. The rest of the calendar will adjust automatically.

Step 4 – If you need to add employees, click on the cell with “Employee 5” and then click-and-drag the bottom right corner.

Step 5 – Create a vacation channel in Slack, or Microsoft Teams (whatever platform your team uses) where employees can request leave days. When someone asks for time off, the HR manager would review it, and then notify the team member if the request is approved or denied.

Step 6 – If the leave request is approved, the HR manager records the absence dates in the Excel calendar.

Drawbacks of an Excel calendar for a remote team

An Excel calendar is simple to create and manage if you have a small team. You can communicate with each team member when they request days off, and record their leave days.

But if you have a larger team and employees in many locations, then Excel might not be the most effective solution for you.

Excel doesn’t have a feature that allows employees and managers to request and approve/deny leave days. That part of the process would have to be manual, which can get complicated with a larger team.

If you want to manage different locations separately, you’d have to create multiple sheets, adding to the complexity of the process.

Depending on the size of your team, an Excel vacation calendar could lead to inaccurate leave tracking. You may end up having to pay for unused vacation days. Not to mention all the extra time going back through team communication to try and correct any errors. 

It could also cause stress and uncertainty among your employees, which may impact their productivity.

A leave management software tool is a better solution for larger remote teams to track vacation days. In the next section, we’ll take a detailed look at how leave management systems work.

Remote vacation calendar with a leave management tool

A leave management tool is a software that lets you effortlessly manage employee absence for your remote team. 

A leave tracking tool streamlines the process of requesting leave, approving/denying requests, and tracking vacation days for the entire team.

The best part is that a leave tracking tool will integrate with apps like Slack, which you’re most likely using already to communicate with your remote team. 

How does it work?

To request a leave, your team member would start a chat with the leave tracker bot within Slack.

A form would appear for them to fill out with the details of their leave request. 

Depending on your company’s time-off policy, your employees are also able to pick the type of leave they’re requesting. For example, if it’s sick days, paid time-off (PTO), vacation days, or another type of leave.

Once they create the leave request, the HR manager would receive a notification. 

The tracker would let the manager know if anyone else in that location or department is on leave on those same days. It also displays how many leave days an employee has left in the current year.

The tracker provides all the relevant information the manager would need to make a decision. After reviewing, they can approve or deny the request. 

The team member then gets notified of the decision. 

Team members can also check the status of their leave request by starting a chat with the leave tracker bot in Slack, along with other relevant information like remaining leave days, who else is on leave on a specific day, and more.

What are the benefits of a leave management system?

Here are some of the benefits of using a leave tracker tool to manage a remote vacation calendar.

1. User-friendly

A leave tracking Slack-bot may sound intimidating, but it is actually super intuitive and easy to use. 

All your team members need to do is start a chat with the leave tracker bot, and they’ll be presented with a simple form they can fill out right within Slack. 

And it’s a similarly simple process for you or your HR manager. They can review all the information they need in one place and make the decision accordingly. 

The ease of use takes the friction out of the leave request and approval process, making it a better experience for everyone in your team.

2. Customizable for each remote location

The admin dashboard gives you a full overview of scheduled leaves for your team. You can use the year-view that allows you to see how many people are on leave on any specific day.

The admin dashboard also allows you to set time-off policy for your organization, which is then reflected in the Slack request and approval process.

Another benefit of the admin dashboard is that you can use it to customize your leave policy based on each separate remote location. 

You can set separate official holidays, time-off policies, team members, admins, and more, for each location within your company.

The customizable leave management dashboard provides you with complete control over the vacation tracking process for your remote team. 

Ultimately, it allows you to easily manage an employee benefit that is vital for their wellness and morale.

And you can do so while also making sure that you’re never short-staffed, and the work always gets done.

3. Clarity for entire organization

When it comes to a remote vacation calendar, one of the biggest benefits of a leave tracking tool is that it provides clarity for your entire team across multiple locations.

Once you set the time-off policy for your organization, it is visible to everyone within your Slack workspace. 

So there is never any ambiguity about leave days. Everyone knows how many days they have remaining, how to request days off, and what to expect. 

By making the process easy and transparent, you’ll provide your team members with peace of mind that they have control over their vacation days for the year.

Final thoughts

Remote work is on the rise, and it is here to stay. That means new ways of communication, project management, as well as managing various employee benefits like vacation days.

You might be able to manage the entire process through email and an Excel schedule if there are only 5-7 people in your organization. 

But if you’re running a larger remote team and you have employees in multiple locations, then it might make sense for you to check out a leave tracking tool to streamline and simplify the entire process.

The post How to Create & Manage a Vacation Calendar for Remote Teams appeared first on treselle.com.

As a business owner or HR manager, not tracking your employee vacation calendar can lead to a stressful situation down the road.

You might end up in a position where too many employees take a leave of absence at the same time causing you to miss client deadlines. Or it might result in your customers having a bad experience. 

And with remote work on the rise, you may now have employees across many locations. It adds a layer of complexity when it comes to requesting, approving, and tracking leave for your team members.

The good news is that you can take control of your vacation calendar with a leave management system. 

In this article, we’ll discuss what is leave management, why it is important, best practices when creating a leave management system, and more.

What is HR leave management? 

You can think of HR leave management as a navigation system for managing and tracking your team’s absence calendar.

It can act as a dashboard that allows you to set a leave policy for your organization across multiple locations.

The policies are then reflected in every interaction between your team members and the HR department when requesting and approving vacation days.

Why is leave management important?

A well designed leave management allows you to accomplish a few vital objectives.

It allows you to provide a benefit that is important for your team’s happiness, productivity, and morale. Leave management also lets you plan for absences ahead of time so the work isn’t disrupted. 

For remote teams, a leave management system can make sure that you remain compliant with local labor laws and avoid any costly legal issues.

On the other hand, poor leave management can affect your business negatively in various ways.

Here are a few examples.

Loss of productivity

If you mismanage employee absence, you’ll likely end up short-staffed at some point. The workflow could suffer, putting you at risk of missing deadlines or your customers having a negative experience.

Burnout

If you’re short-staffed, it falls upon the remaining team members to compensate for the work that isn’t getting done. 

They might get stressed and be less productive than usual. And you might have to pay them overtime even if they’re too burned out to perform at their best.

Employee turnover 

Employees care deeply about the time they can take off to be with their families, pursue their passions and goals, or simply to recharge and rejuvenate.

If they face uncertainty over vacation days, it might disrupt their plans and cause them a significant amount of stress. 

Over time, poor leave management might cause them to become disengaged and unhappy to the point that they quit. 

Not only could you lose your most valuable team members, but you’d also have to deal with the expensive process of hiring and training new employees.

Different types of employee leave

The specific leave types would depend on your agreements with each employee, local labor laws, etc., but some of the major ones are listed below.

When requesting time off, your leave management system should allow employees to specify which type of leave, so it’s easier for your HR manager to keep track.

Team members should also be able to easily check how many days they have remaining for each leave type.

Medical leave

Medical leave days can include sick days for your employees, or the time they need to help an immediate family member recover from illness.

Depending on where your team is based, there might be regulations on the minimum number of sick days for employees. Be sure to check your local laws when planning medical leave days.

Unpaid leave

Unpaid leave, as the name suggests, is time your team members can take off from work without pay. 

Typically, unpaid leave is used for self-care (separate from sick leave), to deal with a family emergency, for the birth or adoption of a child, just to name a few reasons. 

In some cases, employers can issue mandatory unpaid leave (also known as furlough) to lower expenses during a difficult economic period.

Paid time off (PTO)

Your paid time off policy may vary depending on where your company is based. 

For example, the EU mandates that all employees in member states must be granted four weeks of annual paid leave. On the other hand, in the United States, there are no federal requirements for paid vacation days.

Even if not required by law, providing PTO as a benefit might help you recruit and retain high performing employees.

Vacation days

Sometimes your employees just need time off to recharge and rejuvenate. It is good for their morale and job satisfaction. 

And happy employees tend to overperform. They also create a fun and positive work environment, which improves overall productivity.

Depending on your leave policy, vacation days can be paid or unpaid.

Parental leave

Parental leave is a part of family leave, which includes maternity and paternity leave when having or adopting a child.

Again, depending on your jurisdiction, you might be required to by law to provide a certain number of paid family leave days per year. 

But just like paid time off, you could provide paid family leave to show appreciation for your employees, and to attract top talent to your company. 

Things to consider when creating a leave management system

Your system should be as user-friendly as possible so that your employees and HR manager can navigate with ease.

It should also allow you to implement the leave policy that best suits your business and team.

Let’s take a look at a few things to consider.

Leave request and approval process

Your leave management should allow for the easiest possible procedure to request, approve, and track vacation days.

An easy-to-use system would save your team a significant amount of time and hassle. 

If you have a small number of employees that all meet in the same office, then a manual system of requesting and tracking leave might work.

But if you have a larger team, and especially if they’re in different locations, then email and Excel sheets can cause the system to be more error prone.

A better solution might be to use a leave management software, as we’ll discuss further below.

Local labor laws 

Labor laws vary not only internationally, but they may also vary within your country. 

For example, regulations on paid family leave or vacation days might be different in Colorado than in California, if you’re in the USA.

Align your leave management with the regulations in each location where your team is based to avoid any legal issues down the road.

International holidays 

For remote teams, you may also need to include the local holidays for your international team members when planning your vacation calendar.

For example, if you’re based in the United States, Diwali or Lunar New Year might not be on your radar when planning a leave calendar. 

But if you have employees living in India or Vietnam, then you’ll need to plan for their absence during those holidays.

Listing all major holidays in each country where you have employees will allow you to plan your vacation calendar the right way. You will avoid unexpected absences, and keep your business humming along.

How do you create a leave management system?

Many HR managers use a combination of Excel sheets and email to maintain a leave management system.

Team members request leave through email. The HR manager checks the team member’s vacation days status, the rest of the absence calendar, and they respond via email to notify the team member about their decision.

If approved, the leave days are updated and tracked in the Excel vacation calendar. 

As we mentioned above, Excel and email might work just fine for smaller teams. But if you have a larger team spread across many locations, then this is not the most efficient way to communicate requests and track absences.

Why use a leave management software?

The goal of your leave management should be to minimize/eliminate errors when tracking vacation days. You want the system to help avoid stressful situations like human resource crunch, or payroll processing issues. 

If you have a larger team, imagine your HR manager receiving 10 different leave request emails. 

They’d have to check 10 different employee vacation profiles, respond to 10 separate emails, and all the while making sure that they’re not short-staffing the company at any point in the calendar.

Not to mention, responding back and forth with multiple employees if there are questions or disputes.

A leave management software can streamline the entire process and make it much easier to navigate for both your HR manager and employees. It drastically reduces the risk of human errors when approving and tracking team absences.

How does a leave management software work?

Ideally, you’d want a leave tracking software that integrates with tools you’re most likely already using, like Slack and Microsoft Teams. 

Here are some of the things to look for in a lave management software that would make things a lot easier for your team.

Implements your policy – Your leave software should allow you to set leave policy. For example, how many days of leave for each team member, broken down by leave type. Your policy would then guide the request/approval process for your employees and HR.

An intuitive UI for your team – The point of a leave management software is to minimize friction. It should make it easy for your team to request leave, as well as for your HR manager to make a decision that doesn’t end up disrupting workflow.

Easy vacation tracking – One of the biggest disadvantages of manual vacation tracking is that it is more likely to cause errors during human input, leading to negative outcomes for your business. Your leave software should allow you to easily and accurately track your team’s absence calendar.

Allows communication – Ideally, your leave tracking system would also allow your team and HR manager to communicate within Slack, or any other tool you’re using. It would keep all the vacation related communication in one place, making it easy to look up at a later time.

Benefits of using a leave management software for remote teams

Let’s take a look at some of the key benefits of using a leave management software for your remote team.

Easy to use for your entire team

A leave tracking software makes it a breeze to request and approve leave. It eliminates the need for complex paperwork or having to keep track of emails and excel sheets.

Instead, your team members and HR manager can use one system, all within tools they’re already using like Slack or Teams. 

Clarity and consistency 

A leave management software provides clarity and peace of mind to everyone in your team.

Every employee is clear on their vacation days status, how to request leave, and how the approval process works. It minimizes stress and uncertainty, which is beneficial for their performance and productivity.

For the HR manager, the decision of approving or denying leave requests becomes equally simple. Your leave policy makes it clear to them the different factors to consider when making a decision, removing ambiguity from the process.

Cost-efficient 

When using a manual system, the total time spent between all your employees and your HR manager to request, approve, and track leave can add up. You end up wasting valuable human resources on needless busy-work.

And it can quickly become very expensive if there are mistakes that lead to payroll or legal issues. Not to mention, the loss of productivity if you end up short-staffed. 

You can essentially eliminate all of these unnecessary risks and massively cut your vacation tracking expenses by using a leave management software. 

Final Thoughts

Remote work is on the rise, and it is here to stay. That means new ways of communication, project management, as well as managing leave for your team members.

You might be able to manage the entire process through email and an Excel schedule if there are only 5-7 people in your organization. 

But if you’re running a larger remote team and you have employees in multiple locations, then it might make sense for you to check out a leave management software. It will streamline the process, reduce the risk of costly errors, and allow you to manage all leave-related communication in one place.

The post A Complete Guide to Leave Management for Remote Teams appeared first on treselle.com.

In this guide, we’ll discuss nine aspects to consider if you want to create the best leave management system for your team.

We’ll also talk about why leave management is important, and why it’s a good idea to use a leave tracking software.

But before we jump in, let’s briefly cover what is the purpose of having a leave management system, so you can better understand why the features discussed below would benefit your business.

What is leave management?

Leave management is the process within your business that handles the administration of your team’s time-off from work. It is also known as absence management or time off management. 

Here are some of the tasks that are part of your employee leave management process.

• Time off requests
• Approving absence requests
• Communication about time off between your employees and HR
• Tracking your organization’s vacation calendar
• Notifying payroll about employee time off
• Updating absence records for each employee

What is a leave management system?

A leave management system can include the tools or SOPs (or both) used by your team to implement your leave management processes. 

In other words, it’s the system your team uses to request, approve, and track employee absence. A leave management system also helps communicate and implement your leave policy throughout your organization. 

9 features of an ideal leave management system

The purpose of a leave management system is to streamline the process of requesting and approving leave, while eliminating errors in leave and payroll tracking.

Your system should also reduce the time that your HR department spends on leave management. 

Here are nine features to look for to build the best system for your team.

1. Integration with your favorite tools

Your leave tracking system would ideally integrate with tools you’re already using, like Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.

For example, it would make sense to be able to request and approve leave within Slack, if you’re already using it to communicate, share files, etc. 

Integration with your current apps would keep things simple and eliminate the need to train your entire team on how to use a brand new tool.

2. Organization-wide leave tracking

A leave tracking system should provide a calendar view that combines the absence schedules of all team members across the organization.

Being able to see an organization-wide leave calendar provides real-time information about staff availability during the coming weeks and months. 

Understanding your team’s availability will help you plan production schedules, as well as other business operations.

For international teams, the calendar should include local holidays in each country so you can plan for any absences in advance.

3. Calendar Integration

Similar to communication platforms like Slack or Teams, your leave management system should integrate with the calendars you’re already using.

Instead of maintaining a separate time off calendar, it would make things easier if you could see your team’s availability within Google, Outlook, or Apple calendars. 

It would help keep everyone up-to-date on the leave schedule, making it easier to plan tasks and projects.

4. Simple leave request and approval process

Arguably one of the most important features of a high-performing leave management system. It should be easy to use for your entire team.

Team members should be able to check how many leave days they have remaining, and use a quick and simple process to request time off.

The process should be equally simple for HR. They should be able to view the team member’s profile, who else is on leave on the requested days, and make a decision to approve/deny the request. 

The workflow should be simple, efficient, and eliminate paperwork and unnecessary admin tasks. 

5. Keeps everyone up-to-date

Your system should be set up in a way that keeps everyone up-to-date and informed about scheduled leaves and holidays.

This helps to prevent unexpected disruptions in your workflow.

Ideally, team members should be able to see when fellow employees are due for leave, in order to better plan and manage upcoming projects, or arrange time off of their own.

6. Customizable leave types

Your system should let you customize leave types in your leave management system. 

Depending on your company’s time off policy, and sometimes local labor laws, you might provide different leave types. Sick days, unpaid leave, parental leave, paid time off (PTO), and vacation days are some examples.

You might have separate leave policies for your business’ different locations, and you’d want to be able to tailor your system accordingly.

7. Accruals and carryovers

Once again, depending on your time off policy and local regulations, you might have to allow for accrual and carryover of leave days.

Your leave system should allow you to set your carryover policy, and it should automatically track and display leave balances to both HR and employees. 

If your HR staff has to manually compute vacation balances, it could lead to errors in tracking and cause payroll issues. 

8. Reports 

Detailed reports help you identify trends within your team and understand your employee’s needs better.

You might find that your team members are taking too few days off, which could potentially lead to burnout and affect performance. On the other hand, you might find certain employees have a tendency for absenteeism, and that you might need to find new ways to motivate them.  

Ideally, you’d be able to generate reports within your system and then export them as CSV files.

9. Team member profiles

Finally, your leave tracking system should allow you to create a profile for each team member. 

Your time off agreements may vary between different team members, and their profiles should specify how many leave days they get for each leave type. For example, how many paid time off days, how many vacation days, etc.

HR staff should be able to access employee profiles easily to check their time off status when approving leave requests. 

Why is your leave management system important?

With a leave management system, you can play it by ear, or you can make sure you have a rigid and effective plan in place to manage employee leave.

Here are some of the reasons why your company should put thought into your leave management system:

Increased productivity – Tracking and managing employee absence takes up significant bandwidth for your HR manager. Leave management simplifies the entire process, allowing your HR and payroll departments to focus on more productive tasks.

Accurate payroll processing – Since payroll is related to employee absence, any errors in leave tracking can also cause payroll errors. Leave management reduces/eliminates errors, allowing for accurate payroll processing.

Prevent short-staffing – One of the biggest issues with not planning employee absence is that you could inadvertently end up with too many people taking time off at the same time. You could miss deadlines, the quality of your work could suffer, and it could overstrain your other team members. Good leave management prevents short-staffing.

Compliance with labor laws – Depending on where your team is based, especially if it’s a remote team, there could be labor laws that regulate different types of employee leave. Leave management includes awareness of those laws and designing your leave policy accordingly. 

Leave management software

Many small to medium businesses are still using email to manage their leave tracking process. 

Team members email their leave requests, the HR staff manually looks through the company leave schedule and employee profiles, and responds with their decision via email. If the leave is approved, they update the absence calendar. 

This process might work well for very small teams. But it can quickly become complex if you have more than 5-7 team members. It can lead to errors in tracking, short-staffing, and other negative outcomes for your business. 

A leave management software is a tool that automates and streamlines the leave tracking process for your HR department.

The ideal leave management software would include many of the features mentioned above. These features correlate to the following benefits for your company, and your company’s leave management system:

• Eliminates paperwork and time-consuming HR tasks
• Streamlines absence-related communication
• Reduces/eliminates errors in tracking leave schedules
• Allows real-time calendar view of staff availability
• Clarifies company time-off policy
• Helps you stay compliant with labor regulations

Key takeaways

Leave management is a vital task for your HR staff. But it is often unnecessarily inefficient, time consuming, and error prone, leading to loss of productivity for businesses.

A leave management system can increase accuracy, save time, and make the leave request process easy and simple for your team. For best results, try to create a leave tracking system with as many of the nine features mentioned in this article.

The post 9 Features of a High-Performing Leave Management System appeared first on treselle.com.

The year 2020 will be known for a lot of things, not least of which is the rise of remote work.

Companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Square and Spotify are all examples of huge companies transitioning to remote work, even beyond the forced “work from home” period enforced by mandated social distancing.

Remote work, location-independent work, or working from home offers many benefits for companies and employees alike, from cutting unnecessary costs to producing happier workers.

There are also challenges that come with going remote, the thought of which make a lot of companies think twice about the decision.

These concerns are not unfounded, but can be easily overcome by investing in tools and processes, and adapting your business for a remote culture.

This post will introduce you to the concept and benefits of remote work, and guide you through overcoming common challenges to build and operate a high-performing team away from the office.

Why Remote Work Is On The Rise

The number of remote workers has been increasing for some time now – a 44% rise in the last five years.

And remote work is projected to continue growing. A study by Upwork projects that 36.2 million Americans will be remote workers by 2025, up 87% from the number of remote workers before the pandemic.

So why is remote work becoming more popular? The pandemic is a big reason, but as the numbers indicate, more people and companies were going remote even before Covid hit. Here are some of the key reasons for the rise in location-independent work:

Forced social distancing

First, the pandemic certainly caused a rapid shift in our living and working habits. Government-mandated lockdowns took the decision to go remote out of the hands of many businesses.

While we’re all hopeful of being able to return to life as normal before long, it’s not for sure that every business will choose to return to the classic office setting. Whether it’s due to sustained vigilance on unnecessary social contact, or newfound appreciation for the benefits of remote working, you can expect a lot of businesses to stay remote, even in the post-pandemic world.

Reduced workspace costs

Remote work shines a light on one of the biggest overhead costs for non-remote businesses: office space.

Cutting the cost of renting office space, as well as filling out that space with furniture and technology, can allow many businesses to be significantly more profitable.

You’re not cutting workspace costs completely – as we’ll touch on later, you’ll need to outfit your employees with the gear they need to work from home. However, as many companies are discovering, the office can be an unnecessary financial burden.

Happier employees

Giving employees the freedom to work from home – or indeed, wherever they want – results in happier staff.

Instead of commuting every day to the same old office, your staff can choose where they’re most happy to work. They can spend more time with their families, work in a comfortable environment, or even travel and see new places while continuing to work.

Freedom of choice is one thing. Employees also save a significant amount of time and money by not needing to commute. On average, remote employees can save over $4,500 simply on fuel.

This all contributes to make your employees happier, which makes them more likely to produce great results for your business.

Increased productivity

Despite common concerns that staff will be unproductive when working from home, the opposite is actually true.

Multiple studies show that remote workers end up being more productive than those bound to an office. Airtasker finds remote employees work more – an average of 1.4 days more each month than office workers. 

Another study produced a 13% increase in productivity by switching to work-from-home.

Many things go into this swing. Happier employees, for one, who end up producing better work, and taking fewer days off. Cutting the commute allows people to spend more time actually working. And a switch from focusing on “time in the office” to actual results generated leads to more productivity in almost every business that goes remote.

Greater talent pool

Finally, a huge competitive advantage that remote affords you is the ability to hire from a greater pool of talent.

If you require all your employees to congregate in one place, you’ve put a huge barrier in place for talented people who may otherwise come to work for your company. Yet remote work allows you to hire anyone, no matter where in the world they may be right now.

This will become an even bigger selling point as time goes on, as more talented people will choose to only work for companies offering remote. If your company doesn’t give this choice, you may miss out on some of the greatest talent in your industry.

Challenges For Businesses Switching To Remote

While remote work is clearly growing in popularity, and presents some obvious and proven advantages in today’s world, there are some challenges for businesses (and workers) looking to make the switch.

To start with, remote work doesn’t suit every single business. Those that involve physical labor or dealing with customers in person obviously don’t have the option to go remote. It’s a solution that applies mostly to companies based around an office or cubicle environment.

Even for these businesses, there is a need to adapt, to overcome barriers in place to running a high-performing remote team. Let’s examine these challenges now.

Adapting to asynchronous communication

Asynchronous communication – “async” for short – is at the core of remote work. 

To quickly explain what async means, it’s essentially any kind of communication where you don’t expect an immediate response. The opposite is synchronous communication, such as face-to-face meetings and instant messaging – which we’re more familiar with in a professional environment.

While synchronous communication is still a part of remote work – think Zoom meetings, direct message conversations on Slack – async is a key element of running a productive remote team. It allows your employees to focus more on deep work, as well as learning to communicate in a more efficient and measured way.

Async isn’t exclusive to remote work, but remote work presents a golden opportunity to adopt async in your business, by taking away the “path of least resistance” face-to-face synchronous communication style of office environments.

Fostering team culture & togetherness

Coffee breaks and watercooler conversations may seem unproductive, but in reality they are important moments for your employees to decompress and socialize with each other.

This helps build a team culture, resulting in happier and more productive staff.

One of the hardest things about running a remote business is finding a replacement for the social aspect of the office, and reducing the loneliness and isolation that can be a factor for remote workers.

Think about what kind of team building activities you can hold, in person where possible, otherwise virtually. Watercooler channels in Slack or similar apps are also effective at allowing your staff to engage in casual conversation, as would happen in the office.

Creating a good working environment at home

“Working from home” sounds like a dream to many, until it becomes a day in/day out reality.

Many remote workers soon find it a struggle to create an environment at home where they can be productive and “in the zone” for working. When your workspace blends into your leisure space, it becomes hard to switch between work mode and relax mode. That’s why it’s not ideal to work on your sofa in your pajamas.

Additionally, when creating their own workspace, remote employees often run into problems with a lack of technology or equipment – poor wifi, computer problems, uncomfortable furniture, for example. It’s your responsibility as a business owner or manager to ensure your staff have everything they need to create the right environment to be productive away from the office.

Finding the sweet spot between productivity and overwork

Businesses are often concerned about a lack of productivity if they let workers go remote, but the opposite often happens. Without the clear divide of work/home, it’s not uncommon for employees to work too much.

While this sounds good at first, it leads to long-term problems with overworked, burnt out employees. Eventually, productivity suffers, and the quality of work declines, or employees end up leaving the business.

Remote workers need to create boundaries between work life and home life, while businesses need to pay more attention to how their employees are managing their time, to prevent issues related to overwork.

How To Run A High-Performing Remote Team

There are benefits to going remote, and challenges, as the previous sections discussed. But the effort of overcoming these challenges is worth the payoff of happier staff, lower overhead costs, and overall better productivity.

Here’s how to manage your remote team to achieve the best results.

Set clear goals and KPIs

The biggest benefit of remote work is a switch from judging staff on “time in office” to result-based judgement. However, this only works if you set up clear goals and KPIs (key performance indicators).

Instead of setting an expectation that your staff are at the office for (x) hours a day/week, outline the results you want to see. This works much better than an arbitrary hours-based productivity system. It allows your staff to be more flexible with their time, and helps prevent overwork.

Communicate regularly & clearly

Communication is obviously much easier with an office environment, when everyone is in the same place. Overcoming this, and maintaining strong and clear communication is key to making the switch to remote work.

You should make sure you have the right channels of communication in place, and that it’s easy enough for people to reach out and receive the information they need to get their work done.

Be aware, regular communication doesn’t mean Zoom meetings every 15 minutes. As we talked about before, asynchronous communication is key to remote work (and is even worthwhile adopting for non-remote businesses). Take this as an opportunity to remove unnecessary face-to-face communication, allowing your staff more time for uninterrupted productive time.

Provide necessary technology for team members

Reducing overhead is certainly a plus for remote businesses. However, this doesn’t mean you can abandon tech expenses altogether.

As explained in the challenges section, productive remote work is difficult if your employees don’t have a good working environment. And as a business, you can’t expect your employees to foot the bill for the equipment they need to be productive for you. 

Tech costs can include any number of things, depending how much you want to provide for your staff. These things can include:

• Computers
• Phones
• Wifi costs
• Office furniture (desks & chairs)
• Apps & software
• Webcams, microphones and/or headphones (for remote meetings)
• Specialized equipment for specific tasks (e.g. video production, photography)

You may think it’s not your responsibility to provide all this, but consider it an investment. A good office chair, for example, will help your staff be more productive, more comfortable, and healthier, all of which should result in better quality of work.

How you provide these things is up to you – different ways may work better or worse depending on the size of your company, the equipment your employees need, and other factors. 

Some companies provide equipment on a loan basis, returned when a project is done, or when employment ends. Others have a monthly/yearly “tech spend”, which lets employees purchase necessary equipment themselves and claim back the costs.

Organize team-building activities

Finally, think of ways to replace the watercooler and break room environments in your company, and set up activities to build your team culture while working remotely.

Little things like a “watercooler” channel in Slack, or non-mandatory video meetings for coworkers to socialize can be beneficial, and take very little effort to organize.

There’s nothing like a gif or meme battle to take the edge off the stress of a workday.

However, you also want to think about larger team building activities you can put on. If your staff are all around the same location (“remote” doesn’t always mean scattered around the world), you may be able to organize regular meetups or team dinners. Many remote teams also organize company retreats at least once a year, footing the bill for everyone in the company to get together and enjoy a vacation in the same place.

Experiment with team building and find what’s right for your remote business.

The Beginner’s Guide to Remote Work – In Summary

Remote work is looking like it will define the business landscape of the 2020s. More and more companies are switching to location-independent work, be it a forced or voluntary decision. These businesses are seeing the benefits that come with it, such as lower operating costs and happier employees.

Going remote is not for every business, however, and there are challenges that come with running a business this way. If you can create a results-based culture with clear goals and KPIs, establish clear communication channels, and maintain a close-knit team while operating remotely, you may see the profitability and productivity of your business skyrocket.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to Remote Work & Running a Remote Team appeared first on treselle.com.

When it comes to the benefits that employees care about the most, time off consistently ranks among the top.

Providing your team the time they need to recharge can do wonders for their productivity. But you must do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt your workflow so you can meet deadlines and complete projects.

The good news is that you can do both with the right time off request policy for your team. 

In this guide, we’ll cover what you need to consider when managing time off requests, the different types of employee leave, and how to manage the leave request process in a simple and efficient way.

How to Manage Time Off Requests

Regardless of the size of your business, you should create clear and consistent processes around managing time off requests. 

It will boost employee morale, help make sure you’re always adequately staffed, and reduce the time spent on leave management by HR.

Here are some factors to consider. 

Does the time off request need approval?

Not all time off requests from all team members have to require HR approval. 

For example, there might be members of the team who handle their own responsibilities, and do not need to submit time off requests.

But you may still require them to inform HR about their absence, so the rest of the team can plan accordingly.

How far in advance can you request time off?

Your time off policy should make it clear how far in advance someone can request leave. It would most likely depend on a number of factors, but most importantly, your workflow.

You need to consider how much notice you need to be able to plan for an employee’s absence.

You may also have different policies based on the number of days being requested. 

If it’s only a couple of days, then maybe a week or two is enough. But if someone needs to be on leave for more than a week, then you might want longer notice.

How often can your employees request time off?

How frequently do you allow your team members to take time off? Or is there a limit to how many days they can take off within a specific period?

Whatever your policy, your employees should be clear about it so they can plan their requests accordingly. You should also keep your rules consistent for all your team members.

Can you deny a time off request?

Whether you can deny a time off request will depend on the type of leave, and if there are any labor laws regulating that specific type of leave in your country.

For example, in the unfortunate situation there is a death in your team member’s family. Or if an employee gets sick or injured. In other cases, you might need to approve a time off request to make sure you remain compliant with labor regulations.

You should plan for these unexpected absences beforehand and have some contingency plans. 

In other cases, if someone requests time off to go on holiday, you should be able to deny it if the leave would affect productivity or disrupt work.

But if you do have to deny a request, be sure to provide an explanation. Your team members should perceive your decisions to be fair and consistent to avoid internal conflict. 

Multiple time off requests for the same period

There might be times during the year when too many people request time off for the same period. It could be the holidays or summer vacation time, for example.

Ideally, you’d be able to approve all the requests that come your way. But sometimes, if you do that, you might end up short-staffed and it could disrupt your work.

Decide on the criteria to prioritize requests if you aren’t able to approve them all.

You could do it based on the number of days someone has already taken off during the calendar year. The employee with the least number of prior leave days would get priority in this case.

Or you could prioritize based on the type of leave requested. For example, someone requesting medical leave should probably get priority over someone who wants a casual vacation day.

Whatever your policy, make sure it’s clear and consistent, to avoid accusations of unfairness or bias from your staff.

Plan for unexpected absences

Despite your best planning, sometimes you might find yourself unexpectedly short-staffed. 

An employee might have a family emergency. Or someone might quit out of nowhere. 

Regardless of why you’re short-staffed, the work still needs to get done. And this is why it’s a good idea to have some back up plans for unexpected absences.

For example, you could maintain a list of contractors or freelancers that can temporarily fill in until your employee returns, or you hire a new team member.

Different Types of Time Off Requests

There isn’t one specific type of time off policy that would apply to every business. 

You have to consider factors like the size of your company, the labor laws where you’re located, a time off policy that helps retain employees, and more. 

Here’s a list of leave types to help you decide which ones make sense for your team.

Medical leave

People get sick. That’s just a fact of life, and something you need to plan for in your business.

However, sick leave isn’t always only for your employees to recover from illness. Some companies provide time off to allow employees to care for others in their immediate family.

Sick leave can be paid or unpaid, or a combination of both. In some jurisdictions, it might be mandatory to provide a minimum number of medical leave days. You may also allow your sick days to carry over if unused. 

Parental leave

Parental leave includes maternity and paternity leave, and falls under the category family leave. It’s time off taken during the birth or adoption of a child.

Like medical leave, there might be regulations around family leave based on where your company and team are located. Be sure to check the local laws when deciding on your policy.

One thing to note is that even if not required by law, you should take note of your competitor’s family leave policies. If you offer more parental time off, it may help attract high performers to your company, or vice versa.

Paid time off (PTO)

Paid time off (PTO) is a benefit that allows employees to take a certain number of days off from work but still get paid.

Generally, people take PTO for personal reasons, vacation days, self-care, to recover from illness, etc.

In the USA, there’s no minimum PTO requirements by federal law. But in the EU, companies must provide at least 4 weeks of PTO each year.

What is a typical PTO policy?

A typical PTO policy would depend on where your company is based and what your competitors are offering.

In the United States, a typical PTO policy can range anywhere between 10-30 days. 

Here are a few other factors to consider for your PTO policy.

• Letting employees earn extra PTO for each year they spend with your company
• Allowing certain number of unused PTO days to carry over from one year to next
• Letting employees cash out unused PTO 

Bereavement

You need to plan for the unfortunate situation when a team member loses a loved one and has to take an unplanned leave of absence. 

Some businesses only allow bereavement days for specific family members, usually within the immediate family.

There may be different laws around the minimum number of days, depending on where your company or your team members are based. Be sure to check local labor laws when creating your bereavement leave policy. 

Standard policy in the United States is to allow 3-7 days. Try to have backup plans on how to manage your workflow without key team members for this period, if necessary.

Public holidays 

Public holidays are days that are designated as holidays by the government. Usually all government offices, schools, banks, etc. are closed.

In the United States, examples include Labor Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, etc. 

If you have international team members, be sure to include any public holidays in their countries, so you can plan for their absence on those days.

Vacation days

Sometimes your employees just need time off to recharge and rejuvenate. It is good for their morale and job satisfaction. 

And happy employees tend to overperform. They also create a fun and positive work environment, which improves overall productivity.

Depending on your leave policy, vacation days can be paid or unpaid.

Unpaid leave

Unpaid leave is the time your employees can take off without pay. 

Typically, unpaid leave is used for self-care (separate from medical leave), to deal with a family emergency, for the birth or adoption of a child, just to name a few reasons. 

In some cases, employers can issue mandatory unpaid leave (also known as furlough) to lower expenses during a difficult economic period.

Unlimited vacation policy for remote teams

Some companies (often remote teams) opt for unlimited vacation days.

The idea is that you allow your team members to take off as much time as they want, as long as the work gets done. 

In many cases, neither the managers or the employees track vacation, because it becomes irrelevant as long as objectives are met.

The benefits of such a system is that it fosters an entrepreneurial mentality, and the team becomes more focused on results. It also demonstrates a certain level of trust, which helps build stronger relationships within the team.

Consider if providing your employees greater flexibility might be beneficial for your team’s performance.

What is Your Company’s Time Off Policy?

Now that we’ve covered some tips on how to manage time off requests, and the different leave types, let’s talk about your time off policy.  

Defining your policy is essential for creating a process to manage time off requests.

Your policies will act as the foundation upon which you can create leave management systems and efficiently handle time off requests.

Why do you need a time off policy?

Managing leave is a vital function of HR because your team is your most valuable resource. 

You need to define a leave policy that optimizes your team’s availability, happiness, and productivity. 

Your policy should help you accomplish the following.

• Increase employee happiness so they go above and beyond for you.
• Stay competitive within your industry to attract/retain top talent.
• Remain compliant with local labor laws to avoid costly legal issues.
• Create a leave management process that easily syncs with payroll.
• Ensure optimal staffing throughout the year to prevent disruptions in workflow.
• Maintain fairness and consistency in leave approval to boost morale and avoid internal conflict.

Take these objectives into consideration when defining your time off policy. 

Then go through all the leave types mentioned above to see which ones make the most sense for your team.

Fairness and consistency 

When creating your time off policies and leave management process, one critical factor to consider is fairness and consistency.

You should create SOPs for requesting and approving leave in a way that is fair and consistent for all your team members.

All of your employees should be familiar with your leave policies, and they should know the process of how/why you approve or deny time off requests. 

If you have to deny their leave request, they should be able to refer to your leave policy and easily understand your decision.

Having clarity and consistency in your policies will promote fairness, and avoid any internal conflicts due to perception of favoritism or bias.

How Should Your Employees Request Time Off? 

Once you’ve defined your leave policies, and established time off request and approval rules, you’ll need to create a system that manages the process of requesting leave.

This is known as a leave management system, or a time off management system. 

Time off management system

Here are some of the tasks that would be part of your employee time off management process.

• Time-off requests
• Approving absence requests
• Communication about time-off between your employees and HR
• Tracking your organization’s vacation calendar
• Notifying payroll about employee time-off
• Updating absence records for each employee

Employee time off request form 

One of the ways your employees can request leave is by filling out a time off request form and submitting to HR.

Here’s what the form should include.

• Employee information (name, title/position, department, etc.)
• Date when request is submitted
• Time off request dates (what days employee plans on being on leave)
• The type of leave
• If requesting paid leave
• If employee has found a replacement (optional)
• Signature and date
• Manager’s decision/signature/date
• Manager’s explanation (if any)

Drawbacks of time off request forms

Although commonly used, there are several drawbacks to using time off request forms. 

It adds to more paperwork and clutter. For larger teams, there’s a fair amount of human input involved, which could lead to errors when tracking leave. 

Not to mention, with remote work on the rise, time off request forms are no longer a viable option for many companies.

A better solution might be to use a time off management software.

Time off management software

You can think of a time off management software as a navigation system for tracking your team’s absence calendar.

It can act as a dashboard that allows you to set a leave policy for your organization across multiple locations.

The policies are then reflected in every interaction between your team members and the HR department when requesting and approving vacation days.

Benefits of Using a Time Off Management Software

Here are some of the benefits of using a time off management software over manual processes like paper forms, or even email and Excel sheet calendars.

Implements your time off policies

A good time off app would allow you to set your organizations leave policy within your admin dashboard. 

You can specify the types of leaves, and how many days, that are available to your employees.

You can also set guidelines that implement your time off request policy. For example, you can set how many days in advance someone has to apply for a leave, or how often they can request leave within a specific period. 

Simplifies time off request workflow

A leave tracking software can simplify the time off request workflow. 

Instead of each employee separately emailing your HR team, or handing in time off request forms, everyone can access the same system and request leave with a few clicks. 

An app can make the approval process equally easy for your HR team. They’d be able to access all the necessary information within the system and quickly make a decision.

By streamlining the entire leave management process, you’d reduce expenses and eliminate any errors arising from human input. 

Improves business performance

Your team is your most valuable resource. Managing your team’s availability will improve your performance.

A time off management system will let you plan your staff availability in a way that helps you meet deadlines, complete projects, and meet your business objectives. 

On the other hand, poor leave management can disrupt workflow and cause you to miss deadlines.

Ideal for remote teams

A leave management system is the ideal way to track absence for remote teams. 

Many leave tracking software systems integrate with popular remote team tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Calendar, and others. 

If you have international team members with different local holidays, a leave management app will let you track different holiday schedules in one company-wide calendar, so you can plan your staff availability more efficiently.

Key Takeaways

If you don’t manage your team’s time off schedule the right way, it can lead to a stressful situation down the road. You might end up short-staffed, miss client deadlines, or the quality of your work may suffer.

The good news is that you can prevent these things from happening with a leave management system.

One of the vital aspects of a well functioning leave management system is  defining your time off request policies. 

Review the tips and leave types listed above to come up with the best leave policies for your team. 

Remember to create policies and processes in a way that is fair and consistent for all your team members. 

If you have to deny a time off request, your employees should be able to easily understand the reason based on your leave policies, and not perceive any favoritism or bias from HR.

And consider trying a time off management software to implement your policies, and make the process of requesting and approving leave a breeze for your team.

The post How to Create a Fair and Productive Time Off Request Policy appeared first on treselle.com.

Writing a PTO request email is one of those things that falls into the “simple, but not easy” category. It’s simple, as there’s nothing extremely complex about it, but you can easily find yourself sitting in front of your computer for hours trying to find the right words.

This post shares all you need to know to write a time off request email. We’ll also help businesses or HR professionals who might want to share correct procedure in their company’s time off request policy.

Vital Information to Include in a Time Off Request Email

You need to include certain information in your PTO request email, so this is the first place to start when writing it.

Three things you must include are:

• Your name (generally included if you send it from your company email, but for clarity, include in your message anyway)
• The type of leave (e.g. vacation, sick leave, maternity/paternity)
• Dates you’ll be off (ideally make it clear exactly which day your proposed time off will start and which day you’ll be back)

HR, your manager, or whoever is responsible won’t be able to process your request if they don’t have at least this information.

There are some more things you may or may not choose to include in your request (or you may be required to by the time off request policy in your company):

Department

In some cases it may help to mention your department in a time off/vacation request email. For example, if you need to send the request to HR and you’re in a larger company, this will help them process your request faster.

Reason for Leave

Generally speaking, it should be optional to give a reason for your time off request (outside of mentioning the type of leave).

Employees shouldn’t be forced to justify requesting their earned or entitled benefits. However, you may choose to include a reason for your vacation request and add this into your vacation request email.

Action Plan

You may also mention an “action plan” for how your duties or responsibilities will be covered while you’re on leave.

This is another optional piece of information, as not all roles or companies will require you to arrange cover while you’re away. But in many cases, this is a positive thing you can do to help the team carry on in your absence.

You could also simply provide an update of your progress and which tasks will need to be covered while you’re away, to make it easier for your manager/colleagues to cover for you.

Signature

Some companies may require a signature at the end of a vacation request. This helps to provide clarity should you have any complaints or claim you didn’t make this request after the fact.

If an actual signature is required, you could use an online signature tool to provide this.

The Right Tone for a PTO Request Email

Getting the tone right is important for a vacation request email or PTO request email. It should be thankful and appreciative, not written in a way that automatically assumes the request is going to be approved.

At the same time, it should be sincere and to the point. Don’t placate the manager with line after line of false compliments just in an attempt to get them on your side.

In short, be friendly but professional.

What Else to Know

Here are a few other things to know about writing a vacation request email (much of which applies to other types of PTO as well).

• Always give as much advance notice as possible if you want to maximize the chance of having your request approved, plus make it easier for your manager and the rest of the team to prepare.
• Write a short but clear and descriptive subject line. An ambiguous subject line may cause your vacation request to be missed. Make it simple – such as “Vacation Request – [Your Name]”.
• Always check your company’s vacation policy before sending, to ensure you’ve followed all the right steps.
• If you talk to your manager/supervisor/HR in person about taking vacation time, always write a vacation request email as well, even if they said yes when you talked to them. It’s important to have a physical or digital copy of the request.

PTO Request Email Template

Here’s a simple template you can use to request time off.

Subject Line: Request for Time Off

“Hi [Manager’s Name],

I’d like to request [Number of Days Off] of [Leave Type] leave, from [Date] to [Date].

My first day back at work will be [Date].

Let me know if this works, and if there’s anything you need me to do to prepare for this.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]”

Sample Time Off Request Emails

Here are a few more sample vacation request emails (including an informal and formal request), plus PTO request email templates for a couple of other types of paid time off.

The Bare Minimum

Subject: Vacation

“I’m requesting vacation time from the 4th of August until the 18th of August (returning to work on the 19th of August).

Thanks,

[Your Name]”

Formal Vacation Request Email

Subject: Vacation Request – [Your Name]

“Dear [Recipient’s Name],

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to formally request vacation leave from my position as [Job Title] at [Company Name]. The purpose of my leave is to take some time off to recharge and spend quality time with my family.

I would like to request vacation time from [Start Date] to [End Date], a total of [Number of Days] working days. My first day back at work will be [Date].

To ensure a smooth workflow during my absence, I have taken the liberty to delegate my tasks and responsibilities to my capable colleagues [Colleague 1’s Name] and [Colleague 2’s Name]. I have briefed them on the ongoing projects and provided all necessary information to continue operations without interruption.

I understand the importance of my responsibilities and commitments to the team, and I assure you that I will complete all pending tasks and ensure a seamless handover before my departure.

As per our company policy, I have attached my leave request form with this email.

Thank you for considering my request. I appreciate the support and understanding of the company in providing employees with the opportunity to recharge and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

If you require any additional information or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am more than happy to provide any necessary details.

Looking forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
[Your Job Title]
[Your Company Name]
[Your Email Address]
[Your Phone Number]”

Informal Vacation Request Email

Subject: Time off

“Hey [Recipient’s Name],

I hope you’re doing great! I wanted to chat about something – I’m planning to take some time off for a well-deserved vacation, and I wanted to officially request the time off from work.

I’ll be on vacation from [Start Date] to [End Date], which is [Number of Days] working days. 

I’ve got everything covered while I’m away. I’ve spoken to [Colleague 1’s Name] and [Colleague 2’s Name], and they’re cool with helping out with my tasks. I’ve also briefed them on all the projects and shared the necessary details to keep things running smoothly.

I really appreciate your understanding and support in granting me this time off. It’s crucial for me to take a breather and spend quality time with loved ones.

Thanks for being an awesome team! Let me know if you need any more information or if there’s anything else I should do.

Cheers and see you soon!

[Your Name]”

Sick Leave Email

Subject: Sick Leave Request

“Hi [Manager’s Name],

I hope you’re doing well. Unfortunately, I’m feeling unwell today and won’t be able to make it to work. I would like to request sick leave for [Date].

I’ll keep you updated on my condition and anticipate being back in action as soon as possible. Please let me know if there’s any specific protocol or paperwork I need to follow for the sick leave request.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,

[Your Name]”

Maternity Leave Request Emailx`

Subject: Maternity Leave Request

“Hi [Manager’s Name],

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to formally request maternity leave in preparation for the arrival of my baby.

My expected due date is [Due Date], and I plan to start my maternity leave from [Start Date]. As per my calculations, I intend to take [Number of Weeks/Months] of maternity leave.

I will ensure that all my pending tasks and responsibilities are adequately handed over to my colleagues to ensure a smooth workflow during my absence. I’m also willing to assist in training a temporary replacement, if required.

I’m looking forward to returning to work after my maternity leave, and I’ll keep you updated on any changes or developments regarding my return date.

Please let me know if there’s any additional information or paperwork needed to process my maternity leave request.

Thank you for your understanding and support during this special time in my life.

Best regards,

[Your Name]”

Paternity Leave Request Email

Subject: Paternity Leave Request

“Hey [Manager’s Name],

I hope you’re doing well. I wanted to inform you that my partner and I are expecting a new addition to our family soon. As such, I’d like to formally request paternity leave.

The expected due date is [Due Date], and I plan to start my paternity leave from [Start Date]. I’m hoping to take [Number of Weeks/Days] off to support my partner during this important time and bond with our new baby.

‘ll ensure that all my ongoing tasks are properly handed over to [Colleague’s Name] or anyone else you designate, to ensure a smooth workflow during my absence.

I’m excited about this new chapter in my life and committed to maintaining open communication while I’m on leave. If there are any urgent matters that require my attention during this period, I’ll be available via email at [Your Email Address] or on my mobile at [Your Phone Number].

Thank you for your understanding and support in this important phase of my life.

Best regards,

[Your Name]”

Personal Day Request Email

Subject: Request for Personal Day

“Hi [Manager’s Name],

I hope you’re doing well. I would like to request a personal day off from work on [Date].

I need this time to take care of some personal matters and attend to important tasks that have been pending for a while. I assure you that I will make sure my absence doesn’t disrupt the team’s workflow, and I’ll ensure that all my pending work is up to date before I leave.

I appreciate your understanding and support in granting me this personal day to handle these important matters.

Thank you.

Best regards,

[Your Name]”

Make Requesting Time Off Easier with a PTO Tool

Instead of drawn-out time off request processes that require employees to stress about writing the perfect PTO request email, businesses should consider going with a PTO management tool that streamlines this process.

Flamingo is the perfect example. Requesting time off in Flamingo takes just a few clicks, allowing employees to get their time off request in front of the right people in seconds, with minimal stress.

Team members request leave directly from Slack. Just click a button, fill out the form with the dates and type of time off requested, and hit submit. The form includes an optional space for any notes you want to send along with the request.

This gets sent to the employee’s manager or supervisor (whoever is responsible for handling their PTO request, where they can approve or deny the request just as easily, sending an automatic message to the employee when they do.

The app logs all requests, adding it to the team’s leave calendar when approved and subtracting the correct number of days from the team member’s leave allowance.

This is a much more efficient way of handling time off requests than sending PTO request emails and handling everything manually. Not only does it save time, it also reduces the likelihood of errors and cuts down the headspace occupied by both employee and manager.

Why Your Business Should Simplify Time Off Requests

It’s in the best interest for companies to make the time off request process easy.

Paid time off is made available to employees for a reason. It’s there to allow them the rest they need to stay healthy, engaged and productive, and to help them maintain a positive work-life balance.

The more friction in this process, the less likely someone is to take time off when they need it.

This might seem like a positive (less time off, more hours spent at work), but long-term it leads to far bigger issues, such as burnout, job dissatisfaction and high turnover rates.

Building a positive, engaged team means trusting everyone in the team, and understanding that work is not the only thing that’s important to your team members. Give them space to live their life, make it easy for them to take their PTO, and they’ll respond by working harder for you.

Simplifying your time off request process is one of the best things you can do to improve your company culture – and that’s not to mention the benefits for productivity that come from reducing the time spent managing leave.

If you want to make time off requests work better in your company, sign up for Flamingo today. It’s free to try, easy to set up, and makes your leave management workflow much more efficient and user-friendly.

The post How to Write a PTO Request Email appeared first on Flamingo.

Want to make your team more efficient and better organized? You need an employee leave tracking software.

We know that managing time off requests is tedious and time-consuming. This is one of many tasks in your business that you should automate with software.

If you’re looking for an alternative to your current leave tracker software, or you’re simply wondering how a vacation tracking app adds value to your business, read on as we share our favorite tools in the market today.

1. Flamingo

Flamingo is the simplest way for Slack-based teams to track and manage paid time off.

It’s a Slack app used to send time off requests. The app sends a notification to the right manager whenever there’s a leave request and they can approve or deny the request without having to leave Slack.

Flamingo adds all leaves to an easy-to-view vacation calendar in the Flamingo web app, where admins can also customize their team settings, leave policy (such as how many vacation days employees are given) and view or download employee leave reports.

You can set up automatic notifications to a Slack channel to let the rest of the team know when someone will be away, and export leaves from Flamingo to external calendar apps like Google Calendar.

Flamingo is exclusively for Slack teams at this time, and for those who use Slack, it’s easily the best option. Nothing beats the simplicity and flexibility of Flamingo’s leave tracker.

The Best Leave Tracker Software for: Slack Teams, Remote Teams, Teams with Flexible Leave Policies.

2. Gusto

Gusto is a full-stack HR tool that does much more than just leave tracking.

Leave management is a big part of Gusto, but the real value it offers is in doing all your HR and administrative tasks in one place, including payroll, accounting, benefits management, compliance and more.

If you’re looking for a payroll tool and a leave management tool, you can get both in one platform with Gusto. But if you only want a time off request app, Gusto will be a little pricey at $12 per month per user.

Best for: Teams Needing a Full-Stack HR Solution with Leave Tracking, Payroll and Compliance Features

3. Workyard

Workyard is a construction time tracking software that is specifically tailored to the unique needs of the construction industry. With its robust features and capabilities, Workyard offers construction companies a comprehensive solution for effectively managing time and attendance, labor costs, and project tracking, ultimately enhancing productivity and profitability.

One of the key features of Workyard is its ability to track and record employee hours accurately worked, breaks taken, and time spent on different tasks or projects. This allows construction managers to have real-time visibility into their workforce’s productivity, ensuring that labor costs are accurately captured and allocated to specific projects. Workyard also offers geolocation tracking, which allows construction companies to monitor and verify the location of their employees while they are on the job site, ensuring that they are working on the right project at the right time.

Best for: Contractors and Service Businesses with Project Tracking.

4. Cezanne HR

Cezanne HR is an HR platform catered towards the UK market. So if you’re a British company, and want a tool that’s designed specifically for the challenges and culture of the British workforce, Cezanne HR is a solid choice.

The time tracking features in Cezanne HR set it apart from other full-stack HR platforms, making it one of the best options if your business has a lot of hourly employees,

Best for: UK Businesses Seeking a Tool Made for the UK Market

5. Zenefits

Zenefits is an HR platform with more flexibility than others. It might take time to set it up properly for your business, but once done it offers a lot of benefits, including features such as leave tracking, payroll management, onboarding, performance management and more.

A nice benefit is that time off tracking is included on the lowest subscription tier ($8 per user per month), compared to other full-stack HR software which require an upgrade for access to this feature.

It’s still somewhat pricey and complex, particularly for smaller businesses, but for larger organizations Zenefits is something you can depend on.

Best for: A Reliable, Industry-Recognized Full-Stack HR Tool

6. LeaveBoard

LeaveBoard falls somewhere in the middle of a full-stack HR tool (e.g. Zenefits or Gusto), and a dedicated vacation tracking app (like Flamingo).

Its main function is to track time off and leave requests, but LeaveBoard also comes with a few general-purpose HR features, such as an employee database, employee profiles and payroll reports.

Though these features are quite basic, it makes a cost-effective and lightweight alternative to full-stack HR platforms for teams who don’t need all that power.

7. WhosOff

WhosOff primarily tackles leave management, instead of focusing on doing it all in terms of HR. That can be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your point of view, but for most people looking for a leave tracking app, it’s best to find something that focuses on that and that alone.

WhosOff is quite affordable (pricing is displayed in GBP, as it’s a UK-based tool, but it’s suitable for businesses anywhere in the world). While integration with other tools – like Slack or MS Teams – would be nice, it’s a good alternative if your business is not on either of these platforms.

8. Calamari

Calamari is a simple and affordable leave tracking software for modern startups. It comes with integrations for Slack, MS Teams, Asana, and a number of other platforms, allowing you to integrate your leave management system with wherever your team collaborates the most.

Along with leave management, Calamari also has an attendance management module, making it easy for employees to clock in and out and track their working hours. It’s an extra cost, but it’s a handy thing to have in the same app, should your business need it.

9. Leave Tracker for Jira Cloud

Jira (part of Atlassian) is a staple of many product management teams. If you want to keep everything, including your time off and leave tracking, within this platform, the Leave Tracker app is a solid choice.

It costs $1.50 per team member, and has a pretty simple workflow for tracking and recording vacation and sick days. You can’t do a lot of complex things with the app, but it will suffice for a lot of teams.

10. Google Sheets

If you don’t see the need to sign up for a leave tracker software – let’s say you’re running a small team, or only have a small number of leaves you need to record – Google Sheets makes a fine alternative.

With Google Sheets you can build a leave tracking spreadsheet, totally free, with the flexibility to set it up however is most intuitive for you.

You’ll start to feel the limitations when your team starts to grow, but as a small, early-stage startup, you could do worse than Google Sheets.

The Final Verdict

As someone with nearly 10 years’ experience managing teams, I know how leave management can suck up far too much of your time and focus.

In 2023, there’s no reason to be managing time off requests manually. Leave tracking software automates all the tedious data entry and lets managers (or the HR department) get on with more important jobs.

From the list of leave tracking software above, there are a number of great apps to make leave management easier for small and medium businesses.

For teams on Slack, we recommend Flamingo – a simple and easy to use vacation tracker, with surprisingly powerful features (such as support for custom time off policies and deep reporting tools).

If you’re looking for a leave tracker app as part of a full-stack HR system, check out Gusto, Zenefits or Cezanne HR.

For small organizations just starting out, you can set up your leave tracking system on Google Sheets before deciding whether you need to go out and purchase a leave management software.

The post Top 10 Employee Leave Tracking Apps for 2023 appeared first on Flamingo.

My old boss used to say that the two most important things in anyone’s life are their health and happiness. Regularly taking time off from work is vital for both of these areas.

There are many reasons why vacations (or simply short breaks from work) are so beneficial. Furthermore, there are many reasons why it’s in businesses’ best interest to help their employees live a healthy, happy life.

Read on and we’ll explain, in detail, the benefits of taking time off from work and why this time off is not just important for employees, but for the company as a whole.

The Benefits of Taking Time Off From Work

There are both physical and mental health benefits to taking time off from work. And they’re not just assumed benefits – there has been extensive research and scientific study conducted that backs up how beneficial your annual PTO can be.

Here are some of the top known benefits.

Reduced Stress

Chronic stress is one of the most common issues we face at work. It’s a legitimate ailment, but not often diagnosed as such because of how it shows itself.

Unlike most other illnesses, stress slowly builds over time. It doesn’t show up all at once. Soon, before you know it, you’re overworked, overstressed and burned out.

Vacations give us the ability to switch off and remove ourselves from the stressors of work. Numerous studies back this up. It doesn’t have to be a long vacation, either. Studies have shown that even a three-day vacation can reduce both perceived levels of stress and stress hormone (cortisol) levels in the body.

Improved Mental Health

Further than just reducing stress, taking time off helps improve mental health in general, including improvement in work-related depression and anxiety.

Studies have shown that taking a vacation and engaging in social leisure activities has a positive effect in reducing depression. Another study out of Sweden showed vacation timing coincided with a lower dispensation of antidepressants.

Anxiety NZ says that even mini-breaks, as short as just stepping away from your desk for a few minutes, can help prevent anxiety from building up into more serious mental health issues.

If that’s enough to deliver benefits, a few days off from work can do even more to help employees maintain good mental health.

Increased Brain Power

Taking time off can even boost your cognitive ability. Times of relaxation, such as when you’re on vacation, have shown to be when the brain is in its most creative state. Vacations can lead to increased neuroplasticity, which makes it easier to learn new things.

The benefits are even higher if you take an overseas vacation, as certain studies show that foreign experiences boost cognitive flexibility and the “depth and integrativeness of thought.”

Lower Risk of Heart Disease

One of the most widely studied health benefits of taking time off is the benefit for heart health.

You can find numerous studies that show this link. In one, a nine-year study found that middle-aged men at risk of heart disease had reduced all-cause mortality relative to their vacation frequency.

In another study, women who took fewer vacations were found to be twice as likely to have a heart attack or die from some form of coronary heart disease.

Being able to rest and de-stress can literally save your life.

Better Sleep

Stepping away from the stressors of your everyday working life can help you sleep better. This was shown in a study from Air New Zealand, where participants averaged an hour more of good quality sleep after a few days of being on vacation.

Participants also showed a 30 to 40 percent increase in reaction time, likely linked to the increase in sleep quality. Indeed, improving your sleep leads to a huge number of health and cognitive benefits.

Helping You Maintain a Work-Life Balance

Taking time off also gives you time to spend on your own life, on things that are important to you, such as family, friends and hobbies.

This is important for maintaining a healthy personal life outside of work. Without your work and personal lives in balance, depression, anxiety and just overall feelings of resentment are more likely. Stepping away every now and then prevents this from taking over your life.

Why Employees Taking Time Off Is Good for the Company

Taking time off is not only beneficial for individuals, but for organizations as well. Here are the top reasons why it’s in the best interest of businesses to encourage employees to disconnect and take vacations.

Improved Job Performance

Despite fear that more time off means less work gets done, studies show that vacations boost productivity.

The positive impact on stress, mental health, brain power and happiness all directly lead to improved performance when employees are back in the office.

When the inverse happens and employees are overworked without the chance to take time off, their productivity drops to the point where more productive time is lost than if they had taken a vacation.

Decreased Employee Turnover

When staff are not allowed regular vacations or time off, there’s a much higher chance they will leave the company. For many people, vacation days, paid time off and paid sick leave is valued higher than a raise in salary.

The cost of regular staff turnover is insane. New hires, on average, cost companies more than $4000, and the average time to fill open positions is 42 days. 

You may be concerned about allowing your staff paid time off because of the cost, and the working hours lost. Yet both the time and money you concede by giving staff regular vacations pales in comparison to the cost of regularly searching for, hiring and training new staff.

Improved Company Culture

When staff are happy, the entire team benefits. A workplace full of fresh, happy, positive employees will work better together and create an environment that breeds more positivity.

In contrast, with cases of employee burnout, employees usually don’t suffer in isolation. They are likely to project their problems to other people in the workplace, and interpersonal issues are more common.

By simply ensuring that you (or your staff, if you are the manager or business owner) regularly take vacations and stay fresh, you’ll help create a workplace culture that is better for individuals to remain happy and productive.

Reduced Sickness and Absenteeism

Too many people work day in, day out, without time off from work. Some studies produce shocking results – including one that found that 41 percent of Americans didn’t take a single vacation day for the entire year included in the study.

Another study found that one third of US workers go 12 months or more without taking a sick day. These people are either extremely healthy, or neglect to take time off when they need it.

The longer employees neglect their health, the more likely it is for chronic health problems to emerge. It’s much better to encourage employees to take a sick day or personal day when they need it, to avoid more serious health outcomes.

Run a more productive team with Flamingo.

Flamingo is the most efficient way to manage time off in your business. Let your employees get the rest they need without it derailing productivity. Try Flamingo free today.

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How Much and How Often Should You Take Time Off From Work?

So how much vacation time should you take, and how often?

Workers in the US have, on average 10-20 paid vacation days available to them. Yet, for the most part, a number of these days are left unused each year.

A poll by INSIDER found that 13 days off was the sweet spot where respondents said they took the “right amount of time off”. Yet pressure and pre-conceived notions may make people hesitant about saying they would prefer more.

Research shows that the benefits for well being are maximized with vacations lasting eight to 11 days. In addition, some experts say we should take vacation time on a regular basis, rather than all at once, such as one or two longer vacations along with regular small breaks throughout the year.

While it’s hard to say if there’s an exact frequency and length of vacation that’s optimal, all research shows that we should be taking more vacation time than the US average.

How to Spend Time Off

The final thing you need to know about taking time off is how to spend your vacation time.

It’s imperative that vacation time is actually spent disconnecting from work. Too many people today end up working on vacation, even just small things like checking emails and answering phone calls.

This might not seem serious, but it means you don’t get the full benefits you could from your vacation. Your mind is still stuck on work, so you won’t reduce stress the same way you could if you properly switched off.

When taking vacation time, dedicate this time to activities that you enjoy, or that bring you peace or fulfillment. Even if you’re not necessarily feeling burnt out from work, it’s worth making an effort to fully disconnect, so you can come back fresh after your time off.

Final Thoughts

Taking a vacation is one of the best things you can do for your mental and physical health. From preventing or treating high blood pressure and other cardiovascular issues, to improving sleep and dealing with chronic stress, anxiety and depression, you need regular breaks for your long term health and well being.

Make it a regular thing to take vacation time, even if it’s just a few days here and there. Organizations should encourage this as well, as the benefits of having fresh, fully present employees and a work environment with lower stress will lead to better results for the business.

The post How Important is Taking Time Off From Work? appeared first on Flamingo.

Sick days are a normal thing. Most businesses today offer paid sick leave. But if you’re wondering how many sick days a year is a normal amount, or how many sick days people take on average, you’re in the right place.

Keep reading and we’ll share the latest sick leave data from US businesses and employees. We’ll also break down the key takeaways from the data, along with tips on how you should manage paid sick leave in your business.

How Many Sick Days Do You Get on Average in the US?

The average US business provides between 6-10 paid sick days per year.

Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the average number of sick days for several different groups (for those who receive a fixed number of paid sick days).

• The average number of sick days for all workers is 8 days per year
• Union workers receive an average of 10 days per year
• Non-union workers receive an average of 7 days per year
• Part-time employees are provided an average of 6 days per year paid sick leave

In terms of distribution, 48% of all workers with paid sick leave receive between 5-9 days per year. 27% receive 10-14 days per year, while 20% receive less than 5 days of sick leave per year.

The distribution is similar for most groups; 53% of non-union workers, 47% of full-time employees and 57% of part-time employees receive between 5-9 sick days per year.

However, it differs only for union workers, with 48% receiving between 10-14 sick days per year, with 28% receiving between 5-9 sick days per year.

Is Paid Sick Leave Required By Law?

Paid sick leave is not a federal requirement in the United States. The US is one of the few countries in the world that does not have paid sick leave as a legal requirement.

Some states, however, do have laws governing paid sick leave, while some states have local laws in certain regions relating to paid sick leave. These states are:

• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Illinois
• Maine
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
• Washington
• Washington, D.C.

Despite the fact that many are not legally obliged, 79% of US workers receive paid sick leave. Some other sources have this number even higher. A Farah & Farah survey of 1012 workers found that 90% of respondents had access to paid sick leave, while a SHRM survey (3,129 participants) found that 96% had paid sick leave.

Now, when we’re discussing how many sick days per year is normal, sick leave allowance is just one side of the question. We also need to look at how many sick days on average people actually take, which can be much different to the number of days on offer.

Paid vs Unpaid Sick Leave

Though there are no federal laws regarding paid sick leave, some laws do cover unpaid sick leave.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), for example, requires businesses to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for serious health conditions (as well as for caring for family members with serious health conditions).

But there is a big difference between unpaid and paid sick time. Sick employees need the security of knowing that they won’t be hurting financially when they get sick.

That’s why companies need to provide paid sick days, not just allow employees to take time off on their own dime.

How Much Sick Time Do Americans Take on Average?

According to a Statista survey, 47% of Americans took 3 or fewer paid sick days in the last 12 months.

This figure was at 50% at the end of 2021 and 58% at the end of 2020.

Another source, a survey from Censuswide and LinkedIn, found similar results, with working professionals taking an average of 2.5 days sick leave per year.

These numbers are likely lower than expected, showing that sick leave abuse is far from the norm.

And there’s one more, somewhat alarming takeaway from the Statista survey quoted above.

A Quarter of Americans Haven’t Taken a Sick Day in 12 Months

In the most recent data, 26% of Americans took zero sick days in the last 12 months.

This survey has tracked data at regular intervals since 2020. In late 2020 and early 2021, the number of Americans who hadn’t taken a sick day in the past year was as high as 34%.

These numbers become even more significant when you consider that 25% of survey respondents did not work or go to school, or did not answer. So, realistically, the fraction of working Americans who go 12 months or longer without taking a sick day is closer to the 35-45% region.

Why Most People Need to Take More Sick Days

Americans have 6 to 10 days of sick leave available on average, but only take an average of 2-3 days per year.

Some, particularly employers or managers, will see this as a good thing. Fewer absences means higher productivity, lower expenses, right?

Yet most people are unwell for more than just a few days a year. The CDC says most adults catch a common cold 2 or 3 times a year, for which symptoms can last 7 to 10 days. That’s not even taking into account other viruses, infections, injuries, and stomach illnesses, which according to some sources are the cause of over 50% of sick days.

More likely, the large number of unused sick days are due to employees being pressured against taking sick time. Sick days are often seen as a negative, and employees who don’t take sick leave are praised as the hardest workers.

Yet employees not taking sick leave when they’re unwell or unfit to work costs businesses more than the cost of sick leave. This is a condition called “presenteeism”, which is estimated to cost US companies in excess of $150 billion per year in lost productivity and associated costs.

How Many Sick Days Should You Offer?

If you’re a US-based business, there may not be a lot of legal guidance in terms of how much sick leave you should offer.

You may not need to offer any paid sick leave at all. While in some states, the legal requirement may be very small.

But this doesn’t mean you should offer the minimum. Consider the wellbeing of your staff, along with the fact that you’re competing with other companies for the best talent in the job market.

With this in mind, offering at least the higher end of the US average (10 days per year) is a good idea. Though if you want to take a more progressive stance, offer higher than average – or even unlimited paid sick days per year.

Cases of sick leave abuse are far more rare than you would think. Instead of limiting your sick leave due to fear of abuse, raise (or remove) your limit, and deal with the few cases of abuse when (and if) they happen.

This will have a big impact on job satisfaction, retention and hiring power for your business, and may even boost productivity by allowing employees to be at 100% more often.

Do Americans Need to Take More Sick Days?

We’re very comfortable with saying that most employees need to take more sick leave.

The average number of sick days taken by US employees is much below what is available, and even the average number of sick days available is significantly below the worldwide averages (the UK, for example, allows up to 28 weeks of paid sick leave per year).

Either Americans are just healthier than the rest of the world, or the negative culture around sick leave causes most in the US to come to work when they’re sick far too often.

Why Employees Are Not Taking Enough Sick Leave

There are three reasons why employees may not take enough sick leave.

The first is that there is not enough sick leave available. If a company doesn’t offer paid sick leave, or the amount is very low, they should think about increasing it.

Even if employees don’t use all their sick leave, it could still be due to a low overall limit. For example, if an employee only has 5 days per year of paid sick leave, they may choose against taking a sick day for a minor illness, as they feel like they need to keep their sick days in case something more major comes up.

The second reason is pressure from their employer. A lot of managers or leaders discourage their employees from taking sick leave. They may even go as far as disciplining employees who call in sick.

The third, and most common reason, is pressure that employees put on themselves.

Though their company may not actively discourage employees from taking sick leave, the employee believes that it will hurt their standing and reputation if they’re seen to be taking too many sick days.

How to Ensure Employees Take the Right Amount of Sick Leave

As an employer or a leader, you should want your employees to take sick leave when they’re sick.

This means your employees will be more productive and more engaged when they are at work, as they’ll get the time to rest and recover when they get sick. Additionally, it reduces the risk of chronic illnesses, spreading illness to other employees, and workplace accidents caused by employees coming to work when unfit.

Here are some tips to help make sure your employees take a sick day when they need it.

• Offer a generous (or unlimited) number of sick days per year.
• Do not discourage, discipline or react negatively to employees who ask for sick leave.
• Actively encourage employees to take time off when they are sick or unfit for work.
• Don’t take attendance into account when assessing someone’s performance (only look at performance).
• Track sick leave trends and address abuse when it becomes apparent, instead of assuming people will abuse the system before it happens.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing if someone doesn’t take much sick leave. It could simply be that they have had a good run of not getting sick.

But if you have low sickness rates across the board in your business, there might be a problem. Consider what the cause may be, and make a plan to address it.

How to Manage Paid Sick Leave in Your Business

You should make it easy for your team members to ask for a sick day, and set up a clear process to track and manage sick days.

If you’re using Slack, Flamingo’s Absence Tracker is a great way to do this. It offers a smooth and stress-free process to request paid sick days, while tracking and recording absences in case you need to follow up.

You can put a limit on how much paid sick leave team members can take each year, or simply check the reports to identify trends requiring action.

This is the best way to ensure a sick employee has the freedom to take time off and recover, while protecting against loss of productivity due to absenteeism.

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Flamingo streamlines leave management, letting you spend less time managing paid time off and more time growing your business

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Final Thoughts on the Average Number of Sick Days Per Year

Sick leave should be more normalized than it is today. Even people with healthy lifestyles can’t avoid getting sick every once in a while.

Yet, while most US businesses provide paid sick leave benefits, the data shows that a lot of us never take it. That may not be an issue – perhaps these people just aren’t getting sick – but if people are getting sick and still coming to work, it becomes a problem.

Make sure your business makes it clear that paid sick time is there and available should employees need it. A day or two at home is better than working through an illness and turning it into a long-term problem.

The post How Many Sick Days Per Year is Normal? appeared first on Flamingo.

Curious how much PTO is normal for employees in the US? Whether you’re interested in how much PTO you’re supposed to get, or you’re gathering info for your own company’s PTO policy, this article has everything you need to know.

You’re going to learn that the US is seriously lagging behind when it comes to paid time off, one of the most important benefits for a large percentage of employees.

Keep reading to learn the average vacation days per year in the US and how this compares to paid holidays and paid time off around the world.

Private workers in the US get an average of 10 paid vacation days after 1 year of employment, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average rises with length of service (time spent with the company). Employees with 5 years’ service average 15 vacation days per year, while those with 20 years of service average 20 vacation days per year.

Check out the data, broken down by service time, size of company and type of company (private vs government organizations) in the chart below:

As you can see, private industry workers generally receive slightly less paid vacation time than government workers, particularly prevalent for private industry employees in smaller companies and/or with less service time built up.

Average Number of PTO Days by Industry

The average PTO can vary a lot by industry, as the following data shows.

A survey of 606 small business employees by Zenefits found that non-profit/foundation employees tend to get the most vacation days on average, while marketing, market research and public relations employees get the fewest.

Check out the findings below:

Average Number of Vacation Days in the US by Age, Region

The same survey shows that the Northeast USA (Maine, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania) provides the highest number of vacation days on average, with 11.4 days per year.

The Midwest (Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana) and Southeast (West Virginia, DC, Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland) are joint-lowest with 8.5.

In terms of age, it’s probably no surprise that younger employees have fewer days of PTO on average. Employees aged 18-24 average 6.2 days per year, while those 65 and older have the highest average of 13 days per year.

Is PTO Required by Law in the US?

There’s no federal requirement for US companies to offer paid time off to their employees. This makes the US one of the few countries around the world that doesn’t have PTO as a legally required employee benefit.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) covers some aspects of employee benefits and compensation, but this mainly extends to overtime and minimum wage, not paid vacation or PTO.

Paid time off is generally up to the employer and employee to agree upon. It’s only legally required if included in a signed employment agreement/contract.

Do Most Companies in the US Offer PTO?

Though they don’t legally have to provide PTO, most companies choose to do so.

BLS data shows the following averages, based on business size:

• 70% of employees in small businesses receive paid time off.
• 85% of employees in medium-sized businesses receive paid time off.
• 89% of employees in large businesses receive paid time off.

This shows that paid time off is the norm in America, likely due to demand from employees and the need for businesses to offer competitive benefits packages to retain their top talent.

Paid Time Off in the US vs Around the World

The average number of paid holidays and vacation days available to workers in the US differs dramatically from almost every other developed nation.

Data from the Center for Economic Policy and Research shows the minimum number of paid vacation days (aka annual leave/PTO) and paid holidays (e.g. public holidays where employees are required to be paid as normal) for all OECD nations.

Europe leads the way in paid vacation days required by law.

France requires staff to receive a minimum 30 paid vacation days per year, as does Spain. The United Kingdom is next, with 28, while Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Spain and Sweden all give 25.

Australia and New Zealand give staff a minimum of 20 working days off per year (not including public holidays), while Japan and Canada both offer 10.

The US is the lowest of all OECD countries in terms of statutory annual leave by law - as they are the only nation that doesn’t have any minimum requirements.

Elsewhere in the world, Brazil and Peru are both generous with PTO, giving workers a minimum of 30 days off per year.

Russia is close behind, with 28 days.

India and Pakistan are two countries who, along with the US, don’t have any legally required minimum for PTO. China, the Philippines (both 5), Mexico and Thailand (both 6) are some other notable countries with smaller than average allowances.

The US is the only country listed with no legal requirement for paid vacation days or paid public holidays.

Most US companies do offer paid vacation days, as we’ve established, despite not being required to by law. But even if we compare the average number of vacation days in the US (10 days per year) to the minimum legal requirement from the countries above, the US still falls well behind.

More Important US PTO Stats

Here are a few more things you need to know about the state of paid time off in the USA.

55% of Americans don’t use all their PTO

Unused PTO is an epidemic in the USA. The average number of PTO days employees actually take declines each year, and over half of all Americans leave some of their paid vacation days on the table when the year ends.

31% of Americans’ PTO rolls over

Zenefits’ State of PTO survey found that 31% of respondents had PTO policies that carry over unused PTO to the following year.

This means it’s likely that a lot of people forfeit part of their earned benefits completely when they don’t take all their allotted PTO.

39% of people feel guilty about taking PTO

Guilt seems to be a big reason why people don’t take all their PTO. 39% of employees say they don’t take PTO because they feel guilty about the extra work it will create for their teammates.

More than half of people work during their PTO

A QuickBooks survey found that 52% of people reported having worked during time they’re supposed to be on PTO.

60% of employees are satisfied with their PTO plan

Nearly two-thirds of US employees are happy with the amount of PTO available to them. In Zenefits’ survey, 60% responded either “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their PTO allowance.

A further 21% were neutral, meaning only 19% responded that they are not happy with the amount of PTO on offer.

PTO is the 2nd most popular employee benefit in the US

When it comes to which benefits employees value the most, PTO/paid vacation comes in 2nd.

Employer sponsored health insurance/healthcare is the most important benefit for 41% of people, while PTO comes in 2nd, as the most important benefit for 31% of employees.

Is Your PTO Policy Good Enough?

In many countries, the minimum legal PTO requirement is generous enough that it makes sense for most companies to just comply with what the law says.

In the US, there’s no legal requirement, so it’s more difficult to know how much time off you should provide your employees.

By understanding how much vacation time is normal for US employees, you can get a basic understanding of what your PTO policy should look like.

But know that aiming for average is not necessarily the optimal approach. Offering more than average may help your employees be happier, healthier and more productive, as well as giving you advantages when it comes to hiring and retention.

It’s Not Just About How Much PTO You Offer

One thing employers should take away from the data we have on PTO habits is that, even though you may provide employees with a certain number of paid vacation days, additional effort is required to ensure employees actually take all their PTO.

It’s often feelings of guilt and pressure that cause people to leave a lot of their available PTO on the table.

For example, with unlimited PTO policies, it’s not uncommon for employees to end up taking less PTO than average, due to unclear expectations and employees feeling more pressure not to take more than their fair share.

Conscious effort is required to set expectations with employees that taking PTO is not just accepted, but encouraged.

Why It’s Important that Employees Take Their PTO

Employees who don’t take enough PTO are more likely to suffer from stress-related conditions such as burnout, or to have issues with poor mental health.

When this happens, it's impossible to expect employees to be fully productive. Their output drops, they may take more sick days, and they're more likely to become disengaged, dissatisfied, and eventually leave their job.

Paid vacation time is not just an empty promise you dangle to get people to accept your job offer. It's an investment in your team's health and wellbeing.

That's why many companies today use initiatives, like mandatory PTO or minimum vacation, to encourage employees to take more vacation time.

Make It Easy to Manage Paid Time Off with Flamingo

Whether you're looking for ways to track trends and boost average PTO usage in your business, or you're wondering how to allow more paid vacation without letting it interfere with productivity, Flamingo is here to help.

Flamingo is the easiest way for modern companies to manage paid time off. It makes the time off request and approval process easy, while automatically tracking all leaves (along with paid holidays, customizable by location), to make sure everyone stays in the loop and work still gets done when people take time off.

You can also track sick days/sick time, parental leave, personal days, and any other type of paid leave you provide for employees.

Flamingo saves time for business owners, department managers or HR professionals, while making your team more productive and allowing you to maintain a healthy work-life balance for your team.

Try Flamingo free today and see how it makes your team better.

The post How Much PTO is Normal? [Average PTO in USA vs Worldwide] appeared first on Flamingo.

What if I told you that your business was losing more productive hours by staff that show up to work than those who don’t?

In most businesses, this is true. It’s a phenomenon known as presenteeism, and it’s one of the most misunderstood concepts in business and HR today.

This article will take a deep dive into the concept, and how to remedy it if this is a problem in your team. We’ll define presenteeism, discuss the fallout of this in terms of productivity and cost, and talk about how to prevent presenteeism in your business.

What is Presenteeism?

Presenteeism is when there is a loss in productivity due to employees showing up for work when they’re not at 100%.

It could be due to injury or illness – for example, an employee is sick, and they come to work but can only produce a fraction of their usual work rate.

Another, less understood case, is when employees show up for work when their emotional or mental state is less than 100%. This is also likely to cause a drop in productivity, but it’s not as evident as if they were coughing or limping.

Cases like this are often due to employees working too long without a vacation. It goes hand in hand with burnout, where the employee works too hard for too long, and eventually develops mental fatigue that gets in the way of their being productive.

Why Presenteeism is Hard to Spot

One of the reasons why presenteeism is such a big issue in today’s workplaces is because it’s so hard to identify.

Compare presenteeism to its sibling, absenteeism. Absenteeism is extremely easy to notice. The employee is either there or they are not. You can count up the days in which the employee has not been in the office (in a physical or virtual sense), and get quite a good estimation on the loss of productivity from their absenteeism.

Yet with presenteeism, you’ve got the image of a model employee. They’re at work every day, sometimes even pushing through an illness or injury. On the face of it, you can’t be sure there’s an issue at all.

Only after digging into it will you figure out there is a loss of productivity. And even then, it’s not as easy as saying the loss of productivity is a clear case of presenteeism.

It takes a deeper understanding of the situation, and often an open, heart-to-heart talk with the employee to diagnose a situation as presenteeism. But it is more prevalent than you’d think. A lot of the people you view as top performers for being in the office everyday without fail could actually be producing more if they took a day or two off more often.

The Cost of Presenteeism

On the surface, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking presenteeism is a minor cost to the business. After all, the lost productivity couldn’t be compared to the employee being absent altogether, right?

Data appears to tell us otherwise.

One study from the Work Foundation found that the cost of presenteeism could make up 1.5 times the cost of sick leave.

A 2019 survey from RAND Europe came to the conclusion that businesses lose over 38 days’ worth of productive time due to presenteeism. 

You would be hard-pressed to find a workplace where the average amount of sick leave taken comes anywhere close to those numbers. This can lead us to believe that it’s significantly more damaging when staff come to work when they’re not 100%, compared to simply taking a day or two of sick leave.

The true cost may indeed be even higher. The Harvard Business Review states that certain estimates put the cost of presenteeism to US companies at $150 billion per year.

This goes alongside data from the Journal of the American Medical Association that reports costs to US employers of $35 billion per year for reduced performance due to depression, and $47 billion per year due to conditions such as arthritis, headaches, and back problems.

Even if the actual cost of presenteeism is not quite this bad, there’s no denying it’s a costly problem.

What Causes Presenteeism?

Presenteeism is, boiled down to its simplest form, a case of performance dropping because employees don’t take enough time off.

But it’s not as easy as just saying that X number of days off prevents it from becoming a problem.

There are a number of underlying reasons why presenteeism happens, and why employees don’t take leave when they need it.

Addressing these problems is a vital step towards reducing the harm presenteeism does to your company.

Pressure

For a lot of employees, it’s pressure at work that stops them from calling in sick or taking their leave days.

There’s a fear that they’ll fall behind if they take a day off, or that the workload is just too much. The employee feels pressure to come in despite not feeling well, and the result is that this feeling becomes a daily occurrence.

Negative sentiment towards time off

There’s also the feeling that requesting time off, be it sick leave or vacation days, will hurt an employee’s reputation.

A lot of employers create a culture where employees are looked upon in a negative light for taking time off. While this may serve to lower absenteeism, it risks creating an even bigger problem with presenteeism.

Sickness happens, and people need regular breaks from work in order to remain productive and healthy. As an employer, it’s best for you to accept this, and accept your team members’ need for a day off here and there.

Lack of available leave days

Many companies simply don’t offer staff enough paid leave days.

This creates an economic headache for workers when they’re feeling unwell. They may recognize that they need a day or two at home, but if faced with the idea of missing pay, most will brave it and come to work anyway.

This is frighteningly common in businesses that don’t offer paid sick leave, or do so at a very low number.

The company may think they’re saving money by not paying staff for their time off, but in reality this is causing a drop in productivity that far outweighs the cost of paid sick leave or vacation days.

Too much friction in the leave request process

Finally, it’s often the case that there’s just too much to go through to ask for time off.

Perhaps it’s a specific person you need to see to request leave, who only shows up in the office for 15 minutes a day. 

Or it could be a nerve-wracking grilling you receive every time you call in sick or put in a request for vacation days.

Even with open-minded employers, the anxiety of needing to ask for leave, through an email, face-to-face talk or call, can be enough to prevent some workers from taking their leave days.

This is where an app like Flamingo helps. It makes requesting leave quick, easy and painless, removing a big barrier to team members getting the time off they need. 

For employees that get anxiety over opening a message thread with their boss to ask for a day off (I’m guilty of this), the asynchronous nature of a leave request software is perfect.

How to Prevent Presenteeism in Your Workplace

The best approach to reducing levels of presenteeism in your business is to focus on prevention.

You can look for the signs and symptoms of presenteeism and treat them as such, but this is often too late. You’ve already lost productive hours by then, and even worse, there may be irreparable damage done to your employees’ mental or physical health, morale, job satisfaction, and the company culture as a whole.

That’s why you need to focus on creating a culture that reduces presenteeism from the outset. Here are a few tips to help you do just that.

Understand the problem

Knowing what presenteeism is, what causes it, and the cost to your business is the first step. Most companies are simply unaware of the scope of the problem, and that it can be more damaging to the business than absenteeism.

You need to make this a core understanding throughout your organization, from employees all the way to upper management.

Shift KPIs to results over attendance

The biggest step you can take to reducing presenteeism is how you grade performance.

It’s all too common to think of high-performers as those who work long hours, day in and day out. And conversely, those employees who regularly take time off are seen as a problem.

However, attendance doesn’t always correlate with performance. Simply being in the office doesn’t mean someone’s producing results, and often this pressure to be seen ends up hurting things.

Develop performance indicators centered on actual results, and use these KPIs to judge your employees. Realistically, this is all that matters – if your team members meet their benchmarks, it shouldn’t matter whether they have a perfect attendance record or not.

Be generous with your leave policy

Many companies simply don’t offer enough paid time off in their leave policy, creating a huge problem with employee wellness.

If there’s a financial disincentive to taking a day off, you’re going to see a lot of employees showing up to work when they’re not at 100%. This just snowballs into a bigger and bigger problem. 

Before long, the cost of lost productivity, negative company culture, and potential turnover costs add up to significantly more than the cost of giving employees a reasonable number of paid leave days.

Destigmatize leave days

You also need to ensure there is no negative sentiment towards people who take time off.

It’s all well and good to allow paid sick leave and a large number of vacation days, but it’s often the case that employees feel they’re looked upon in a negative light when taking their leave.

Create a culture that doesn’t punish or shame people for asking for their time off. You may even need to go a step further and actually encourage people to take leave, as it’s not uncommon for employees to neglect their leave days on their own, even if you’re open and accepting towards time off.

Final Thoughts

The idea that the best workers are those who work long hours, and make it to work every single day, no matter whether they’re sick, injured, tired or otherwise, is outdated and problematic.

Our understanding of productivity today shows that overwork, especially when someone is not at 100% mentally or physically, is damaging to the business.

It takes time, but we can already see that more organizations are becoming aware of presenteeism, and taking steps to offer improvements to their employees’ health and wellness.

If you’re running a business, take it upon yourself to learn how to avoid losing productive hours due to overwork and lack of available paid leave. Your employees will thank you for it, and so will your bottom line.

The post Presenteeism: The $150 Billion Problem for Today’s Workforce appeared first on Flamingo.

Most businesses are aware of how much absenteeism can cost them. These costs, and the problem itself, is quite easy to see. But there’s another issue that’s rife in workplaces today, which may well come with even bigger costs: presenteeism.

The cost of presenteeism is, unlike with absenteeism, hard to nail down. But from the data we can gather, the signs are not good.

Keep reading to learn more about how presenteeism costs businesses, and what you can do about it.

What Does Presenteeism Mean?

Presenteeism is when people come to work, despite being injured, unwell or otherwise unfit to work.

It’s when someone has a flu, but comes in to work anyway, and as a result can only work at a fraction of their usual capacity.

Presenteeism is, in effect, the opposite of the more well-known condition of absenteeism. Absenteeism is when someone is habitually absent from work. Presenteeism means they are habitually present, even when they have good reason to be off.

What’s an Example of Presenteeism?

As above, one example would be showing up to work despite being sick.

Another is an employee who works through a physical issue, like a bad back, which affects their ability to work.

Presenteeism can also be, and indeed more often is, related to mental health. An employee is burned out, overstressed, overworked, and keeps coming to work, instead of taking a vacation or a day off.

The latter is the most difficult to spot, as there are fewer physical symptoms. Yet it may be the most damaging example of presenteeism for all involved.

Other examples of presenteeism can be employees working long hours, a ton of overtime, or working through their weekends or vacations.

Simply, it’s being present too much.

What Causes Presenteeism?

Presenteeism is often caused by good qualities in an employee, such as the desire to work hard and provide value to the business. This is one of the reasons it’s such a difficult thing to manage.

The employees at most risk of presenteeism are those who aspire to impeccable attendance records. Those who wouldn’t think about calling in sick and causing trouble for their employer.

On the other hand, it can also be a result of pressure from the company. Many businesses or managers put undue pressure on their employees to be present every single working day, often not knowing that this is causing a bigger problem than the odd sick day.

It might be due to an unreasonable workload, which makes the employee feel like they can’t afford to take a day off. The employee may also feel they lack the job security to take time off, or show any weakness, such as admitting that they are not well.

It could also happen when employees do not have enough paid sick leave, vacation days or mental health days available to them. Therefore, they may be financially disincentivized to take the time off they really need.

What Are the Effects of Presenteeism in the Workplace?

Presenteeism can show up in different ways, not always easy to link back to the root issue.

You might notice symptoms or effects such as:

• Reduced performance
• An increase in small errors
• A dip in mood and engagement
• Isolation from other employees
• Physical symptoms of illness or injury
• Looking visible tired or run down

Generally, when you see these symptoms, presenteeism is already costing the business. There’s very little in the way of advanced warning signs.

So how exactly does presenteeism translate into costs for the business? We’ll look at that next.

How Does Presenteeism Cost Businesses?

To quantify the cost of presenteeism, we need to first consider how presenteeism affects the company’s bottom line. Here are the most significant ways:

Reduced performance/productivity

When someone comes to work sick, unwell, or injured, it’s likely their workplace productivity will be lower.

In some industries, on the job productivity is easy to notice – an assembly line worker who usually produced six widgets a day might only produce three. In others, it’s going to be a little more gray.

It can also be performance related, rather than productivity. The standard of someone’s work may drop, they may start making small errors, all of which costs the company.

Making other employees sick

Employees who come to work when they’re unwell risk spreading that sickness throughout the company.

This leads to more cases of absenteeism or presenteeism, as well as healthcare costs to the business.

Lengthy absences

Working through an illness or injury may also end up causing a longer absence and more serious health problems.

For example, in the early stages of an illness, the person might recover by simply taking a day or two off. But, by not taking the time they need to get better, illnesses can develop into chronic health conditions, that require a much longer layoff.

Turnover

Presenteeism, left unchecked, often turns into higher turnover, which has large, both direct and indirect costs to the business.

Decreased engagement and company culture

We mentioned that an unwell employee can spread their illness to fellow team members. An even bigger problem is when presenteeism evolves into social issues, such as isolation, depression and detachment from work.

This, too, spreads to other team members. It can lead to big problems with engagement and company culture throughout the business, which is very hard to fix.

What is the Cost of Presenteeism?

So, using what we know, is it possible to put a number on what presenteeism costs businesses?

One study estimates the cost of presenteeism to US businesses at $150 billion per year.

The same article indicates that presenteeism costs two to three times more than providing direct medical care for employees (i.e. insurance premiums and claims by employees).

The Journal of the American Medical Association found that reduced productivity and performance due to depression may cost employers in the US $35 billion per year, while pain conditions (e.g. arthritis, headaches, back problems), may come with a cost of $47 billion per year.

A RAND Europe survey showed that businesses lose over 38 days’ worth of productive time as a result of presenteeism. 

A study on presenteeism among nurses in China found a clear link between presenteeism and worker productivity loss. However, it was unable to put a dollar figure on the cost to businesses.

None of these studies can really give a clear and true accounting for all the costs related to presenteeism. But it does give an idea of the scale at which we’re talking about.

One study estimates the cost of presenteeism to US businesses at $150 billion per year.

What is the Cost of Absenteeism?

In comparison, the cost of absenteeism is a little easier to quantify. It’s easier to see the productivity costs due to someone being absent from work, or to link turnover to absenteeism.

This article estimates the total cost of the loss in productivity due to absenteeism at around $84 billion per year, varying depending on occupation, with the biggest losses from Professionals (not including nurses, physicians and teachers) and Managers/executives.

Circadian’s publication Absenteeism: The Bottom-Line Killer found that absenteeism costs between $2,600-$3,600 per year per worker, with hourly workers coming in at the higher end, salaried employees at the lower.

How Can We Reduce Presenteeism?

If we agree that presenteeism is a problem, how can we go about reducing (or preventing) it?

One way is to create a culture that doesn’t push people to the point of overwork or burnout. You need to encourage employees to take time off if they need it, and make the health and wellbeing of your employees a priority.

You should also allow ample paid time off and paid sick leave, so employees don’t put themselves behind financially by taking time off.

A mandatory vacation policy is a good way to fight presenteeism. This type of policy forces (or strongly encourages) employees to take a minimum amount of vacation time each year, pushing back against those who insist on working themselves to the ground.

Also, simply educating employees and managers about presenteeism is a great start. Most people don’t know that working through an illness or injury can have much worse effects in the long run.

It’s important to make people aware of this. Employees may not be so willing to sacrifice their health for a little extra work, and managers will know that it’s in the company’s best interest to keep their employees in top shape – physically and mentally – long-term.

Manage Leave, Reduce Presenteeism Costs, and Keep Your Employees Fresh and Healthy With Flamingo

Flamingo is a tool designed to help modern teams run more smoothly, and avoid issues with burnout, overwork and presenteeism.

It makes requesting leave, handling leave requests, and managing the schedule at your workplace easier than ever. As a result, you’re going to build a team of happier, healthier and more engaged employees.

Click here to learn more about Flamingo, or click below to sign up free and start reaping the benefits of a better work culture.

The post What Presenteeism Costs Today’s Businesses appeared first on Flamingo.

Chronic or habitual absenteeism is a serious problem for businesses looking to build a positive, healthy and productive work culture.

An average of 1.58 million sickness-related absences were recorded each month in the US in 2022. That adds up to 19 million missed workdays for the whole year, and huge losses in productivity to US businesses.

The effects of absenteeism go even deeper than just missed work days and lost productive hours, however. So if you’re running a business, or in a leadership role in a team, you’ll want to know all you can about absenteeism in the workplace, how it happens, and how to prevent it from becoming a problem.

What is Absenteeism?

Absenteeism is when someone is repeatedly absent from work, more than what is reasonable to expect.

Absenteeism can apply to anything where someone has scheduled attendance, most commonly used in reference to work and school. We’ll be focusing primarily on absenteeism in the workplace. This affects part-time and full-time employees, shift workers and salaried employees.

Absenteeism often involves unplanned, unannounced absences, without a good reason. Not always, though. Some may consider chronic sickness-related absences as absenteeism, even though the employee has a legitimate reason for being off work.

The same goes for absences over a reasonable amount for employees on unlimited PTO, even though these are often planned absences.

Are All Employee Absences Classified as Absenteeism?

So does it count as absenteeism every time an employee is off work?

No. Absences are a normal part of work. People get sick, unexpected issues come up, and people also need to take time off every now and then to rest and recharge.

Absences that don’t apply for absenteeism include:

• Vacations or scheduled PTO
• Excused absences like jury duty, parental leave, bereavement leave, sabbatical
• FMLA absences
• Occasional sick leave
• Occasional personal days

Employee absenteeism is when these absences are habitual, or over a reasonable amount, such as when employees regularly call in sick, or regularly ask for personal days.

It can also include habitual lateness, leaving work early, or extended breaks during the workday.

What’s the Threshold Where Absences Become Absenteeism?

There’s no defined point where an acceptable absence rate turns into excessive absenteeism. This is why it is such a tricky thing to diagnose and address. Where do you draw the line between someone who has legitimate health issues and someone whose low attendance has to be addressed?

The definition of absenteeism, too, is not the same for everyone. Some businesses or leaders only consider employee absenteeism to be unplanned, unexpected and unexcused absences.

For others, it includes unscheduled absences with a legitimate reason (e.g. health issues), when they become habitual or above a reasonable rate. This is because, while it’s not necessarily wrong for the employee to be absent from work, it’s not sustainable for a business to operate with employees who are chronically absent from their scheduled shifts.

So it’s up to the business to decide what is normal and acceptable in terms of absences, and when it becomes a problem that needs to be addressed.

What is a Normal Absenteeism Rate?

Absences happen in all businesses – there’s no escaping this, unless you replace your entire human workforce with AI.

In the UK in 2022, the average sickness absence rate was 2.6%. That means, on average, workers took 2.6 days off per 100 scheduled working days. The average number of days lost per worker was 5.7 days per year.

The average absence rate in the US, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is 3.6% for full-time and salary workers.

Averages vary in different countries. A study by Small Business Prices found Israel had the lowest absenteeism rate, at 3.9 days per year, while German workers averaged 16.3 days off per year.

It’s hard to put an exact figure on what a normal and acceptable absence rate is, but generally speaking around 2% or lower is healthy and normal.

Is a Low Absenteeism Rate a Good Thing?

It might seem like a lower absenteeism rate is always a good thing, but that’s not necessarily the case.

If you legitimately have few absences, that’s great. But many times, lower than normal absenteeism happens for the wrong reasons.

The business may put pressure on employees not to call in sick, or may not offer paid sick leave. In both cases, employees often come into work while unwell, because they fear being reprimanded or losing pay.

This becomes a whole new problem, called presenteeism. Presenteeism is when employees are present too often, even when they have legitimate reasons for being off work, such as sickness or injury.

This is a problem because the employee performs at a lower standard or capacity than usual, takes longer to get better, and may also infect others in the workplace.

The lost productivity from the employee coming into work unwell outweighs what you would have lost had they simply taken sick leave and stayed home.

If your business has low absenteeism, it may be that your team is incredibly fit and healthy and rarely gets sick. But it could also be presenteeism which, like absenteeism, needs to be addressed.

How Absenteeism Affects Businesses

There is a quantifiable cost of absenteeism. And it’s big.

A study by Circadian found that absenteeism was costing US companies $3,600 per hourly employee per year, and $2,650 per salaried employee per year.

The cost is broken down into the cost of sick leave paid to absent employees, replacement workers/overtime pay to other employees and administrative costs.

A 2015 report from the CDC claims that productivity losses due to absenteeism in the US add up to $225.8 billion annually, or $1,685 per employee.

The Integrated Benefits Institute estimates the cost of health-related workplace absenteeism even higher, at $575 billion per year for US employers, $3,900 per employee. This includes the cost of sick leave, impaired performance, workers compensation and Family and Medical Leave.

These are the somewhat quantifiable costs. There are additional costs that are harder to measure, such as the impact on company culture, collaboration, productivity, employee engagement and retention, which are all consequences of higher than normal absenteeism.

How Absenteeism Affects Individuals

Absenteeism doesn’t just affect the business. It also affects individuals in the workplace.

For absentees, effects include: 

• Reduced perception of their ability or value to the organization.
• Formal and informal discipline, potentially leading to the loss of their job or lost opportunities for advancement.
• Decreased engagement and job satisfaction.
• Lost pay (in the case that paid sick leave isn’t available, or is all used up).

It also affects other individuals in the workplace. Coworkers of absentees need to take on a higher workload to compensate for their absence, which can lead to overwork, employee burnout, and overall job dissatisfaction.

Absenteeism can lead to conflicts with coworkers, collaborative or cooperative issues, and an increased risk of accidents due to lower engagement and increased workload.

It can even affect managers and people in leadership positions on an individual level, by the pressure put on them to deal with a habitually absent employee (who they may also have close personal relationships with, making it difficult emotionally when disciplinary actions are required).

Most Common Causes of Absenteeism in the Workplace

It’s important to understand that absenteeism is not always a conscious decision on the part of an employee.

Sometimes that is the case – an employee decides that the job is not important to them, and chooses to call in sick or not turn up to work.

But more often, the employee would rather not become an absentee. Yet a deeper issue causes them to regularly call in sick or miss work.

Causes of absenteeism are sometimes treatable. Sometimes, in the case of chronic health issues, they are harder to address.

Here are some of the most common causes of absenteeism in the workplace:

• Illness
• Injury
• Mental health issues
• Stress/burnout
• Overwork
• Extreme workload/pressure
• Family issues
• Substance abuse
• Low engagement/motivation
• Workplace bullying/harassment
• Commuting issues
• Poor management/communication

How to Prevent Absenteeism

The best way to reduce employee absenteeism is to prevent it, rather than dealing with it after it’s already become a problem.

Businesses should understand that there is always the potential for absenteeism to occur. As such, they should create a workplace culture that helps prevent the issue from coming up in the first place.

There are a number of good practices to follow that help prevent absenteeism. Let’s take a quick look at these now.

Provide (and encourage) sick leave

It may sound counterintuitive, but providing employees with paid sick leave can help reduce absenteeism.

Absenteeism is often a result of chronic health conditions. These happen when minor health issues are not addressed, and grow into something more substantial.

If employees have paid sick leave available, they’re more likely to get the rest they need to recover from health issues, and avoid long-term, chronic illnesses.

It’s not enough to just offer sick leave, though. You need to encourage employees to take it, and let them know that they won’t be perceived as bad workers if they take sick days from time to time.

Build a safe and healthy workplace

A healthy workplace will help reduce the number of injuries and illnesses that occur to your staff.

You don’t need to do anything groundbreaking – just follow normal health and safety practices. Keep your workplace clean and well-ventilated, train employees on how to be safe at work, and encourage employees to stay away from work if they’re unwell.

Encourage employees to take regular vacations

Vacation time helps keep employees fresh, motivated and engaged. It helps prevent burnout, and gives employees time to spend with their loved ones or on things that are important to them in their personal lives.

Too many companies, particularly in the US, don’t offer enough vacation time. But the money and productive hours they save by being stingy with their PTO policy is counteracted by the loss in productivity and cost of higher absenteeism.

A lot of companies do offer enough PTO, but employees don’t take all the time available to them, out of pressure, workload concerns or too much friction in the request process. So don’t just offer vacation time, actually encourage employees to take it.

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Offer employee wellness benefits

Employee wellness programs can help employees stay healthy, physically and mentally. 

This can range from offering healthy food at work, to paid gym memberships, mental health resources and healthcare. The choice of a flexible work schedule can also be a powerful benefit to offer to promote employee wellness.

Manage employees’ workload

Take care to manage the workload given to employees. You might want to push them to get more done, but if you push this too far, it can have a lot of negative consequences.

These consequences include reduced motivation, absenteeism, burnout, and ultimately the loss of staff who were previously good performers.

Take care not to put too much on their plate, and regularly touch base with employees to ensure that they’re not taking on more that they can handle.

Offer remote/hybrid work

Many cases of absenteeism are a direct result of a long and tiring commute. In big cities especially, staff often have to sit in traffic for long hours or spend a lot of money on transport just to get to and from work. This often leads to lateness, or staff deciding to call in sick and stay home.

Then there are issues at home, or the desire to spend more time around family and loved ones, which causes a lot of absences.

These issues can all be prevented by offering staff the ability to work from home. They don’t need to commute, saving a lot of time and money, and can spend time around their family without always needing to take a sick day or personal day.

Address motivation and morale issues early

Low employee morale or motivation builds slowly, not all at once. It’s easier to address in its early stages, but when it gets to the point where low engagement is causing absenteeism, it’s often too late and too embedded to change.

Managers and leaders should stay on top of this, and address any issues when they first become evident. Talk to employees, be compassionate, and find out what’s causing the problem. By doing this, you can usually fix the problem before it grows out of control.

Recognize good performance/celebrate wins

Low employee engagement and motivation often happen when managers only point out the negatives to employees.

Many employees feel that their mistakes or shortcomings are singled out, but their leaders never recognize the good things they do.

Make it a point to point out good performance, not just bad. Also, celebrate “wins” in the business, big and small. This helps build an environment of positivity, where employees are more motivated and more engaged.

Foster a positive work environment

Do whatever you can do to build and foster a positive environment and workplace culture.

You can do this by promoting positivity and compassion with how you deal with employees, and building a culture that’s inclusive and welcoming to all.

Prevent any kind of inter-office politics, harassment or bullying, and make your organization a safe and positive place to work.

Lead by example

Finally, to get buy-in from those lower on the ladder, those in leadership positions should act as they want to see from others.

If leaders or managers are often absent or late, it’s hard to convince other employees to do the right thing. Managers should be held accountable the same way as other employees are, and held even to a higher standard.

How to Treat or Respond to Absenteeism

The first step to treating and reducing absenteeism in the workplace is addressing it. You need to know that there is a problem before you can address the problem.

The next step is to understand why it’s happening. It’s generally due to one of the root causes listed above.

Identify whether it’s an issue with a particular employee, or a team-wide issue. Is it simply one person who is habitually unwell and absent from work, or is there a pattern of absenteeism throughout your team, indicative of a larger workplace culture problem?

If it’s one employee who is consistently late or absent, sit them down and have an open discussion as to what the issue is, and what can be done about it.

If the problem is due to pressure or workload, for example, do what you can to reduce this and alleviate the issue.

Company-wide absenteeism is more difficult to deal with, as you generally need to turn around the whole company culture.

It could simply be due to the company’s vacation/sick leave policies being too strict. This is an easy fix – don’t be afraid to be more generous in allowing paid time off.

While you ideally want to solve issues and keep employees involved in the business, sometimes you do need to initiate disciplinary action, and even go down the road of termination if it gets too bad. This is the last resort, but necessary in order to avoid absenteeism from becoming the norm.

Prevent Chronic Absenteeism and Build a More Positive Workplace

Absenteeism is a problem in many workplaces. A lot of sources show it getting worse since COVID-19 as well, due in part to health issues related to “long COVID”, and in part to wider problems with low motivation, mental health and stress with workers today.

For most businesses, particularly those with a large workforce, lowering absenteeism rate is one of the top things you can do to boost productivity and profitability. Remove chronic absenteeism and you’ll get far more productive hours, coupled with lower expenses, and a more positive overall workplace.

The post What is Absenteeism? (Definition, Causes, Cost and Solutions) appeared first on Flamingo.

In this post, we’re going to share some of the best Slack apps, integrations and tools that will help you run your team more effectively.

Third-party apps are part of what makes Slack so powerful. In the Slack app directory, you can find a wide variety of apps for a wide range of uses. This includes simple Slack bots for team building and collaboration, tools to help remote teams build effective HR systems, and Slack integrations with popular software tools.

Read on for our expert picks on the best Slack apps, integrations and more to help you get the most out of Slack.

What Are the Benefits of Slack Apps?

Slack is powerful on its own, as its 12 million daily active users can attest to. But Slack apps add to that power, by enabling more advanced functionality, or integrating your Slack workspace with external tools.

Our company has been using Slack for a long time. We started as a fully remote team nearly ten years ago, and Slack has been a key part of our workflow the entire time.

In our experience using Slack, as with hundreds of thousands of other remote teams, we’ve come to rely on many Slack apps to help our business run smoothly.

Slack apps can help with project management and task management, making it easier to manage projects within Slack. Other apps help improve communication in your Slack channels and conversations.

Some apps increase team productivity by automating time-consuming or repetitive tasks. Apps can also help improve team culture and foster a positive atmosphere for your entire team.

There are just so many ways a simple Slack app can make your life, or your team’s life, easier.

Now, let’s move on to some of the best Slack apps/integrations for hybrid and remote teams in 2023.

Best Slack Apps: Purpose-Built for Slack

We’ll start with some of the best Slack apps built specifically for Slack.

These are some amazingly simple yet powerful apps, designed to level up the way your team runs in Slack.

From tracking vacation time, to recognizing the awesome work of your teammates, there’s a Slack app that can make it easy.

Flamingo

A lot of teams – particularly remote teams – don’t have an effective system in place to track employee leave.

Some have time-intensive systems for tracking leave, that require a lot of data entry, which is inefficient and prone to errors. Others barely track leave at all, leading to scheduling problems and missed deadlines. And some just find it easier to not let people take leave in the first place.

That’s where Flamingo comes in. Flamingo is a simple, efficient leave management tool for Slack teams. It lets people request time off in just a few clicks, without leaving Slack. And it’s just as easy for managers to review and respond to leave requests.

Flamingo removes all the data entry and inefficient parts of managing leave. That not only makes it easier to maintain your employee vacation calendar, but it also makes it easy and stress-free for employees to ask for leave.

This is important because employees need time off to rest and recuperate. Allowing them the opportunity to do this, and removing barriers in the way of people taking their PTO, means a happier and more productive team of employees.

Flamingo is free to try, and completely free to use for small teams. For just the time that Flamingo saves you in data entry and setting up your schedule, it’ll bring a huge amount of value to your organization.

Try Flamingo for Free

Geekbot

Geekbot is an asynchronous communication tool that helps keep your team in sync, even while working remotely.

The main use case for Geekbot is running automated daily standups. A standup is a daily report, generally used for employees to give an update on what they’re working on, what they’ll work on next, and if they have anything that’s currently blocking their progress.

Geekbot sends a direct message on Slack to team members, at the time you set, asking each team member a set of questions. Their answers can be sent to a dedicated Slack channel (i.e. a #daily-reports channel).

A daily standup bot isn’t exactly ground-breaking, but it is surprisingly useful. It makes project management and collaboration so much easier, especially in a remote work environment where you don’t always have constant contact with other team members.

Like many Slack bots, you could do all of this manually. But manually checking in with your team takes a lot of mental bandwidth, and invariably ends up being something you push to the side and forget about.

Geekbot is also perfect for retrospectives, wellbeing checkups, meeting notes, and much more.

It’s free to try, and remains free to use for small teams. Definitely worth a try for teams looking to improve their communication.

Simple Poll

Simple Poll is another Slack app that helps remote teams communicate better.

The name says it all – it’s a tool built for making simple polls in Slack. It’s easy to use, uncomplicated, and fits for a number of different use cases.

You can run basic surveys, anonymous polls, recurring polls, with settings (such as limiting votes, letting people add options) to make it work the way you want.

Polls can be posted to Slack channels, or you can send surveys to team members via direct messages.

The best part is how quick and simple it is to create a poll. You just need to type /poll and fill out the options. It works completely within your Slack workflow.

Simple Poll is free for limited use, which will be fine for most teams. If you need unlimited polls, surveys and responses, or advanced poll features, paid plans start at $49 per month.

Polly

Polly is a slightly more feature-rich version of Simple Poll, as well providing some elements of what Geekbot does.

It lets you set up polls, surveys, and gather feedback from team members. Along with multiple-choice polls, you can ask questions to generate stand-ups and reports, and gather feedback in a private, asynchronous manner.

It’s useful for improving employee engagement, checking in with new hires during the onboarding process, managing product development sprints, and much more.

Basically, any time you might need to poll or generate feedback from your team, Polly can probably help.

The visual data representation and segmentation by custom demographics makes it pretty powerful when it comes to analyzing responses from large, distributed teams.

Polly, like many of our other best Slack apps, offers a free plan that suits most small teams, as well as premium plans for teams with more complex needs.

Bonusly

Recognition for team members who do an awesome job is a big part of a positive work environment. When people get positive feedback, they’re more likely to stay motivated and push themselves to produce more high-quality work.

It also makes it easier to offer constructive criticism to employees when needed, since this isn’t the only time they find themselves receiving feedback.

Bonusly is an app that drives engagement and recognition, helping you create a positive company culture.

It works by allowing employees to give bonuses to other employees they feel have done a great job.

Everyone in the team can see when someone gives a bonus, letting the whole company know about the person’s awesome work.

Theses bonus points add up, and can be redeemed for rewards, such as gift cards, or custom rewards set up specifically for your team.

You can customize these rewards just how you want, and then leave it to work on autopilot.

Setting up a bonus system with Bonusly is perfect for incentivizing people to go above and beyond, and make the team better. You can also use it for company-wide awards and incentives, birthday or work anniversaries, and much more. 

Poppins

Poppins is a way to make sure you don’t miss important tasks or action items that come up in Slack channels and Slack conversations.

Simply by tagging @Poppins in a Slack message, the app will automatically save your message and add it as an Action Item, Discussion Item, or Highlight.

You can go back at any time and view everything you’ve saved with Poppins, to make sure you never forget something important.

It’s essentially a Slack todo app, letting you build a prioritized to-do list, adding action items to your list without interrupting your workflow.

It makes it easy to flow from task to task, without digging through old Slack messages or kanban boards to figure out what you had to do next.

Poppins boasts that you can save an hour of work every day, which is quite impressive from a free Slack app. 

Team TimeZone

Project management, or just general organization, with employees spread out all over the world is a common challenge for remote businesses. Team TimeZone is designed to make that a little bit easier.

This app gives you multiple views to easily tell what time it is for every employee in their respective time zone. You’re given various views to work with, such as a timeline view, or a view by individual time zones.

You can filter by Slack channels and groups, view peoples’ current status (i.e. away, in a meeting, on vacation), and contact people directly from the web app view.

One of the most useful features is being able to choose a time and view how many peoples’ working hours it fits. This lets you easily schedule meetings at the best time for everyone, without the endless back and forth of asking everyone what time suits them.

It doesn’t offer a free plan, but the pricing is quite reasonable, starting at $9/mo for up to 25 members. The real value of this tool, however, is for larger teams, where you’ll see how powerful it is to be able to see all your team members’ current time zones at a glance.

Ricotta

Slack doesn’t have to be a drag. In fact, it shouldn’t be. If all your team ever sees on Slack is boring, work-related content, they’re going to dread getting up every morning and logging on.

Ricotta is a virtual team building app that helps you add a bit of fun to your workspace.

You can set up trivia, quizzes, games, watercooler convos and icebreakers for your whole team to participate in, breaking up the monotony of work-related chat.

Here are some examples:

• Trivia quizzes
• Picture quizzes
• Contests
• This or that
• Never have I ever
• Two truths and a lie
• Co-worker icebreakers
• Tic-tac-toe
• Connect 4
• Rock-paper-scissors
• Word of the day
• Hangman
• Word building
• Story building

It’s a simple way to increase engagement in your team, and inject a little life to everyone’s workday.

Ricotta is free to use for just the icebreaker features, and starts from $34/mo for the full range of features (and up to 50 users). If you think helping your team have fun at work is worth that, then definitely give Ricotta a try.

BirthdayBot

Everyone has a birthday, and that day should feel like their own special day. With this app, it’s easy to let everyone know about their teammates’ birthdays, to encourage closer team bonding.

It also works for work anniversaries. The tool is easy to customize, to send notifications, reminders and celebration posts how and when you want. Team members can opt out of birthday notifications too, if they’d rather stay under the radar.

You can set up gift card rewards and wish lists to help people pick out the perfect birthday gift.

It’s a simple thing, but remembering and recognizing birthdays in your company is a great way to bring people together and foster a more positive work environment.

BirthdayBot is free for up to 50 birthdays, and comes with a small cost per user for more advanced features and unlimited birthday notifications.

Best Slack Integrations for External Tools

Along with apps purpose-built for Slack, many external tools and platforms have Slack integrations. These integrations help you streamline your workflow, and spend less time switching between different tools.

As free Slack apps, it makes little sense not to use these integrations if you’re already paying for the actual tool.

Here are some of the most popular and most useful Slack integrations:

Zoom

Who in remote work today hasn’t used Zoom? It’s become one of the most ubiquitous tools for our generation’s workforce. If you ever have a meeting or call with someone, there’s a good chance it’s going to be over Zoom.

The Zoom for Slack integration lets you start meetings and calls directly from Slack. You can call someone from their Slack account profile, or start and join meetings within a Slack channel.

If Zoom calls and meetings are a common thing in your organization, the Zoom app for Slack is going to save you a ton of time.

Get the Zoom Integration for Slack

Zapier

Zapier is a tool that lets you connect different apps and platforms, and set up your own custom automations. That makes it perfect for setting up any kind of Slack integration that’s not already done by a third-party Slack bot.

Zapier is great for sending Slack notifications about new blog posts or comments on your site, new updates on social media, new orders for your ecommerce store… basically, anything you can think of, there’s probably a way to do it with Zapier.

You can also send data the other way, from Slack to an external tool. There’s just so much that’s possible, and so many ways to make your workflow more efficient.

Get the Zapier Integration for Slack

Google Calendar

A lot of entrepreneurs and remote workers plan their whole day, week – even life – on Google Calendar. If that’s you, the Google Calendar integration for Slack is a must.

All you need to do is install the free app and connect your Google Calendar account. You’ll be able to completely sync your calendar with your Slack account.

You can view upcoming events on your calendar, automatically update your Slack status if you’re in a meeting, respond to invites and get notifications about upcoming events, all inside Slack. 

Get the Google Calendar Integration for Slack

Google Drive

If you often use Google Suite apps like Google Docs and Google Sheets, you’ll find the Google Drive Slack integration very handy. All you need to do is connect Google Drive in Slack to start using this integration.

The app sends you updates in Slack for new comments or changes to your Google Drive files (from Google Docs, Slides and Sheets), as well as for items shared with you and new access requests. You can reply to comments, or accept access requests without leaving Slack.

It also imports files when you share a link in Slack, and you can create new files (e.g. a new Google Doc) directly from the app.

Get the Google Drive Integration for Slack

Trello

Trello is one of the most popular project management tools out there. If your business uses Trello, you’ll definitely want to use their Slack integration.

The integration lets you send notifications to a Slack channel for comments, new cards or moved cards.

It imports the details of a Trello card when you share the link in Slack, and you can create cards, join cards/boards, and change certain details (like due dates) directly within Slack.

Your project management workflow will run a lot more smoothly, by cutting down the number of times you need to open and check Trello for updates.

Get the Trello Integration for Slack

Asana

Asana, like Trello, is a staple project management and team collaboration tool for many companies. And you can do a lot of the same things with Asana for Slack as you can with the Trello integration, such as creating new tasks and pulling previews from Asana into a Slack channel.

You can link specific tasks to specific channels, which is a really nice feature. 

Another awesome thing about the Asana Slack integration is the ability to set up rules, setting up specific triggers that lead to a specific action in Slack. This lets you really customize the experience of your Asana-Slack integration however it works best for you.

Get the Asana Integration for Slack

Monday

Monday (aka Monday.com) is the third tool that comes to mind straight away when you think of the best product management and collaboration tools used in remote work today.

The Monday Slack integration is a powerful two-way integration, letting you automatically sync important details between the two platforms.

You can use the Slack Monday integration to send customized notifications a Slack channel, as well as creating new items directly from Slack. That means you can create tasks, manage tasks and assign tasks, all in one place.

Get the Monday Integration for Slack

Loom

With the Loom integration from Slack, you can record and send videos within a Slack channel. This is an amazing way for remote teams to level up communication.

Instead of long, rambling text threads, say what’s on your mind with a quick video. It also allows you to record your screen, which makes it a lot easier to explain exactly what you mean.

Your teammates will be able to view your video embedded directly in Slack, so there’s no jumping between different platforms.

Get the Loom Integration for Slack

Giphy

Finally, sometimes you just need to spice up your Slack conversation with a gif. If pictures tell a thousand words, gifs (pronounced with a hard “g”, by the way) must tell at least ten thousand.

Installing the Giphy app gives you millions of gifs to choose from, right at your fingertips in Slack.

Get the Giphy Integration for Slack

What’s Missing?

The lists above feature 19 of the best Slack apps/integrations out there today. We tried to put together a broad collection of apps and integrations that offer something for most organizations, including the best free Slack apps, for smaller teams with a limited tech budget. But there’s still a good chance that we’re missing some app or Slack integration that would work great for you.

If there are tools you use that aren’t on the list of integrations above, check out their site or the Slack app directory to see if there’s a Slack integration available. In most cases, you’ll find there is.

For example, most CRM tools (e.g. HubSpot, Salesforce) have a Slack integration. The same goes for support tools, like HelpScout and Intercom. These integrations are great for letting your team know as soon as a new message or support ticket comes in.

If there’s another project management or task management software your team relies on, see if there’s a Slack integration for it. Otherwise, check out Zapier and see if you can use this to level up your workflow.

Slack Apps FAQs

Now let’s answer any and all questions you might have about how apps work on Slack.

How do I add apps to Slack?

You can add Slack apps to your workspace directly from Slack, by going to the “Apps” section in the sidebar.

Hit “Add apps” to bring up the app directory. From here, you can search for the app you want, or choose from one of Slack’s recommended apps.

You can also open the directory at https://slack.com/apps. Find the app you want, and hit the “Add to Slack” button.

Can anyone install Slack apps?

Any team member can add apps to their Slack workspace. However, admins can change this from their workspace settings. You can limit installations to only pre-approved apps, or allow only workspace owners or specific members to add and manage apps.

Do Slack apps install for everyone?

Yes. Once someone adds a Slack app to your workspace, everyone in that workspace can use it.

You may need to sign in or connect to an external account to use all the app’s features, however. If this is the case, each member will need to do so on their own.

Are Slack apps free?

It’s free to install any app from the Slack app directory. However, some apps require a paid subscription to function after installing.

Is there a limit to the number of apps I can add to Slack?

For a free Slack workspace, you’re limited to 10 apps and integrations. Workspaces on a paid plan can install an unlimited number of apps.

How to delete a Slack app

You can delete or remove an app from your workspace by going to the Slack app directory (on desktop).

Click “Manage” at the top of the page. This will bring up the list of apps and integrations installed in your Slack workspace. Click on the app you wish to remove – it will bring you to the app’s directory page.

From here, click “Configuration”, and scroll down to the bottom where it says “Remove App”.

How many Slack apps are there?

There are more than 2,400 apps and integrations in the Slack app directory – a number that is continually growing.

Final Thoughts on the Best Slack Apps, Integrations and More

Third-party apps and custom integrations are part of what makes Slack great.

Not only can you bring all your team-wide communication and collaboration into one place with Slack, you can integrate it with just about every part of your workflow.

This lets you save a ton of time and mental energy often spent switching between different platforms. Over time, both the time and energy adds up big time, making your team more efficient and much happier.

Slack apps also have the power to automate a lot of time-consuming, menial, and straight up inefficient things in your day-to-day list of tasks.

All Slack workspaces, free and paid, can use Slack apps. So take some time to check out the app directory and find the best Slack apps and Slack integration tools to make your life easier.

The post The Best Slack Apps and Integrations in 2023 appeared first on Flamingo.