Take the Stress Out of Managing Leave Requests

It’s time for your organization’s fourth quarter leave request open call, a process many would compare to opening day at a theme park. Shift workers and managers alike are lined up in hopes of getting much sought-after days like Thanksgiving or Christmas Day off. As the person in charge of assigning leave, you dread the process of prioritizing requests following your organization’s seniority-based hierarchy because no matter how hard you try, your organization’s manual processes leave you feeling like a ping pong ball in the middle of a hot set. You wish there was a better way to equitably assign leave without all the back and forth.

Prioritize Leave Assignments According to Your Rules
Enter TCP’s new Leave Bidding feature, created with the public sector and unionized organizations in mind. Leave Bidding allows managers to create a “leave bid” where employees can enter requests for future planned leave. This feature can be arranged according to rank or any other sequence assigned by the organization—employee tenure, seniority in rank or even first-come, first served.

Black Out Dates When They Are Unavailable
Unfortunately, with many agencies, workforce requirements don’t allow for everyone to get the days off that they request. Organizations such as police departments and hospitals need shifts filled every day of the year. Our Leave Bidding feature blacks out dates once the maximum number of leave requests have been assigned, saving managers from ping-ponging back-and-forth to assign leave in the most equitable way.

Create ‘Stand By’ Lists
Even as leave is assigned, TCP’s Leave Bidding feature allows you to create a “Stand By” based on bids, so a runner up for a leave request can be notified if a leave request is cancelled after it has been awarded. Employees can see where they stand on the list to know if there’s a chance they might still be awarded their preferred dates.

Rank Leave Bids According to Importance to Employee
Some leave bids are more important than others. While one senior employee may prefer to take an annual family vacation during the first week of June, another employee is getting married that week and has ranked that leave request as “Priority One” on their list. Priority rankings give extra insight into the importance of one bid over another and make it easier for managers to assign leave and avoid grievances—or in the case of this particular employee, a really poor start to a marriage.

TCP’s Leave Bidding feature makes it easier for organizations with strict or complex workforce requirements to assign leave in a way that is transparent and follows organizational policies. It helps managers distribute leave with less frustration and greater employee satisfaction. Doesn’t every organization need that?