Leave Mangement

Leave management relates to planned absences within an organisation. Employees have a statutory right to paid time off and must take that leave. An organisation is able to award time off in excess of the statutory entitlement and may manage this how they choose. An example of this would be in relation to a holiday buy / sell scheme; an employee may not sell their statutory entitlement but will be able to sell all or some of their entitlement in excess of this.

Outstanding leave entitlements form part of an organisation financial liabilities. This means that accurate records must be maintained and also that an organisation must be able to report on this liability during the year. A leave management process must both award the correct entitlement to an employee and also collect accurate information about bookings. Part of this process will be ensuring that leave is taken as evenly as possible during the year in order that planned absence does not hamper productivity.

The day-to-day administration of leave management is typically delegated to line managers who approve or reject absence requests made by their staff. HR staff manage and administer the leave year, monitoring outstanding liabilities and implementing contractual changes that may occur over time.