What is a Leave Management System?

A leave management system is a process by which employees apply for leaves; managers approve them and leave balances are tracked.

Initially, most companies opt for a manual process that involves a lot of busywork for the HR department.

Traditional leave management looks a little like this :

• The employee checks their leave balances using a view-only Excel sheet managed by the HR department
• The employee drops an email to their manager
• The manager looks through the work calendar and other absences of team members to approve or reject the leave
• On approval, the HR manager is also looped in who then adjusts the leave balances accordingly

On the surface, this seems pretty simple and straightforward for a few employees. But what if you have over 20 employees who work from different offices in different time zones and are eligible for different kinds of leaves?

As more variables are thrown into the mix, the leave system begins to start eating into a significant portion of the HRs bandwidth. This is when an automated leave management system can begin to look useful in terms of money and time spent.