Managing Leave—Annoying for Sure, But Doable

Managing Leave—Annoying for Sure, But Doable

"Never let manager deal with leave requests," says one expert, but that's easier said than done. For every HR manager who doesn't have a leave specialist on staff, here are Bob Gilson's tips for dealing with leave requests.

Gilson, an expert on employee relations, offers his tips on FedSmith.com, where he is a frequent blogger. Here's what he recommends:

1. Learn the Basic Rules

This means your organization's policies for vacation, sick leave or paid time off (PTO) system, Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), worker's compensation, and other types of leave. If your employees operate under a union contract, be familiar with leave-related provisions of the contract.

2. Get a Grip on the FMLA

With the new changes to the FMLA, this is especially important. Many of the changes will ultimately be beneficial to employers, but most organizations are in the process of changing their policies and procedures, especially dealing with notice from and to employees.

3. Assemble a Paper or E-File for Reference

Create a folder (paper or online) of leave rules, forms, and so on, and keep it all in one place where you can get to it quickly when employees request leave, recommends Gilson.

4. Set Clear Expectations

Make sure the people you supervise also have copies of your organization's leave rules, says Gilson. Send them a memo emphasizing the important provisions such as the procedures for requesting various types of leave, what forms to use, and what the rules are for calling in during leave or to request time off.

5. Remind Your Staff of Expectations Regularly

It's not enough to tell employees once on the day they are hired about your requirements. Remind people of the rules at staff meetings. Don't discuss any specific employee's situation but do, in a general way, encourage employees to follow the rules, Gilson says.

6. Enforce the Rules

Make sure employees who exhibit any kind of attendance problem get a response from you, says Gilson. Of course, take circumstances into account, but at the same time, let the employee know that you noticed the infraction and that you are prepared to enforce the rules.

7. Require a Written Request

Get your people used to using a form, says Gilson. It's habit-forming and it keeps everybody straight.

8. Track Leave Usage

You need to track usage just for management purposes, but there's also another good reason, Gilson suggests. Only careful tracking will reveal potential abusers. For example, you might find someone with no chronic, documented condition who often requests sick leave on Mondays, Fridays, and days before holidays.

If you suspect abuse, says Gilson, talk to your HR manager. But remember, documentation is the key to resolving attendance and leave problems.

9. Question Inconsistent or Improper Requests

Call employees on it when their leave requests appear inconsistent with their documented conditions, or if vacation leave is requested at the last minute when heavy workloads or deadlines are imminent, says Gilson. It's important to let people know that you are paying attention.

Employee-Manager Trust Strengthens Work Relationships

With more than 135,000 employees working in some 80 countries worldwide, Procter & Gamble, creator of brands such as Tide, Folgers, Pringles, Charmin and Crest, has isolated the manager-employee relationship as a critical component of effective performance management.

"It's the No. 1 reason why people leave a company," said Keith Lawrence, director of human resources, beauty, health and well-being at Procter & Gamble Co. "It's such an important relationship. It determines the work an individual is assigned, their future assignments, promotions, compensation, as well as the basic love, care and feeding that we get each day."

In order to enable effective manager-employee relationships, Lawrence said the process must begin with a manager's fundamental belief that a high-quality relationship with every one of his or her employees is important.

Positive manager-employee relationships actually start when an employee joins the manager's team or attends the company on-boarding program. On-boarding can help the two get to know each other, identify their strengths and establish how they can work together.

To set the right tone at this stage, Lawrence said the manager should have clear work plans and objectives for what will be accomplished in the first assignment.

Ongoing, continuous feedback - including not only what needs improvement, but recognition of what is going well - will help reinforce the employee's contribution and build a basic feeling of trust, respect and a sense of teamwork.

"We have a lot of systems to give feedback on an ongoing basis, but the most effective way to give feedback is to tailor it to the individual employee," he explained. "Some employees like to get written feedback, some like to get it in person, others like to hear all the good stuff, and you have to soft pedal the issues. It's important for the manager to know every one of their employees and deliver feedback as they like it delivered."

The level of personalization and trust in this manager-employee relationship is so relevant; it can take only one incident to damage it. Saying one thing and doing another, offering inaccurate information or not fulfilling commitments related to advancement or new opportunities for growth and development are a few critical but common manager mistakes.

"Fundamentally, all relationships boil down to trust," Lawrence said. "The worst thing a manager can do is make a commitment and either not deliver on it or not be honest, candid and complete with their employee. It's very hard to rebuild trust. Stephen Covey would say you need seven deposits in the emotional bank to account for one incident like that. In the trust fund, it's beyond that. A manager can really blow a relationship when they're not trustworthy or when they lack integrity."

Procter & Gamble uses its annual employee survey to measure how well managers are building and sustaining employee relationships. The survey has several relationship-based questions for which answers are monitored, benchmarked and tied to manager - particularly senior managers' - bonuses.

"That puts teeth behind the importance of this," Lawrence said. "We also have a wide range of tools and training available to managers and employees to help their relationship building. For example, we have a relationship-building tool kit that has an array of different exercises and approaches that both employee and manager can use to help them strengthen their respective relationship.

"Last, we're leaning toward what we call strength-based relationships, and the analogy here is in a marriage, you learn to appreciate and play to each other's strengths as opposed to trying to fix the parts you don't like. The same is true here. We're trying to focus on what are the strengths that each employee and manager has and how can they respectively play to those over time and build and strengthen one another."

Reference:
Kellye Whitney

HR Policy and Manual

HR policies vary considerably from one organization to another, depending on the age of the organization, its size, the nature of the workforce and the position regarding union recognition, but here are the main policy areas:

Principles:

This is a statement about the general view by the management of employment in the organization. It is likely to carry ringing phrases about teamwork, fairness, innovation and opportunity, but may also include a declaration about the degree and method of employee involvement and the security of employment in different parts of the workforce.

Staffing and development:

Here will be the specific undertakings to employees and the management strategies to be followed in appointing the most appropriate people, providing the opportunities for career growth and ensuring that employees develop their skills and capacities in line with the growth of the business. The main features of this policy area are how vacancies will be determined, where applicants will be sought and how decisions will be made in selection. There will be further sections on how promotions are made, training opportunities and requirements, as well as the use of performance appraisal and assessment centers.

Employee relations:

Policies in the area of employee relations will depend on the union recognition situation, but typical features are arrangements about recognition, bargaining units and union membership agreements, agree¬ments relating to negotiation, consultation, shop steward representation, membership of joint committees, safety matters and points of reference, such as following national engineering agreements on the number of days' annual holiday.

Mutual control:

Several features of policy and related procedure deal with the working relationship between the organization and the employee or employees. These are mainly to deal with the approach to matters of grievance and discipline.

Terms and conditions:

Aspects of terms and conditions policies are approaches to determining differentials in payment, levels of sick pay, pension provision, holidays, study leave and hours of work.

Equality of opportunity:

A different type of HR policy is that relating to equality of opportunity. Theoretically, equalizing opportunity should be subsumed in all the other areas, but legislation and pressure groups have tended to identify this as an area needing separate treatment.

DEVISING POLICIES

HR specialists could use the following procedure to devise policies:

1) Identify the topic: Individual topics on which policy clarification is needed have to be identified and worked on when the time is ripe. In identifying the topic, one has to be sure that it is correctly identified and that a policy statement will be timely.

2) Determine the key features: After the general idea has been accepted and shaped, there will be the key features of the policy to be determined. In the area of trade union recognition, the idea to be sold is whether or not to recognize. If the idea of recognition is accepted, the key features to be determined will be to decide which union to recognize and for what the union will be recognized - individual grievances only, terms and conditions of employment, manning levels or what?

3) Agree the details: The last stage is to agree the precise details of the policy statement, with all the implications for later interpretation and implementation. If the key features have been previously determined, then the detailed considerations can be carried through without the risk of jeopar¬dizing what the policy is intended to achieve, but the importance of the details should not be ignored.

Ref: Derek Torrington and Laura Hall