Workrede Blog

Creating an Efficient Workflow for Paid Time Off Requests

Paper processes for company PTO requests have proven to be inefficient in several capacities: inaccessibility to employees, manually intensive workflow procedures, and data that is difficult to store and analyze. Providing tools for efficient internal processes for PTO requests can better connect employees to their managers and vice versa.  

vacation request

An investigation by the researcher, Mark Rosekind, states that employees’ performance can grow up to 80% if PTO is taken (Source). For the success of a business, it is essential that employees are provided an easily accessible way to request PTO—otherwise, they will be less likely to take time off.

For your non-desk workforce, this means a tool that can be accessed away from a desk.

You can digitize your paper PTO processes using Redeapp Forms, providing all people involved in the communication chain the tools they need to successfully request, approve, and notify about PTO requests.

Advantages to Using Electronic vs Paper:

Migrating to Redeapp’s PTO Form workflow has an abundance of benefits for managers, human resources, administrators, and employees including….

Accessibility: Employees will no longer have to hunt down the proper paper to log their requests. Managers will be able to easily communicate back about the status of the requests. Human Resources will not have to nag managers and employees for documentation; it will automatically be delivered to the right people at the right times.

Efficiency: Redeapp Forms eliminate the very time-consuming paper pass — HR to Employee, Employee to Manager, Manager to HR, HR to Employee, and so forth.  A process that may have taken 5 days previously can now be completed in 10 minutes. With a digital process, you can wave goodbye to the days of lost PTO requests and papers stacked miles high.

Accuracy: Moving to a digital version of a PTO request will also digitalize the data in the request, helping to prevent typos that might have existed when logging information by hand. This process will also provide a way to easily reference records, which can be viewed from the Redeapp Admin Console and exported for further use.  

How it Works:

A Redeapp Form for a PTO request can be completed in a few easy steps:

Step 1: The employee fills out the PTO request using a Redeapp form.

Step 2: An email is sent to their manager, requesting approval. In the email, a link is included that redirects them to a page where the request can be reviewed or denied.

Step 3: After a decision has been made, a notification email is sent to the requester and HR (if the request is approved so they can log for payroll). 

 

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In addition, the process can be customized to fit the needs of your business. If you have two people who need to approve PTO requests, no problem– that is possible in this workflow! An additional benefit of this tool is the ability to have a storable record of the signatures of requesters and approvers.

The Value in the Data

Another advantage of having your PTO request digital is the ability to collect and analyze data very easily. This data could provide valuable insights into your business. For example, you could pair the data you receive from the PTO Requests form with an Employee Satisfaction Form.

Looking at the correlations of these data sets might help with Employee turnover because you would have a tool to easily evaluate if someone could be suffering from burnout. It would help managers to more easily identify and encourage their teams to utilize their PTO and as a result, produce a more efficient workforce. 

Ready to toss the papers and move to a digital PTO form? Redeapp can help! Our objective is to connect the unconnected workforce with an engaging tool that helps you build a stronger organization. Redeapp Forms helps you extend your efficiencies even further by providing digital access to forms on the communication platform that your teams already know and love.