Define Comp Time, and Time Off in Lieu

Honey, you have to work again? Yes, but I get all those comp time hours. We’ll take a nice vacation to the south of France. (Hint, hint) That pretty-much sums up compensatory time, or time off in lieu.

Define Compensatory Time: Employee time off given in exchange for overtime.

Getting comp time always feels good. It’s like a free holiday. Of course everyone is expected to work a little extra from time to time. So that’s only natural. But getting a three-day weekend is golden!

But what software are you using to keep track of this? Let’s say you have fifty employees. Each one gets comp time at least twice a year. That’s one hundred special-case time off situations you have to juggle. How do you handle that? Is there some software to do it? Or do you use a spreadsheet?

Did you know that your project tracking app has it? Yep, ST can track PTO and comp time. Watch the video below, and then click the link at the end. You will like this almost as much as a three-day weekend. Ā šŸ™‚

Define PTO Accrual

This little video will help explain paid time off or PTO. Scroll down for a look. If you’re tracking vacation or PTO in a spreadsheet, you probably already know there are hundreds of computations that can go wrong. Using paper and pencil is almost impossible.

HR managers appreciate the flexibility of PTO rules from the Standard TimeĀ® app. To begin, employees have their banks for hours. There is a bank for vacation. A bank for personal time. And banks for every other kind of time off, like sick, training, maternity leave, and jury duty.

Now that you have your banks of hours set up to represent the exact number of hours available to each employee, and for each kind of time off you should set up some rules for accrual. Every employee accrues (earns) hours periodically. The longer they work, the more they earn. And then they use those hours on their own time schedule.

Set up PTO accruals earnings weekly, monthly, semimonthly, or yearly. As time ticks by, the hours add up. But what if too many add up? You have an anti-hording device to cut off too many hours. That enforces your company “use it or lose it” policy.

Watch the little video cruise over to the ST website for a look at the real thing.

HR Needs a Vacation Tracker

People always take vacation, get sick, have personal time off, etc. How can you track all that time? Standard TimeĀ® has it built in!

Employees earn new hours for each of these reasons. ST does it automatically on a regular basis. You just set the PTO accrual rules and it keeps going week after week, month after month. New hours are automatically added to employee banks periodically.

Of course, employees can request time off any time. You can allow them to overdraft a certain number of hours, which they will earn again in the future.

Blackout periods can be set up to discourage or block time off during critical work days. Just add a new date blackout date range, and users will see a popup message when they try to take time off. Usually this acts as a friendly reminder that all employees are needed during this critical time.

All the necessary tools for PTO accruals and time off are provided in the timesheet. This should save your organization dozens or man hours per month.

Time Off Calendar

When taking time off work to take the family on vacation you will need to get that time off approved. Standard TimeĀ® allows you to see other coworkers time off schedule, holiday time and company day’s off.

Why is it important to see coworker’s time off?Ā  (watch the informative video below)

So you can make sure the whole department doesn’t leave on the same day. Somebody has toĀ man the fort. Not only can you see how many others will take time off, you can see the meetings you will miss. Most of those are a welcomed break, but some may be important.

Here is the lifespan of a time off request:

  1. Employee submits request for time off
  2. Email is sent to manager
  3. Manager reviews and approves
  4. Hours are subtracted from employee bank
  5. Employee optionally modifies the request
  6. The hours are put back into the bank
  7. An email is sent to manager again
  8. Manager re-approves
  9. New hours are subtracted from employee bank
  10. Email is automatically sent to employee notifying them of newĀ approval
  11. Employee takes the actualĀ time off

 

Quick Questions: Time Off Requests

Every employee, business owner, independent contractor, consultant or small business owner takes time off from their job. The following video will show how Standard TimeĀ® handles vacation requests.

New hours are accrued periodically, and hours are subtracted from that bank as time off requests are approved. Manager receive an email notification when time off is requested. And employees get another email when the request is approved or rejected.

Interview: Time Off Accruals

HR managers are waking up happy this morning! Employees can automate their time off requests with Standard TimeĀ®. The time off can be for vacation, personal, maternity, family care or annual leave.

Time off Accrual Tips

Standard TimeĀ® allows you to follow your paid time off accrual bank. The time off can be sick, vacation, maternity, military, etc; the administrator can set any reason they desire.

Time Off Accruals

Human resource managers should take a look at this.Ā  Send this video link to them and tell them you liked it.

This system automatically accrues hours for PTO, vacation, sick, and other reasons.Ā  You just set the rules and let it alone.Ā  As weeks go by, the system is adding new hours to everyone’s bank of PTO time.Ā  Users can then request time off and have it approved.

Watch the video for more info.