How does your company handle PTO requests

[cjeanette]

A form?  A website?

Trying to come up with a better solution for ours and all our HR rep (small company so we outsource this) was to use a paper form.  No.  

Trying to see how other places do it.  

[chimera]

Website with a system from Kronos, last year it was a still a DOS system.

[bullygirl979]

We have ADP and it all goes through there.

[megstoo]

for my part time job it's a website through kronos

my full time job we just do it like you would a calendar invites but we're small.

[ECB]

We have a template that I fill in and paste it into an email to my boss. He'll approve it and send it to our admin who puts in on our vacation calendar.

[cjeanette]

Sept 18, 2017 14:01:12 GMT -5 ECB said:

We have a template that I fill in and paste it into an email to my boss. He'll approve it and send it to our admin who puts in on our vacation calendar.

This is exactly what we do now, but our HR rep said there is too much margin for error when it comes to accounting for each employees PTO bank.  Like a paper form I have to sign and give to the admin and the payroll/book keeper doesn't have errors?

[mrssandro]

It's a weird non process at our company.

As a courtesy we have to our team lead know about being out of the office. But there is no hard/fast rules to follow.

We "should" update our online calendar just in case we are not on a project for whatever reason. If we do use PTO we just input into the time sheet as PTO chargeable account code.

[dottyblue]

Our employees clear their vacation time with their managers, in advance, usually via email. After taking it they complete a (paper) form and submit to payroll for processing to adjust their PTO balances.

Everything is honor system, which doesn't actually work that well (shocker!). I have employees who haven't submitted any leave usage in years, but HR is not willing to enforce anything.

[jinkies]

Paper form. The poor woman who is responsible for HR stuff (it's not her primary duty) has an excel sheet to track. It's not a good system.

My last job had everything automated through a website. You tracked your hours, PTO, paystubs, etc all in the same place.

[hermione]

We put in requests through the scheduling software.

[cjeanette]

Sept 18, 2017 15:21:02 GMT -5 @meepmeep said:

SharePoint request form. Because the Universe hates me, and I cannot escape SharePoint no matter what company I go to. The form gets routed to the supervisor for approval. If approved, the total is added to the employee's running total for the year on a SharePoint list, and the supervisor has to manually add it to the godforsaken company-wide SharePoint calendar. Thank God I only manage one employee.

So, in summary, don't use SharePoint. It's terrible for both admins and users.

This is good to know.  I was looking at an add in on Office 365 that worked in Sharepoint.  I have no experience using Sharepoint.

[followyourarrow]

We send a meeting request through Outlook to our supervisor. The supervisor can then approve the meeting request. For time keeping purposes it's recorded in our time keeping system after the fact, because once you enter it, it can never go away, so we've all learned not to enter it there in advance.

I would not suggest SharePoint, it's a pain in the ass.

[melmel48]

I have to email 3 people and they all have to agree.

[msmerymac]

Sept 18, 2017 14:01:12 GMT -5 ECB said:

We have a template that I fill in and paste it into an email to my boss. He'll approve it and send it to our admin who puts in on our vacation calendar.

This is exactly how we do it.

[steph96]

I'm so sad that so many people are saying that Sharepoint isn't a good option. We've been talking about trying to set up up for PTO requests and time alterations requests (such as when people forget to click in).

Our system is a piece of paper that you fill out. I hate it because when pay stubs are emailed out, everyone is like "I turned in the PTO paper, you must have lost it!" And in reality, nobody has proof of the papers existence and the managers don't remember everything they approve.

[dcn]

Through our portal. It's a state agency so time sheets, leave requests, etc are web based and flow through there to your supervisor for approval.

[steamboat185]

We just put it on an excel worksheet. Everyone has their own tab, but we aren't client driven so our PTO can overlap. My manager just checks the spreadsheet to see when I have PTO. We put our official time off in a intranet tool that uses Kronos, but it's only required to be filled out if you are hourly.

[blondemoment123]

We have KRONOS (which I hate lol).

[sarapocalypse]

We send an email to our manager requesting leave (more of a formality since she usually approves all requests). After we get the OK from our manager, we put the out of office time on our calendar, the manager's calendar, and the calendar of anyone who is assigned to cover work while we're out.

We used to have an office-wide out of office calendar that everyone was supposed to use, but it got unwieldy, so it's been pretty much abandoned. Certain teams within our organization have team-specific out of office calendars, but our team is small, so we don't bother.

[agnes]

Depends on the manager.

I verbally confirm, then email the details. Manager would then physically write it on her wall calendar.

There are too many people to do an office wide thing. And doing a form would be a waste of resources in our particular set up.

[lagom]

People managers manage as they see fit. Some groups share a calendar, some are on the honor system. My group keeps an excel file to track vacation, floating holidays, etc. I just send my director and a handful of others that may need to know a calendar invite.

[pantsparty]

We use ADP to submit the request, and then put the vacation day on the team calendar once approved.

[hocus2]

Time off requests are mostly managed by going to your boss and letting her/him know you'll be out and what you plan to do around coverage. We send calendar notes to the team for folks know if you'll be out. I think it may be different for hourly roles like a front desk person where they'd need to swap people around all day vs. just responding to a question or two which happens when I am out.

In terms of tracking PTO that is done by our time system which we enter weekly. I suppose you could skip entering PTO for short windows (e.g. leaving 4 hours early) since no one is really monitoring your desk but as far as I know most people put in their time honestly. I'm surprised you don't require folks to submit some sort of basic time tracking weekly or monthly.

[Poppy]

Our small company uses Centreli. I don't know how our admin likes it but as an employee I find it very good.

ETA - It's a web interface and I can check hours balance plus it has a company vacay calendar. I put in a request throught the site and then my manager approves it.

[mbcdefg]

I'll ask my direct manager, either verbally or through an email just to her, for the time off that I want. 

She'll then either CC our HR manager on her reply to approve it, or she'll ask me to draft a new email and CC the two of them. 

We had a paper form at one point, where I had to fill it out and my manager had to sign it ... I honestly don't know if it's still being used or if it was phased out in favor of the emails. In the past HR would contact me and remind me to fill out the form, but that hasn't happened in maybe a year or so. 

I think there are currently about 60-75 people in my office. 

[SallyJ]

Ours is managed through our payroll system online. We use Paychex. It's clunky to be honest, but better than the email system before.

[runwny]

We use ADP, it works fine.

[VillainV]

Website that tracks everyone's leave balances and leave locations. But you can only officially request leave 30 days out, so we usually email the boss first for approval ("Dear Boss, I am requesting leave on these dates for family vacation."). Having said that, leave is VERY RARELY denied.

[whiskeytails]

Website called HR Connection.

[ellipses84]

Terribly. I work for a huge international company and we use paper (or a .doc we convert to a .pdf). Our sign off process is ridiculous. One thing I do like is when people send calendar invites to their teams for their PTO days (but they have to make sure to check Available so it only shows up as a header and not like they are invited to a meeting).

ETA: once a PTO form is approved, our admins enter it into our staffing systems so everyone, including accounting can see. The whole process takes so long, it often doesn't show up correctly for weeks.