Compulsory vacations? The necessity of leave
The vacation season is over, but some employers have not finished discussing the topic of ‘vacation’. After all, employers have to set aside money for employees with an excess of leave. This is a disagreeable fact for most. But can an employer go so far as to make it compulsory for employees to take their leave?
Encourage without force
As an employer, you cannot simply force your employees to take a vacation. You do have to offer them the possibility to do so. Naturally, the scheduling of vacations is done in consultation with one another – whereby any contractual agreements are taken into account as well – but it should in principle suit the wishes of the employee.
If you wish to be a successful and agreeable employer, it is essential to promote the taking of leave among your employees. Both parties will ultimately benefit from it: employees can enjoy the leave days they deserve in a timely manner, and employers run a lower risk of leave days piling up. Two birds with one stone!
Statutory and exceeding statutory leave
Remember that there is a difference between statutory leave days, which expire six months after the last day of the current year, and the days exceeding the statutory minimum, which have a validity of five years. During employment, it is not possible to pay out statutory leave days. The days exceeding the statutory minimum, however, can be paid out if this was agreed upon in the contract. This prevents leave days from piling up endlessly, and thereby diminishes the risks employers run.
Insight is key
The big question as an HR manager is: how can I lead vacation taking in the right direction, and minimize the financial risks? The answer lies in insight, which can be provided by a cloud computing environment or application. Give employees and managers an overview of their balance and the current occupation within the company, so that poth parties can easily see the available leave days. Vacations are much easier to plan, because the leave of all employees can be easily consulted. Employees themselves can take the responsibility to request leave, and all the manager then needs to do is check and assess the request. This prevents any possible accumulation issues!
Would you like to know more about the cloud-based leave registration system of Leavedays.com? Feel free to contact us!
