Here are some HR best practices to keep in mind as you and your organization approach summer:

The Memorial Day Holiday Weekend will be here soon and with its arrival comes a unique set of HR and Payroll challenges.   Now is the time to prepare for employee vacations and unavoidable summer “sick days”.   To ensure there is adequate coverage for your nonprofit, ask yourself, “Is the vacation policy working?” Recall last summer, was there a particular time when a project was delayed or you were short staffed? If the answer is yes, then you may want to consider incorporating the following best practices into your vacation policy:

• Ask employees to coordinate their vacation schedules with each other before they submit their requests for time off to their supervisor.
• Encourage employees to develop a coverage plan that details and prioritizes the work they will need help with during their absence.  A coverage plan provides team members with an expectation and understanding of the workload they will carry while a colleague is on vacation.
• Once schedules have been worked through at the team level, require employees to seek time off in advance and receive approval from their immediate supervisor or team lead.
• Empower employees and managers with the ability to submit, track and review requests for vacation by using an integrated, accessible HR Management or Payroll system. 

Including these best practices in your vacation policy and procedures takes the burden of coordination off your HR/Payroll department and ensures that individuals are responsible and accountable for coverage during their vacation.

Of course, no matter how much planning goes into ensuring adequate coverage in the summer months, there will always be unexpected absences.  The symptoms of summer “sick days” are easily recognizable. The first symptom is a great weather day and the second symptom is when an otherwise healthy employee calls in unexpectedly with Friday fever. 

Left unchecked repeat sick day offenders affect team productivity and morale as workloads unexpectedly increase for team members.  To avoid this scenario be sure to have a policy in place to confirm illnesses in a consistent manner. Keeping a calendar view of employee days off helps to quickly reveal a pattern of repeat, unexpected absences.  Managers are then empowered to address the issue one-on-one.  Or, if there is an epidemic of absenteeism during warm weather months, you may want to consider implementing a "Paid Time Off" policy that doesn't distinguish between vacation and sick time. 

Ideally your HR or Payroll system will 1) provide managers with visibility into employee vacation days and absences and 2) enable individuals to self manage their time whether its vacation requests or entering sick days once they have been taken.

Source: Sage Fund Accounting Forum