By using employee absence management software, you can make managing time off much easier. You don’t have to worry about lost time, or forget to send the right notifications to employees and managers. Instead, you can focus on being a good leader who cares about their employees by providing them with the tools they need to succeed at work and in life!
In this guide, we review the aspects of Employee Absence Management Software, free absence tracking software, best employee management software, and leave of absence management vendors.
Employee Absence Management Software
If you’re looking for employee absence management software, look no further. We’ve got everything you need to make sure that employees are getting the time off they need and their managers are staying on top of what’s going on in the workplace.
Approval workflow
You’ll notice that there’s a step where your manager must review and approve or reject the employee’s request. This is a good safeguard to make sure you don’t miss anything when approving an absence—you’ve already got all the details on your screen, so it’s easy to simply check them off and hit “approve” without missing anything.
If you do find any issues with the form, you can send it back to the employee with any additional questions or instructions for them to fill out and resubmit their request.
Request form
The request form is the first step in the process and should be easy-to-use. The software should allow employees to submit requests from their mobile devices, while managers will use the app to approve or reject them.
In addition to approving or rejecting requests, managers can attach notes that explain why they approved or rejected a request (e.g., “approved for 2 days but only Monday/Tuesday”).
Time Off calendar
A calendar is a visual representation of time. It shows the days, weeks and months of the year. Calendar also shows time in blocks of hours and minutes. In addition it indicates dates and years as well as 24 hour periods.
Leave and absence balance tracking
Your leave and absence management software should allow you to easily track and monitor the balance of your employees’ paid time off, including sick days, vacation days, personal holidays and other types of paid leave.
One of the main reasons for tracking this data is to ensure that everyone has enough time off available to them in their absence management system. If a person has reached their maximum number of sick days or other types of leave (such as floating holiday), they will be unable to take any more time off until it’s been cleared. This means that an employee who is ill may not have accrued enough sick days to cover their absence because they’ve previously taken all their allocated time off; if this happens they’ll need another way to record their absences such as using an online doctor’s note generator instead which we offer here at business-process-now!
Overtime management
Overtime management is an important part of managing your workforce. You want to make sure that you are paying overtime correctly and that you’re not overworking your employees.
Cadence HRM features a robust set of tools for tracking overtime hours and pay, as well as setting policies and limits in order to keep things fair for all employees. You can also set alerts and reminders so that the right people are notified at the right time about upcoming deadlines or other important events:
Shift planning
Shift planning is a tool used by managers to plan their staff schedules. It is a great way to reduce costs and maximize productivity, and it helps managers create new shifts or reschedule existing ones. By taking advantage of this tool, you can schedule your employees in the most efficient way possible.
Automatic notifications for managers and employees
Automatic notifications for managers and employees are sent when someone is away from work. These can be set up to alert managers, HR and employees in different ways depending on the type of absence.
For example, if an employee is sick, you may want your manager to receive a text message with a link to their absence form through our mobile app or web portal. This will allow them to approve the leave request before it’s submitted by the employee or make any changes that need to be made during peak working hours when people are present at work.
Or maybe you’d prefer notifying managers via email when someone goes on maternity leave? As soon as they receive this notification they’ll know exactly how long they have left until they return so they can plan accordingly!
Flexible policy configurability
Employee absence management software should allow you to create flexible policies that suit your organization. You can set different policies for different departments, or even for individual employees. For example, if you have a large team of sales representatives who travel frequently, you might want to allow them more time off than other employees, but reduce their pay rate when they are away from work. If a worker is out sick for an extended period, you may be able to reduce their workload or cut them some slack with regards to deadlines while they get back on track.
Employee absence management software makes managing time off much easier.
Once you have an employee absence management software system in place, it will make managing time off much easier. Employees can request time off from the system and managers can approve or deny those requests. Managers also have visibility into how much time employees have left for various reasons, such as vacation or sick leave. They can also see which events are coming up and how much time is available for them to take. Finally, managers will be able to see who is requesting different types of time off so they can ensure that employees do not overuse their benefits.
free absence tracking software
Have you ever wanted a simple and convenient way to track attendance for your classroom or group? Well, now there’s a way. MyAttendanceTracker.com is an online attendance tracker that helps you simplify the tedious task of keeping attendance.
Track, and Report Attendance Online!
Setting up students and classes is very easy and you can be off and running in no time at all. Tracking is entirely web-based so you can enter data from anywhere you can access the internet!
Attendance Reporting You’ll Love!
You will have a variety of reports at your fingertips. You can view and print in depth reports by student or class and export them to Excel or download and share via PDF.
Priced Right! (It’s FREE)
Why would you pay a ton to get a great attendance tracking and reporting system? MyAttendanceTracker will help you get started tracking attendance online for free!
We Love Teachers (Literally)
My name is Trent O. I started building MyAttendanceTracker because my lovely wife, Jen O, asked me to please help her track her student attendance more easily than the ways that were available to her. So I built her a simple and easy way to track, view and report on the attendance of all of her classes online.
When I had a system together that she loved, other teachers kept asking her how they could use it too and MyAttendanceTracker was born! I continue to improve and update the software every day, listening to the feeedback of over 50,000 users and especially one user in particular. Thanks, Jen O! Trent O – Husband, Daddy, Founder MyAttendanceTracker
Attendance tracking software loved by over 50,000 amazing customers!
Spend more time actually teaching using MyAttendanceTracker
While we built MyAttendanceTracker for school teachers initially, the app works perfectly for tracking attendance online for any class, group, or gathering! There are thousands of others using it to track:
Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important thing.
Online attendance tracking for everyone! Track attendance for any class, event, or gathering!
Save time, money and effort using the simplest tool available to track your class, group, event, or employee attendance.
best employee management software
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Bottom line: Hubstaff is our best overall pick for its no-nonsense focus on tracking all day-to-day employee actions. But Gusto is superb if you also want payroll and human resource functions. Paychex is the most comprehensive and scalable. DeskTime is the most affordable, while Time Doctor is ideal for analyzing time and productivity data.
When human resource managers or small-business owners effectively manage employees, it can result in a more engaged and productive workforce—and workforce management software can make the whole process smoother. Regardless of whether you have a human resources department or not, workforce optimization can benefit your company. To help you begin your search, here are our favorites for the best employee management software for small businesses.
Best employee management systems 2022
Compare the best workforce management software in 2023
Data effective 12/19/22. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.
Hubstaff: Overall best workforce management software
Hubstaff offers all the workforce management tools you need (except benefits administration) at a competitive price.
Data effective 12/19/22. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.
Hubstaff is our favorite workforce management software for most businesses.
In part, that’s because Hubstaff has a slew of tools and features that can simplify your workforce management. For businesses with simple needs, its Basic plan offers time tracking and some productivity tracking.
But for businesses that want more from their workforce management software, Hubstaff’s higher-tier plans offer invoicing, integrations, scheduling, and more (like cost management tools for your projects).
That means that Hubstaff gives you everything you need to manage your workforce’s productivity, attendance, projects, and payment. In fact, the only thing missing from Hubstaff is benefits administration.
As an added bonus, Hubstaff has pretty great reviews from users. And while it doesn’t have the cheapest plans out there, Hubstaff offers competitive pricing. Its Premium plan (the one that most businesses will want) is cheaper than the basic plans from some other companies on this list.
All that makes Hubstaff our top pick for workforce management (WFM) software.
DeskTime: Most affordable
DeskTime gives you productivity and attendance tools at a price that works with most budgets.
Data effective 12/19/22. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.*Annual subscription
If you want a workforce management software that’s easy on your budget (who doesn’t?), take a look at DeskTime.
DeskTime has productivity management tools for your business, including time tracking (for employees and projects), website and application monitoring, and idle time tracking. It also has attendance tools to help you manage scheduling and absences (on the Premium and Enterprise plans).
Of course, you can get all that from other software. The difference? DeskTime gives you those features at a bargain price. Your exact pricing will depend on your billing type (annual vs. monthly) and the number of users you have, but DeskTime offers its productivity tools at a starting cost of $7 a user. Yes, that pricing comes with some compromises―DeskTime doesn’t do payroll or benefits, for example.
But if you want essential workforce management tools at a delightfully low price, DeskTime will work just fine.
Time Doctor: Best for productivity monitoring
Time Doctor has some of the most robust productivity monitoring tools out there―and solid reporting to help you use the data you get.
Data effective 12/19/22. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.
If you mostly care about managing employee productivity, you’ll love all the ways Time Doctor lets you keep an eye on things.
Time Doctor has all the productivity monitoring features you could want. Yes, it has basic time tracking―but it also takes screenshots, tracks the websites your team visits, and monitors the apps they use. And while that can seem a little oppressive, Time Doctor also has tools that help employees stay on track, including alerts when they visit non-productive websites or don’t do anything for a while.
Of course, all that monitoring can give you an overwhelming amount of data. Fortunately, Time Doctor offers a reporting tool that can help you spot trends and habits at a glance. It also lets employees view their own stats, giving them the chance to manage their own productivity. Oh, and Time Doctor gives you storage space for all the data you’ll collect―a perk that makes up for its clunky interface.
So while plenty of workforce management software offers employee productivity monitoring, Time Doctor does it best.
Gusto: Best for payroll
Gusto offers all sorts of management tools―but it really shines when it comes to payroll.
Data effective 12/19/22. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.
Look, we don’t need to tell you how much payroll matters. We also don’t need to tell you how much of a pain it can be.
Fortunately, Gusto can make payroll virtually painless for you. It has payroll tools for businesses of all sizes. For example, small businesses with simple needs can use its basic plan to get full-service payroll (including workers comp and direct deposit tools) in one state. Large businesses with multiple locations can upgrade plans to get those payroll services (and more) in all 50 states.
Gusto does more than payroll though―it can also help with benefits administration. So whether you’re thinking health insurance, 401(k)s, or even 529 college savings accounts, Gusto can help you offer employee benefits with ease. (You will have to pay more to offer those though.)
Put simply, Gusto has everything you need to make payroll (and benefits administration) a breeze.
If you go with a workforce management system with a payroll solution like Gusto, reporting employee salaries, or wages, on your taxes will be much easier for you. And with the Employee Retention Credit, you could get up to $26,000 back per employee that you paid during the COVID-19 crisis. So make sure you claim that Employee Retention Credit on your taxes.
Paychex: Most comprehensive
Paychex offers just about every workforce management tool you can think of (for a hefty price).
Data effective 12/19/22. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.
We’ve pointed out that some workforce management software has a narrow focus. But if you want a software that does everything? Then you want Paychex.
Whether you want to track time, schedule employees, simplify payroll, or offer benefits, Paychex can do it for you. But it can also help with hiring, onboarding, insurance (for your business and property), compliance, and more. Paychex can even hook you up with small-business loans (through Biz2Credit) and marketing services. In other words, Paychex does it all.
As you can imagine, all those features don’t come cheap. Paychex has a high monthly base cost and a per-user cost, making it one of the most expensive workforce management solutions. But given all the WFM tools you get in one place, that high cost may well be worth it for your business.
So if you want workforce management software that includes everything but the kitchen sink, you’ll love Paychex.
WFM honorable mentions
Teramind: Most user-friendly WFM software
Teramind is a solid human resources talent management service that caters to businesses that desire an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. While some of its robust monitoring features can be daunting, Teramind’s well-designed platform is why it made our best workforce management solutions list.
Although its user-centric approach is the focal point, its advanced performance management tool is also noteworthy. It also offers a plethora of alerts and automations, analytics, and reporting. And to help businesses run more efficiently and securely, Teramind notifies users if there’s any suspicious activity.
VeriClock: Best for time tracking
VeriClock, a cloud-based software for employee management, was designed to be a solid time tracking tool with additional workforce management system features, including a web and phone punch clock, reporting, and payroll integration.
With VeriClock, users can upload a batch of employees and then check into certain job roles to see how each employee is performing. This feature makes VeriClock one of the best batching systems we’ve seen. In addition to its time tracking features, VeriClock offers QuickBooks integration, GPS tracking, one-on-one training, and much more.
Zenefits: Best for hiring and onboarding
While you get hiring and onboarding tools from other workforce management software, Zenefits is one of the few companies that includes them with every plan. For example, all Zenefits plans let you easily create offer letters from templates and then send them right from Zenefits. Likewise, they let you request background checks.
Plus, Zenefits allows you to do paperless onboarding. New employees can select benefits, fill out tax documents, and arrange payroll through the Zenefits platform. So if you want to save time (and paper) on hiring and onboarding, we recommend Zenefits.
Cake HR: Best for scheduling
Cake HR has the best workforce scheduling features we’ve seen. It has a drag-and-drop interface that you can use to plan your shifts, making scheduling fast and simple. Cake HR also lets you create groups and shift templates to make scheduling even faster, and it offers one-click time off approval.
leave of absence management vendors
List of the top 13 Absence Management Software in Shortlister as of January 2023, presented in the order they appear in the full Vendor Listing tab.
Eddy is the all-in-one HR Suite built to help local businesses with deskless workforces hire reliable workers, retain workers through better company culture, and minimize business risk and penalties. Founded in 2017 by former professional basketball player … View Full Profile
AbsenceSoft is a leave and accommodation management solutions provider, delivering scalable, easy-to-use, and configurable software to manage FMLA, ADA, disability, and many other forms of leave easily and efficiently. Our software streamlines and automates … View Full Profile
Resource Guru is the fast, flexible way to schedule people, projects, and time off. Manage vacations, sick days, parental leave, and public holidays, alongside day-to-day project scheduling. Time off is easy to book and highly visible, so managers are never … View Full Profile
isolved Human Resources software, part of isolved People Cloud, enables you to manage and compensate your workforce while eliminating paper files and streamlining your HR workflows. With built-in tools for absence management, easily and securely store and … View Full Profile
BambooHR is the leading provider of tools that power the strategic evolution of HR in small-to-medium-sized businesses. BambooHR’s cloud-based system is an intuitive, affordable way for growing companies to track and manage essential employee information in … View Full Profile
Employers around the world rely on ADP for cloud-based solutions to help manage their most important asset — their people. From human resources and payroll to talent management and benefits administration, ADP brings unmatched expertise to help clients … View Full Profile
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Sage is a global $ 3B company with over 13,000 employees that has been in business since 1984. Sage People is a division of Sage that offers true cloud solutions built on the Force.com platform, offering the functionality of major upmarket solutions, but … View Full Profile
At Appogee HR we aim to be the leading online HR applications provider for small and medium businesses by freeing business administrators from the burden of paperwork, offering simple data integration with their other cloud business applications and providing … View Full Profile
Automate People Management processes with HRLocker’s smart, cost efficient cloud solution. HRLocker does the heavy lifting admin work for holiday planning and requests, timesheets, CPD/training management, PMS/EPE, HR document distribution and digital signing… View Full Profile
Employees are the most important resource for any company. LeaveBoard is the platform that enables firms to successfully manage workforce coordination. Small and medium companies from more than 44 countries use the system daily to centralize their Human … View Full Profile
factoHR is the market leader in workforce management solutions serving more than 1000+ customers globally and 1 million+ employees. factoHR team believes in providing the best support to the clients as factoHR strongly believes in the long-term client … View Full Profile
ReedGroup is the largest exclusive provider of absence management services. We manage claims for companies that self-fund their FMLA, customized leaves, Short-Term Disability (STD) and Long-Term Disability (LTD) needs. Our outsourcing services, for employers… View Full Profile
LLifeWorks is a world leader in providing digital and in-person solutions that support the total wellbeing of individuals. We deliver a personalized continuum of care that helps our clients improve the lives of their people and by doing so, improve their … View Full Profile
SyncHR is a radically different, next-gen Human Capital Management Solution designed to give mid-market companies enterprise-level HR, payroll and benefit management capabilities without the complexity, cost or attitude… View Full Profile
Paylocity (NASDAQ: PCTY) is a leading provider of cloud-based payroll and human capital management (HCM) software solutions. Paylocity’s comprehensive product suite delivers a unified platform for professionals to make strategic decisions in the areas of … View Full Profile
Criterion provides a complete HCM solution that includes the following modules: HR, Benefits Management, Payroll, Time & Attendance, Recruitment, Performance Management, Learning Management, Employee and Manager Self Service, Compliance Reporting, Open … View Full Profile
Collaboration Software Partners, LLC.
Control and Mitigate Employee Absenteeism. Prevent ineligible or unauthorized time off. Every leave case is automatically tracked for time and eligibility, with notifications that allow managers to control the potentially high cost of absence. Employee … View Full Profile
APS has a mission: to make payroll and HR easier. We design our unified solution to simplify workforce management tasks for mid-market organizations. We provide our clients and partners with personalized service and support to accomplish their goals. … View Full Profile
Paycor modernizes every aspect of people management, from recruiting, onboarding and payroll to career development and retention. For more than 30 years, Paycor has been listening to and partnering with leaders to learn what they need: a comprehensive, unified… View Full Profile
Pro-Flex Administrators, LLC
Pro-Flex Administrators LLC is a full-service benefits administration company that was built on one premise: to provide the highest levels of service at an affordable cost. Our state-of-the-art software provides the efficiencies required in today’s business … View Full Profile
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