Taking leave is essential. It promotes good physical and mental health in the workplace and improves people’s work-life balance, which reduces stress and unscheduled days off.

Absenteeism can have a significant impact on any business. If you don’t have the tools to accurately track leave, especially sick leave, you may not know how many days a year your employees are taking and how much that is affecting your business.

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Sick Leave and Paid Time Off

Some organizations give their employees separate amounts of various types of leave, such as sick leave, vacation leave, and personal days. Each type of leave can only be used for that purpose. Other employers bundle these forms of leave together as paid time off (PTO) and allow employees to choose how to use it. Under this system, sick leave is one of the permitted uses of an employee’s PTO.

One common employer concern about PTO is that employees who are sick may decide to come to work anyway, spreading their illness because they want to save their PTO for vacations.

HRMatrix PTO Management

Using HRMatrix employee vacation tracking software is simple and intuitive by design. When an employee makes a PTO request, their manager gets instant alerts via email, mobile, and their HRMatrix inbox. Checking for calendar conflicts takes a few seconds and approving the request is even faster. The system notifies the employee and updates their balance automatically, so work can continue with minimal interruption.

"Prior to HRMatrix we used email and paper to track PTO. The double, sometimes triple, handling of requests was beyond frustrating. Employees now request off and receive their managers approval (or denial) within ​minutes."

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Sick Leave

Sick leave is permitted time off from work that many employers provide for employees who have an injury or illness. Some commonly accepted reasons for employees to use sick leave include:

  • Contagious illnesses

  • Injuries or illnesses that impair an employee’s ability to do their job

  • Mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and stress

  • Medical appointments

  • Chronic medical conditions that require frequent professional care or time to rest

  • Hospitalizations

  • Pregnancy-related conditions and childbirth

Some employers also allow employees to use sick leave when they need time off to care for ailing family members.