Boost Employee Engagement by Rethinking Paid Time Off

Introduction

It’s no secret: companies with higher employee engagement consistently outperform their competitors on every major business metric.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace study, companies with high engagement are 17% more productive, 21% more profitable, and benefit from lower turnover (59%) and absenteeism (41%).

Clearly, the way your company treats employees and how employees treat one another has a very tangible impact on how enthusiastic and committed employees are to their work, which shows up on the company’s bottom line.

But with nearly 85% of employees worldwide classified as “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” by Gallup, there’s a lot of productivity and profitability being left on the table.

Boost #1: Optimize and Automate Your PTO

 55% of US employees don’t use all of their PTO, leading to high rates of stress and burnout. So naturally, one of the fastest ways to boost morale and transform employee engagement is to encourage people to use their paid time off.

This leaves HR leaders with a couple of questions to answer:

• How can you inspire employees to take leave without causing workflow disruptions?
• How can you get employees to take time off at all without having to invoke unpopular company mandates?

The solution is to optimize and automate your paid time off program.

Ideally, you'd actively monitor, manage and optimize your PTO program and time and attendance software on a daily basis. You'd look for opportunities for every employee to take time off that would be non-disruptive to their personal, team, and company workflows. Then you’d nudge those employees and give them a reason to want to take time off.

Conceptually, this isn't not rocket science. But this would require a recurring investment of your time to execute. And let’s face it: you have other priorities on your plate. 

That’s why at PTO Genius, we've built PTO Optimization tools that proactively notify employees of company-friendly times to get away and presents them with fun and inspiring activities to do while on vacation.

Boost #2: Reimagine what your PTO can do

Stress and anxiety related to finances are a very real problem for many employees in the modern workforce: 64% of US employees live paycheck-to-paycheck, and 69% of them have less than $1,000 in savings.

That's why forward-thinking companies are empowering their employees to convert unused PTO into financial wellness. PTO conversion gives employees the option to convert some of their PTO into other things: cash to cover financial emergencies, student loan payments, retirement and health savings, and so on. 

Showing employees that you have their financial interests in mind can go a long way if you’re looking to transform employee engagement. The peace of mind that comes from knowing that you can tap into a small cash reserve should something come up is priceless.

The key to this one is making sure you set the right rules and policies to ensure that employees don’t take advantage of the program and cause the company to run into cash flow challenges. But if you use PTO Genius to manage this program, setting those rules is as easy as ordering an Uber.

Conclusion

Ultimately, engagement is all about how your company connects with your employee. Focus on the people behind the numbers, and look for ways to alleviate their sources of stress. Finally, don’t be afraid of questioning how you’ve done things in the past.