Gone fishin’ by shady, wady pool

I’m wishin’ I could be that kind of fool

I’d say “no more work for mine”

On my door I’d hang a sign, “gone fishin’”

Nick Kenny and Charles Kenny

One of my favorite duets is Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby singing about heading to their favorite fishing hole and leaving their work problems behind.  But for HR and workforce planners and managers, just creating a balance between company demands and employee needs for time off can be challenging.  (That fishing pole has been gathering dust.)

Time off generally falls into categories of planned and unplanned.  The unplanned time off such as illness, bereavement or intermittent FMLA, requires prompt action to assure the productivity level for the company remains stable.  A few simple edits in the intraday E-smart screen will get the day balanced quickly, and the Automated Editor will take care of most of your routine tasks with a touch of a button – assigning late starts, adjusting lunches and breaks, and so on. (Now you have time to start thinking about the type of lure you’ll be using. )

Planned time off assures a more stable coverage of duties based on skill set requirements.  Pipkins’ Absence Management tool allows you to manage requests for PTO, vacation, parental leave, voting times, short and long term leaves of absence, jury duty, military leave, or any other type of time off your company accommodates.  Each type of time off can have different limitations, different accruals, and different rules.  In the implementation process you will outline these limitations, accruals, and rules and you can do arrange them by state, by office, or even by department.  You describe it and we can do it.  (You can practically hear that stream calling you.)

Got multiple employees in every state and want to create a work schedule that allows them plenty of time to vote? Need a reminder of how much FMLA time has accrued, how much has been used, and when to ask for additional paperwork? Want to limit PTO time by the number of employees who can take off at any particular time? Want to allow for vacation bidding?  Union rules? Multiple states with multiple statutes concerning time off?  You set the parameters, we’ll implement it.  We’ve been doing this for 35 years, so you can take it easy. (Can you feel that sun warming your face . . .)

With SwiftPik absentee management gets even better, because the employee can use it to self-schedule and plan their own time off given the parameters you built into the system.  These parameters can include seniority, location, qualifications, training, and other customized rules. Agents are happier because they can quickly find out what is available.  Your happier because you are just a phone call away from putting up that ‘gone fishing’ sign. (Bah-boo-baby-boo-bah-bay-mmmm-bo-bay, oh yeah!)