Reviewing the difference in time, there is a potential to reduce the time taken for each request by 80%.

So far, we’ve just considered a direct switch from paper process to digital service. There are plenty of ways to get more value from the service. Most of those listed below would be true for any digital services.

Requesting time off is only a part of managing holiday entitlement. There could be other types of time off, like maternity or paternity, a sabbatical, bereavement, marriage, or unpaid leave that may trigger extra processes, for example, related to payroll. These could very easily be added to the service, and started automatically based on the choices made.

In addition, there is a need to track and ensure that everyone is taking their annual holiday allowance. If records are stored manually, this would become a time-consuming process of checking all paper records, communicating, and following up. Keeping records in the database would make it very easy to run this type of review process with a simple add-on process. With a single click, the add-on would review all records submitted, send out email information and any appropriate reminders to staff, even schedule further reviews for future dates, with summary details sent to HR, or escalations sent as necessary.

Potentially there are different holiday allowances for different levels of seniority or years of employment. This could be simply handled by defining a relationship with each employee and their allowance. Any rules that allow carrying over unused days to the following year could also be added.

The request process itself could be enhanced by automatically showing the requestor their allowance; number of days taken, booked, and still available; and potentially making checks if their nominated deputy is available during the planned time off — and do all this automatically before submitting the form.

Reports don’t only have to be simple tables, they could also be displayed in graphical form. If HR would like a dashboard page summarising key information, a page accessible only by HR can be created with the information needed.

Maybe it would be useful for teams or departments to be able to see who will be out of office in the coming weeks. A simple calendar could be created to show this on a dedicated department page.

A simple Holiday/Vacation request process was chosen for its familiarity, as it is something that every business has to manage. The time saved may not be enough on its own to justify a subscription, but it provides an indication of the possibilities.

If approximately 80% of the time taken for a simple process can be saved, then having multiple simple processes digitised could add up to real value.

More likely, though, is there are one or two key processes that are complex, time-consuming, difficult to manage or cause an overload of work in one area of the business. What if that process took half a day of effort for each run, and 50% of the time could be saved? If that process needs to run once a day, this would add up to freeing up 3 months of effort per year, a really valuable amount of time. Couple that with the reporting possibilities, and you could be back in control and fully aware of how things are running.

The time saved could translate into things like faster processing times, extra capacity, or reducing the pressure on an overloaded team.

Our recommendation is to target the key areas where most time could be saved as the initial priority, and build from there. You may want to start with something that is simpler, to gain confidence and experience in the ways things work.