Today’s leave managers are struggling with the stress of their ever-increasing workloads. As requests for time away from work come pouring in, leave managers spend more time responding to requests, opening cases, tracking paperwork, juggling certifications, and so much more. And worse, that’s all time taken away from supporting employees through a challenging time in their lives.
There’s a reason why leave managers’ stress is mounting. For the last three years, AbsenceSoft surveys have documented a steady increase in leave requests. Leave teams dealing with cumulative growth could be handling twice the number of cases compared to just three years ago.
As request volume grows, so does the opportunity for errors. More cases mean more compliance calculations, more deadlines, and more details that could fall through the cracks.
Overwhelmed leave managers need leave of absence tracking software to keep up with the growing demands on their time and energy. In this article, we’ll show you how to pick a platform that maximizes productivity and minimizes mistakes, even as your caseload grows.
High-Volume Leave Management by the Numbers
You probably know what high-volume leave management feels like. You’re deeply, painfully familiar with the stress, the worry, and the frustration that arrives as cases pile up.
Leave managers across every industry are facing the same challenges. AbsenceSoft research has illuminated the pain points that leave managers like you are experiencing every day. Here’s a look at the reality for today’s leave teams, by the numbers:
- 53% of HR leaders reported an increase in leave requests in the past year. That means that leave managers are fielding more requests as time goes on.
- 66% of leave managers who flagged an increase in leave requests said that they saw an uptick of more than 20%.
- 41% of teams are still managing state leave manually. They’re using spreadsheets, email reminders, and calendar notifications to administer leave, even as their program gets bigger and more complicated.
As cases grow more numerous, they’re also getting more complex. Our 2026 report found that reasons for leave are diversifying. Employees are asking for time away from work for traditional reasons like illnesses and injuries. But they’re also taking leave to grieve loved ones, fulfill caregiving duties, and work on their mental health.
Unless your team has added extra leave managers to its ranks, it’s likely you’re dealing with these challenges in other ways. You may be taking compliance shortcuts, asking general-purpose AI tools to take on some of your workload. Or you may be resigned to offering a less robust employee experience.
Without the right tools, an increase in complex leave requests threatens your leave program’s success and exacerbates your team’s burnout.
Manual Tracking Can’t Sustain Your Growing Leave Program
HR leaders in our survey reported that compliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and intermittent leave are their top two challenges. They also said they use manual tools like spreadsheets, emails, and even sticky notes to administer leave.
This approach makes a challenging job even more difficult. When leave managers use tools that aren’t built for leave specifically, the likelihood of error increases. Because these tools exist as standalone resources, they aren’t part of an integrated process or workflow. The tools themselves don’t move the leave process forward.
For example, when you set up an event on your calendar to remind you of an upcoming FMLA deadline, the only thing you receive is a notification. Your reminder doesn’t populate FMLA paperwork, ping the employee, or trigger the next step in the certification process. It just clutters your inbox and disrupts your focus.
Similarly, a leave spreadsheet might help you keep track of the employees on leave and their expected return dates, but it won’t manage the finer details of their absences. A spreadsheet can’t help you determine how to manage an employee’s pay and benefits during their time away.
It’s worth noting that pay calculation errors are common, especially in high-volume leave programs. Nearly a third of employees in an AbsenceSoft survey who had a poor leave experience cited pay miscalculations as a driver of their disappointment. Spreadsheets, manual math, and email chains can’t manage leave-related payroll at scale.
When employees encounter errors like these, the employee experience suffers. This creates serious consequences with business impact. According to AbsenceSoft’s 2025 Leave Employee Experience report, 40% of employees said they’d consider quitting after a poor leave experience.
Turnover isn’t the only outcome to consider. A manual approach to leave management exposes gaps in the leave process that can create pricey compliance mistakes. Employers spend an average of $80,000 to defend FMLA lawsuits. Mistakes can also result in fines from the U.S. Department of Labor or the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
When your team attempts to manage leave manually, you’ll risk making mistakes that damage the employee experience and your company’s bottom line. Leave of absence tracking software removes the opportunity for human error with technology purpose-built for absence management.
How Leave of Absence Tracking Software Optimizes Busy Programs
High-volume leave programs need absence tracking software to ensure each request is handled with compliance, consistency, and compassion.
To achieve these goals, the technology you use must be built specifically for leave management. The temptation to use other tools, like your HRIS or payroll platform, is understandable. As budgets contract, most teams want to use the tools they already have.
But general-purpose tools can’t perform like a platform engineered for leave because they lack key features, like a compliance engine. As the heart of your leave program, a compliance engine will fuel and inform your workflows, processes, and decisions.
Consider, for example, AbsenceSoft’s Compliance Engine (ACE). ACE is maintained by our internal compliance team of experts, who track every leave law in the country, adjusting for updates as they arrive. ACE supports more than 200 federal and state leave and accommodations laws, including the FMLA, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
In addition to a compliance engine, here are several other features you should look for when evaluating leave of absence tracking software:
- Automated Eligibility Calculation
When you receive hundreds or thousands of leave requests each year, you cannot perform eligibility checks manually. You simply don’t have the time. Software can check employees’ eligibility instantly and accurately, handling overlapping federal, state, and company policies automatically. - Intermittent Leave Tracking
Intermittent leave is the single most administratively complex type of leave. It’s no wonder that it’s the second-most cited challenge by HR leaders in AbsenceSoft research. Look for software that can track intermittent leave down to the minute, without creating any manual lift for your team. - Payroll Calculation Support
Pay errors are one of the most common and most preventable errors in the leave process. They’re also a top driver of a poor employee experience and a significant compliance risk. Ask potential partners whether their systems can automatically estimate leave payments, coordinate state benefits, and export data from a central platform. - State Leave Law Compliance
Your company may be based in one state, but if it has any remote workers, your leave team may need to account for multiple jurisdictions. Distributed workforces require leave managers to manually track the laws that apply to their employees, which is untenable at scale. Find a partner that offers a robust policy library that updates automatically. - Self-Service for Employees
According to AbsenceSoft’s 2026 Leave Employee Experience survey, 76% of employees said they’d prefer to manage some or all of their leave from a smartphone. Self-service portals also reduce inbound HR contacts significantly, reducing demand on your team. - Reporting and Analytics
If your program operates at a high volume, you need to see what’s happening across your caseload at a glance. You don’t have time to dig through spreadsheets to come up with analytics. Ask potential vendors whether their platform comes with real-time insights and visibility. - Integration With Your HRIS
Your data shouldn’t live in multiple places. That poses security risks and inconsistencies. Find partners that offer verified integrations with your existing systems.
Take Advantage of AI With the Right Guardrails
High-volume leave teams are hard at work keeping up with rising request rates, complex cases, and shifting compliance requirements. They need help to stay afloat and maintain compliance.
Many HR leaders are finding extra bandwidth through AI tools like ChatGPT. According to an AbsenceSoft survey, 45% of leave managers say they use these platforms during the leave process. Survey respondents said they use the platforms to write communications, analyze program data, and even make eligibility decisions.
Given HR’s growing workload, it’s understandable why they’re using tools that can help them keep up with their to-do lists. But the way they’re tapping AI is risky.
When leave managers use AI, they may unwittingly violate new and developing laws, regulations, and guidance governing the technology. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor has stated that AI should not make FMLA eligibility decisions unilaterally.
General-purpose AI tools create their own risk, too. Hallucinations lead to errors that can cause leave managers to deny leave improperly, which is a major misstep that could land employers in legal trouble. What’s more, these platforms don’t provide audit trails or documentation that HR would need during an investigation.
When implemented with the right guardrails, however, AI can offer a major productivity boost. Leave of absence tracking software can use it to automate intake, flag certification gaps, and support communications. Human oversight is key, so look for a partner that incorporates plenty of checkpoints for leave managers.
AbsenceSoft: A Leave of Absence Tracking Software That Grows With Your Caseload
HR teams with growing caseloads can expect more of the same in the coming years. More employees will ask for leaves of absence, and their requests will require more attention from leave managers.
Organizations can’t expect to keep up while using outdated tools. When companies invest in leave of absence tracking software, they’ll have the resources they need to stay compliant and offer a positive employee experience at scale.
If you’re looking for a platform that will help your leave team stay on top of its growing caseload, check out AbsenceSoft. Our software unites human expertise with thoughtful automation to optimize leave management. With AbsenceSoft, you can reduce your team’s administrative burden and minimize compliance risk, while improving the employee experience.
To learn more about AbsenceSoft, book a demo with a CLMS-certified leave specialist. If you’d like to explore the trends defining leave management, download our 2026 State of Leave and Accommodations report.