Make every leave decision clearer
Give employees clear outcomes while managers handle allowances, partial days and approvals consistently.
The challenge
Two colleagues are already away, a third needs leave, and the manager cannot tell whether approval will leave enough cover.
What good looks like
Clear balances, consistent decisions and visible outcomes let people plan leave while managers protect team cover.
View how to
Request leave
Open the Leave dashboard to review your vacation, sick leave and personal day balances. Start a new request, choose the leave type, and enter the start and end dates. For a partial day, specify the hours. Add a brief note if your company policy requires one, then submit the request to your manager.
Track or cancel a request
Use My Requests to see whether a request is pending, approved or rejected. Zizzy will notify you when a decision is made. You can cancel a request if it has not yet been approved.
Review team requests
Managers can open Team Requests to review the details of each request. Approve or deny it, adding a comment where an explanation would help the employee understand the decision.
Read and search transcript
Welcome to the Absence and Leave Management Guide. In this video, we will walk you through the process of requesting leave and managing your absences within the system.
First, navigate to the Leave dashboard by clicking on the Leave icon in the left-hand navigation menu. Here, you will see a summary of your current leave balances, including vacation, sick leave, and personal days.
To request a new leave, click on the New Request button in the top right corner. A window will appear where you can select the type of leave you are requesting from the dropdown menu.
Next, specify the start and end dates of your requested leave. If you are taking a partial day, check the partial day box and specify the hours.
The system will automatically calculate the total number of hours or days requested based on your selected dates and work schedule. You can add a brief note or reason for your request in the comments section if required by your company policy.
Once you have filled in all the details, click the Submit button. Your request will be sent to your manager for approval, and you will receive a notification once a decision has been made.
You can track the status of your pending, approved, or rejected requests in the My Requests tab on the main Leave page. If you need to cancel a request that has not yet been approved, you can click on the request and select the Cancel button.
If you are a manager, you will see a separate tab labeled Team Requests. Here, you can review and approve or deny leave requests from your team members.
Simply click on a request to see the details, and then select Approve or Deny. You can also leave a comment explaining your decision.
That concludes our guide on Absence and Leave Management. If you have any further questions, please refer to the internal knowledge base or contact your HR department.
Thank you for watching.
The request is only half the decision
A leave request looks simple until it meets the rest of the team. The manager needs to know what is being requested, how much leave the person has, whether the dates cover full or partial days, and what work will need attention. The employee needs a prompt, fair answer. Colleagues need enough warning to plan around the absence. If those facts live in separate messages, calendars and spreadsheets, even a reasonable decision can look arbitrary.
This is why managing leave and absences becomes difficult. The policy may be clear, yet the working context is not. Managers delay while they piece it together, employees make plans without certainty, and HR gets pulled into avoidable disputes about allowance or approval. Sickness and personal leave add another human consideration: not every absence should require a detailed explanation to a wide audience. Good absence management gives the decision-maker enough information without turning a private matter into team gossip.
Fairness needs a visible process
Consistency does not mean saying yes to every request, or treating every absence as identical. It means using the same basic process: capture the leave type and dates accurately, check the relevant balance and policy, consider genuine cover needs, then make and record a decision. When a request is declined, a brief explanation matters. Silence leaves people guessing whether the problem was timing, allowance or favouritism.
The cost of a vague process spreads quickly. Employees chase for answers or avoid booking leave until plans become expensive. Managers rely on memory and discover clashes late. Payroll or HR may have to untangle partial days, changed requests and informal approvals after the event. The organisation also loses a reliable picture of absence, which makes resourcing harder.
A calmer approach separates the personal request from the operational conversation. Record the request once, limit the reason to what policy genuinely requires, and discuss handover or cover with the right people. That protects privacy while giving the team something concrete to plan around.
One record makes the answer easier to trust
This is where Zizzy can remove the unnecessary friction. An employee can see current balances for vacation, sick leave and personal days, enter the relevant leave type and dates, and specify hours for a partial day. Zizzy calculates the amount requested from the dates and work schedule, so the request reaches the manager in a consistent form rather than as an ambiguous message.
The manager reviews team requests, approves or denies them, and can explain the decision in a comment. The employee is notified and can see whether each request is pending, approved or rejected. A request that has not yet been approved can also be cancelled. The practical gain is modest but important: both sides are working from the same request and the same outcome.
Software does not decide whether cover is adequate or whether an exception is humane. That remains a judgement for people who understand the work and the circumstances. What it can do is remove preventable uncertainty, preserve a clear decision, and leave managers more room for the conversation that actually needs care.
Seen how it works
Now see it with your own setup.
Bring this exact question to a 30 minute walkthrough and we will show you how Zizzy handles it.