Leave looks like the simplest thing HR does. Someone asks for days, someone says yes, the days are deducted. It is also the process we most often find broken in Nigerian companies between fifty and three hundred staff, and the reasons are consistent enough to be worth writing down.
The spreadsheet does not fail loudly
A leave spreadsheet does not stop working. It drifts. One person keeps it, they update it when they remember, and the balance in the file slowly separates from the leave people actually took. Nobody notices until somebody resigns and the final settlement is argued over, or until two people from the same team are out in the same week and a site has no cover.
The problem is not the spreadsheet. It is that the record and the approval live in different places. The approval happened in a chat or an email, the record is in a file, and nothing forces the two to agree.
Balances should be calculated, never typed
The single biggest improvement is to stop storing a balance as a number somebody edits. A balance should be the result of a calculation: entitlement, plus anything carried over, minus approved absence, as at today.
Once it is calculated, a whole category of argument disappears. Nobody can quietly adjust it, everyone sees the same figure, and the number moves the moment an approval is granted rather than whenever someone updates the file.
Accrual, and why monthly is usually right
Granting the full year on the first of January is simple, and it creates a liability: a staff member who leaves in February has taken more than they earned. Accruing through the year, so the entitlement builds month by month, matches what the person has actually worked for and makes exit settlements straightforward.
Handover is part of the request, not an afterthought
The question that matters operationally is not whether someone has days left. It is who is covering their work. A leave request that does not name a handover is only half a request, and it is the reason approvals sit: the manager is not withholding permission, they are trying to work out cover.
Ask for it on the form. Make it a field, not a paragraph of prose that has to be read to be understood.
Decide what a public holiday does
If someone is on leave across a public holiday, does that day count against their entitlement? There is a correct answer for your company, your staff have a strong opinion about it, and in most companies we meet it has never been stated. Write it down once and apply it consistently. The specific answer matters less than not having a different answer each time.
Who approves, and what happens when they are away
Leave usually travels through a supervisor, then HR, and sometimes a final approver. Each of those stages needs a deputy, for exactly the reason covered in designing an approval chain that does not stall: the person who approves leave is also a person who takes it.
What good looks like
A leave process is working when:
- The staff member can see their own balance without asking anyone.
- The balance is calculated, not maintained by hand.
- An approved absence updates the balance immediately.
- Every request names who is covering.
- Anyone can see who is out this week without sending a message.
- The approval and the record are the same event, not two.
That last one is the whole thing. When approving leave is the act of recording it, the two can never disagree, and the annual argument about balances simply stops happening.
See it against your own approval chain
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