Leave and request processes: from paper to self-service

Self-service requests are the component of an intranet that pays back fastest. The reason is simple: in most companies leave and expense processes still run on a mix of email, paper forms and "walk it over for signature" — and every step depends on somebody remembering.

The real cost of the current process

Handling a leave request by hand usually goes like this: the employee finds the form (5 minutes), fills it in, emails it to their manager, the manager notices it a few days later, approves it, forwards it to HR, and HR records it in a spreadsheet. That's 15–20 minutes of scattered work across three people.

In a company receiving 60 requests a month that is over 200 hours a year. And that isn't even the most irritating part: the employee doesn't know where their request stands, so they ask — and the question creates work of its own.

The right order for digitising

Rather than opening every request type at once, start with two: leave and IT support. Both are high volume and their rules are clear. Expenses usually need an accounting integration; room and vehicle booking needs conflict checking. Leaving those to the second wave makes it easier for the first wave to become a habit.

Approval flows: keep them simple

Multi-level approval chains look controlled on paper and jam in practice. For most request types a single level — the direct manager — is enough. Add a second level only where it is genuinely required, such as expenses above a threshold.

The critical detail is that who approved and when is recorded. Notifications and balance changes should be produced server-side off the back of that decision — a client that says "approved" and writes its own record leaves the door open for the two sides to drift apart.

Seniority-based leave entitlement

In Turkey annual leave is tied to length of service under Article 53 of the Labour Law: 14 days between one and five years, 20 days between five and fifteen, and 26 days at fifteen years and above. For employees under 18 or over 50 the floor is 20 days.

Calculating this automatically prevents two problems: wrong balances and arguments about them. The input is the hire date, which is already on the profile — no extra table is needed.

Form templates and fields

Request forms don't need to be fixed. An IT support request asks for device type, an expense request for amount and receipt, a room booking for a date range and headcount. Letting administrators customise these fields stops HR from going to the software team for every new need.

File attachments matter especially for expenses; keeping the receipt attached to the request ends the separate chase by accounting.

Notification balance

Request processes are eager to generate notifications: opened, seen, approved, rejected, reminder. Sending all of them wears people out. The simplification that works: notify the requester only when the status changes, and the manager only when something is waiting for a decision.

We cover why notification fatigue is a serious risk in our engagement article.

Room and vehicle booking

The most overlooked use of request infrastructure is booking. Meeting rooms and vehicles differ from other requests in one way: they carry a conflict risk. Two people booking the same room for the same hour must be prevented at the database level, not by an approval flow; greying out the calendar in the interface is not enough, because two people can press send at the same moment.

That detail looks small but decides trust: a team that experiences one double-booking goes back to trusting calendar invites instead of the system.

Measurement: two numbers are enough

Average decision time and number of pending requests. The first shows the health of the process, the second the bottleneck. Requests that consistently pile up with one manager are a management problem rather than a system problem — but they can't be solved until they're visible.

A strip in the admin panel showing pending work is the simplest way to put these two numbers into the daily routine.

The relationship with the ERP

A request system doesn't replace the ERP. The ERP holds the record; the intranet is its employee-facing surface — it shows the balance, starts the request, carries the approval and reports the outcome. Pushing an approved request into the ERP is an integration matter and belongs to a second phase.

You'll find the budget and rollout order in our cost article and the 90-day plan.