PTO policies need a reboot — this platform has a plan

A new partnership between workforce management tool Helios and workplace insights platform PTO Genius is changing the way organizations handle their employees' time off. 

Eighty-eight percent of full-time employees had access to paid vacation in 2024, according to recent data from time management platform Clockify, yet less than half of employees used all of their available time. In fact, 46% left a large portion of their PTO unused at the end of the year. Even organizations that offer unlimited PTO suffer from underutilization and burnout.  

"The question becomes, if companies are offering these benefits, why are employees still burned out?" says Rick Hammell,  founder and CEO of Helios. "We wanted to build analytics within our tool so that organizations can focus on enabling best practices with their employees." 

Read more: Want to prevent burnout? Invest in AI benefits and more robust PTO

By adding PTO Genius to their existing integration, Helios will be able to simultaneously gather valuable insights on workforces' PTO habits from the employees they're serving, in addition to the payroll, compliance and onboarding functions they already provided. By tracking how and when employees are using their time off they'll be able to identify red flags sooner and address them faster and more efficiently.  

"We wanted to make sure employers had the right tools to make the right decisions that would set their business up for success," Hammell says. "For example, if an employee has not taken some time off in quite some time, we now have the opportunity and the statistics to encourage that employee to take time off before they run into burnout." 

On the employee's end, the process of actually taking the time off looks more-or-less the same. Yet employees will receive reminders when they haven't taken enough time off, as well as information on why taking time is important from PTO Genius. They'll also have more visibility on when their colleagues have requested time so as to better plan their own vacations. 

In addition, employees will also have the option to request overtime be turned into PTO. This is especially beneficial for companies with a distributed workforce outside of the U.S. — instead of taking common American holidays like the 4th of July, employees can work through them and have that time serve as a "floating" holiday to use when they please.  

Read more: Best practices for creating a strategic PTO policy

"It gives employees a lot more flexibility and autonomy and visualization of what they can do with their time," Hammell says. "It puts all of that data right in front of them so that everyone can be proactive." 

Most importantly, Helio's services ensure that the process remains compliant. When thinking about PTO, employers have to consider payouts and tax implications when an employee doesn't use all of their PTO, which can quickly become a problem if they're not keeping track of what that means for wages. Without the right checks and balances, organizations can risk their ability to attract and retain employees both in and out of the country.

"There is so much more we can do with PTO," Hammell says. "We need to think about how it's actually benefiting the employee because time off is a very important part of building successful and competitive benefit packages."