Nobody said it better than Maya Angelou when she said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
How does this correlate to Human Resources in local government? Simple, the moments that define how an employee feels about their organization are the massive moments in their life such as having a baby, a cancer diagnosis, or a parent who suddenly needs full-time care. In every one of those moments, the employee’s experience runs directly through your leave management process. If your leave management system leaves employees feeling like you don’t care about them, you have a serious problem.
This is critical because a positive employee experience is vital to running a successful organization especially in local government as it is central to organizational health. Gallup’s ongoing meta-analysis of over 183,000 business units found that teams in the top quartile of engagement see 23% higher profitability, along with lower absenteeism, lower turnover, and higher productivity (Gallup). For a city or county, where the “product” is service to residents and the budget answers to taxpayers, those outcomes matter just as much as they do in the private sector as saving money and higher productivity directly affects the communities in which they serve. The cities and counties that win are the ones where employees feel valued, trust their employer, and have genuine work life balance. A good leave management system strengthens all three while a bad one quietly undermines them.
Everyone wants to feel valued, especially employees
Everybody wants to be cared about. This is basic human nature, and employees do not check that at the door when they clock in. In an American Psychological Association survey, 93% of employees who felt valued said they were motivated to do their best work, compared to just 33% of those who did not feel valued. Half of the employees who did not feel valued said they intended to look for a new job within the year (APA). MetLife’s Employee Benefit Trends Study found the same pattern from a different angle: employees who feel cared for by their employer report being more loyal (89% vs. 53%), more productive (91% vs. 59%), and more engaged (88% vs. 47%) than those who do not (BusinessWire).
Whether or not an employee feels valued is tested in the big moments of their lives. When an employee comes to HR because their spouse was just diagnosed with cancer, they are not thinking about your mission statement. They are watching how you respond, right now, when it matters most to them. Guardian’s research on the leave experience confirms this connection directly. Employees who had a good leave experience were twice as likely to say their employer cares about their well-being (Guardian).
A well-run leave process shows employees you care. They get clear answers fast, their paperwork is handled correctly the first time, and communication between them and HR is seamless and stress free.
A disorganized system does the opposite, and not because anyone in HR stopped caring. The problem is that in a 200-500 employee city or county, leave is often one to two people's responsibility on top of recruitment, labor relations, benefits, and everything else. When they are buried in spreadsheets, chasing certification deadlines by memory, and reconstructing intermittent leave balances, the administrative burden crowds out the human part of the job. The employee walks away feeling like a case number during a serious moment of their life. A system that handles leave management is what frees you to actually be personal and help employees feel valued so they invest in your organization, which shows up in work quality and in the culture everyone works in.
Employees must trust their employer
Trust is the foundation of any relationship, and the employment relationship is no different. If you want a healthy work environment, your employees have to trust that you will do what you say and handle what they entrust to you.
Most leaders think they already have this trust, but they are mistaken. PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey found that 86% of executives believe employee trust in their organization is high, while only 67% of employees actually report that trust, an 18 point gap that has been widening (PwC via HR Dive). Leave management shows the exact same blind spot. Guardian found that nearly 80% of employers believe they provide an excellent leave experience, while only a third of employees said their recent leave went very smoothly (Guardian via Risk & Insurance). If you think your leave process is fine because nobody has complained, you may want to think again.
Leave is one of the fastest ways to lose trust because it is heavily involed with employees personal lives. A system that tracks every deadline, every certification, and every entitlement means the critical items aren’t missed, and the employee’s trust stays intact.
Why does this matter beyond the individual case? Because trust is your information supply line. When employees do not trust you, they tell you what they think is safe to say. You lose your read on morale, on brewing problems, and on what is actually happening in your departments. When employees trust you, they tell you the truth. You will have a real pulse on the organization, you will know what is bothering people, and you can fix issues while they are still small. A trusted HR office hears about problems before they snowball. An untrusted one hears about it in the exit interview.
Proper work life balance
Having a child is one of the biggest milestones in a person’s life. A serious health crisis is one of the biggest emergencies. Both demand the employee’s full attention, and both are exactly the situations work life balance exists for. In these moments, life takes priority, and a healthy organization makes room for that.
Your leave process determines whether that balance is actually possible. With a good system, the employee knows exactly what is needed from them. What forms to submit, what their leave balance covers, when they are expected back, and who to contact with questions. Because those questions are answered, they can put work down and focus on their newborn or their recovery.
With a bad system, the employee is left to figure things out in the dark. This is far more common than most employers realize. In Guardian’s study, only 22% of employees strongly agreed they were adequately informed about the benefits available to them during their leave (Guardian via Risk & Insurance). So they spend the leave they took to focus on their family worrying about their work situation instead. That is not work life balance. That is work anxiety relocated to a hospital waiting room.
The retention math here should get every employer’s attention. Guardian found that employees with a positive leave experience were 75% more likely to stay at their job for five or more years (Guardian). Every departure you fail to prevent is expensive as Gallup estimates replacing an employee costs one half to two times their annual salary (Gallup). In local government, the true cost runs even higher than the dollar figure, because so much of the job lives in institutional knowledge. When your payroll specialist of fifteen years walks out, the recruitment ad cannot bring back what she knew about your systems, your history, and your people. Public sector employers already fight an uphill recruiting battle, and losing people over fixable process problems is something that can’t happen.
Employee experience is central to organizational health
A great leave system is not just a compliance tool. It is one of the highest-leverage employee experience investments you can make, because it operates precisely in the moments that shape how people feel about their employer. It shows employees they are valued when it matters most, it protects the trust between employer and employee that keeps communication honest, and it gives people real work-life balance when life demands their attention.
These three elements compound quickly as employees who are valued, can trust their employer, and have work-life balance are more productive, stay longer, and make the workplace better for everyone around them. For a local government, that translates directly into better service for residents and a more fiscally responsible organization because retention is cheaper than recruitment every single time. Every dollar you do not spend replacing staff is a dollar that can be used for other services to benefit the public.
If your leave process today lives in spreadsheets, sticky notes, and institutional memory, your employees feel it, even if they haven’t communicated that. Civic Leave was built for city and county governments to manage leave with less risk, less stress, and less complexity. Request a demo and experience the benefits of better leave managment.
Sources
Gallup, World’s Largest Ongoing Study of Employee Experience: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/649487/world-largest-ongoing-study-employee-experience.aspx
American Psychological Association, Employee recognition survey: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2012/03/well-being
BusinessWire, Can Employers Afford Not to Care: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230320005048/en/Can-Employers-Afford-Not-to-Care
Guardian, Guardian finds employees who have a positive leave experience are seventy-five percent more likely to stay at their job: https://www.guardianlife.com/news/release/guardian-finds-employees-who-have-a-positive-leave-experience-are-seventy-five-percent-more-likely-to-stay-at-their-job-for-five-plus-years
PwC via HR Dive, employees trust in their organization: https://www.hrdive.com/news/employees-trust-pwc-report/710554/
Guardian via Risk & Insurance, employers face growing disconnect between leave management perception and employee reality: https://riskandinsurance.com/employers-face-growing-disconnect-between-leave-management-perception-and-employee-reality/
Gallup, fixable problem costs businesses trillions: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx
