People Ops

Why leave approvals get stuck — and how to fix it

Lena Kowalski

February 12, 2026 · 5 min read

If leave approvals in your org take days, the problem isn’t lazy managers. It’s a workflow that doesn’t respect their time.

Approvals Workflow

Written by

Lena Kowalski

Writes about HR, payroll, and the modern workplace.

4.4 / 5 from 73 readers

Rohan Mehta 3 days ago

This matches what we saw last quarter. The credit-shell leakage alone was eye-opening for our finance team.
- Aarav Shah 2 days ago
  
  Glad it landed, Rohan. We’re publishing the credit-shell deep-dive next week.
Sara Khan 5 days ago

The “better defaults beat more rules” line should be on every CFO’s wall.
James O’Connor 1 week ago

Would love to see hard numbers on the manual reconciliation hours saved after switching.
Priya Menon 1 week ago

We cut reconciliation by 70% in the first quarter. Happy to share details if useful.