Northside Van and Truck Ltd are a highly successful Mercedes Commercial Vehicle Dealer based in Yorkshire.

In the 20 years since Northside was established in Bradford, they have developed a highly qualified and dedicated team of technicians with a range of service and repair facilities which are second to none.

In recognition of their achievements, they were awarded the prestigious Commercial Motor dealer of the Year award and Mercedes Benz Commercial dealer of the year in 2007.

The problem…

Prior to the introduction of the LeavePlanner online system we had various manual paper methods of authorising and controlling holidays across our four branches. These were very inefficient and time consuming and prone to incorrect recording. We have a total staff of approx 355 and there was no consistency in reporting and Management had no real idea of what holiday or absence had been taken across the group.

The solution…

With the introduction of LeavePlanner all recording was centralised so we can now view any member of staff or department within the company. This is proving extremely useful. The way it utilises email holiday and absence requests is efficient and simple and as long as this is set up correctly in the first instance it smooths out the whole request and authorisation process. The summary view of the whole company or department is extremely useful when planning holidays and absence as you can see in summary your staffing levels as each request is made, thus there is no chance of signing off a holiday and being left short staffed. In addition it is useful for all members of staff to be able to check when someone is on holiday without having to refer to manual records, all this saves time and obviously money for the organisation.

Being able to keep an annual allowance and running total of holidays remaining online enables our staff to know exactly what leave they are due at any time. In addition we also use the system for recording sickness and unauthorised leave and again this has led to increases in efficiency as you can see when specific members of staff are abusing this where before this could go unnoticed. Those members of staff can now be dealt with directly and there is no question of the validity of their absence records.

Admittedly there is a certain amount of setup required but this is well worth the effort and information can be uploaded on mass. Training is relatively simple as the system is very user friendly and our staff have become proficient in a very short time.

One of the most encouraging factors is the positive feedback that we have received from Management and staff alike saying that the system has improved their control dramatically and there are no questions of incorrect holidays being taken or cancelled without notification.

This was definitely the right thing to do for the business and has led to much tighter and better control of our staff attendance. I would recommend the system to any business as this is the most efficient way to control holidays that I have encountered.

James Hemingway
Finance Director
Northside Truck And Van
Another happy LeavePlanner Customer