Digitizing Leave Management in a Large Company: The Experience of BAYADERA GROUP and Vchasno.Kadry

The first and most tangible result of implementing electronic HR document management through Vchasno.Kadry was time savings for the HR team.

According to company calculations, transitioning to a digital format resulted in:

• 962 person-hours saved per year, equivalent to approximately 120 working days of the HR team;
• or an average of about 120 person-hours saved per quarter.

This is not about reducing the workload, but about eliminating manual actions that previously accompanied the paper-based process: searching for and transferring documents, drafting applications and orders, collecting signatures, tracking statuses, and maintaining a physical archive.

The calculation was based on one full calendar working year and reflects exclusively the time the HR team spent on document management prior to implementing Vchasno.Kadry. For a company with several thousand employees, even optimizing one large-scale process produces measurable and noticeable impact.

Put simply, this equals 962 person-hours per year.
The average annual working time for one employee is typically around 2,000 hours (give or take, depending on leave, sick days, holidays, and schedules).

December data is particularly illustrative, as it is the most complex month in the leave management process. During this period, the number of leave requests increases significantly, and any delay is immediately amplified across the company.

Based on December results, the average time required to fully process a leave request—from submitting the application in the app to obtaining all required signatures—was 8 hours and 16 minutes.

For a large company with a distributed structure, this means that even during peak periods the process does not stretch over several days and does not require manual HR intervention.

At first glance, the process seemed straightforward. In reality, however, it created systemic workload:

• employees spent significant working time on tasks unrelated to their core responsibilities;
• HR specialists operated in constant monitoring mode: where is the document, at what stage, who has not signed yet;
• managers were not always able to sign documents promptly due to business trips, tight schedules, or physical absence.

In a company with 27 branches, these delays were not isolated incidents. They accumulated and created a constant HR workload that distracted from business management.

For BAYADERA GROUP, the goal was not simply to digitize documents, but to eliminate systemic bottlenecks in one of the most large-scale HR processes—leave management. When selecting a solution, the team focused not on universal electronic document management systems, but on a service specifically designed for HR scenarios.

Key criteria included:

• ready-made logic for HR document workflows rather than a build-from-scratch constructor;
• compliance with legal requirements without manual customization;
• stability and data security within a large distributed structure;
• an interface understandable to employees without separate training;
• live support that guides implementation rather than simply granting access.

Vchasno.Kadry made it possible to start digitalization with a concrete pain point—leave management—and immediately eliminate key issues of the paper process: time loss, signature delays, and constant manual control.

BAYADERA GROUP did not begin with a company-wide rollout. Instead, a pilot group of employees was selected, and the process was tested in real working conditions, as it functions day to day rather than in a presentation setting.

The first week focused not on technical configuration but on working with people. The team carefully walked through each step: how to submit a leave request, what happens next, who approves it and when, and where the signature appears. Individual calls were conducted, scenarios were demonstrated through practical examples, and questions were answered immediately rather than after issues arose.

Practical aspects were also verified:

• whether employees clearly understood how to register and submit a request;
• whether approval routes functioned correctly;
• where the process might slow down or create uncertainty.

This approach made it possible to identify weak points before scaling and eliminate them at the outset. As a result, when the process was expanded to a larger group of employees, it was already stable and did not require manual HR intervention.

After implementing Vchasno.Kadry, leave stopped being a separate process that required manual coordination. It became a quick action integrated into the working day without additional effort.

The process now looks like this:

• The employee opens the mobile app, selects the leave period, and submits the request. No template searches, no printing, no trips to HR.
• The manager receives the request and approves it at a convenient time, regardless of location. There is no need to physically find the manager for a signature or delay the process for several days.
• The HR specialist works with standard documents automatically generated within the system. All stages are visible instantly: what has been approved, what has been signed, and where the process is completed.
• Signing takes place directly in the app. No additional steps, no transferring paper documents, no returns for correction.

As a result, leave is processed in a single digital environment without breaks between roles, without a physical archive, and without manual oversight. The process becomes predictable for both employees and HR, and routine HR actions no longer turn into lengthy approval chains.

After launching digital leave management, BAYADERA GROUP began using Vchasno.Kadry for other HR scenarios through the Document task. These include requests not tied to a specific process type but still requiring approval and signatures: certificates, applications, and internal HR documents.

In practice, these scenarios turned out to be even simpler than leave management. According to December data, the average time required to sign such HR requests was 22 minutes from task creation to final signature by all parties.

This demonstrated an important point: if the system can reliably handle the most large-scale and complex process—leave during peak season—then other HR documents naturally move into a fast and almost invisible mode for HR.

Read also: Electronic HR Documents: How to Legally Manage Them in 2026

After launch, the process quickly became part of daily work. Employees adopted the new format relatively quickly because it required nothing extra: a few clicks instead of paperwork and trips to HR.

• For many employees, it was a pleasant discovery that a leave request could be submitted in just a few minutes, without visiting HR or handling paper. There was nothing to search for, print, or double-check—everything worked in one place and was intuitive from the start.
• Managers also noticed changes immediately. Approvals no longer accumulated, and signing no longer depended on physical location. Documents could be approved at a convenient time, without constant reminders or urgent calls.
• For the HR team, this was perhaps the greatest relief. The constant chase for signatures and the need to monitor every document disappeared. The process stopped relying on manual attention and began operating independently.

Ultimately, leave became a routine action. That sense of simplicity became the clearest indicator that the change had taken hold.

Before digitalization, the biggest delays occurred during signature collection. The need to physically find a person for a final signature was the longest part of the process. There were also errors in paper applications—incorrectly completed forms or signatures placed in the wrong fields.

In the digital process, these issues were minimized. After signing, documents no longer return for correction, and the number of errors has effectively been reduced to zero.

The next HR process BAYADERA GROUP plans to digitize after leave management is onboarding. This scenario involves the largest number of documents and includes multiple roles, including HR, managers, and new employees.

The team is approaching this stage with practical experience and a clear understanding of how to build digital processes without chaos. The logic that proved effective for leave management can be scaled to onboarding: clear approval routes, standardized documents, and transparent status tracking at each step.

For its part, Vchasno.Kadry enables processes to be implemented gradually, ensuring digitalization remains convenient for people and valuable for the business rather than becoming another complex project. This approach creates a solid foundation for the stable development of HR processes in a large company.