Settings for work schedules – Personio

This article explains the settings you can configure when creating a working schedule and time-tracking policies. With these options, you can define when and for how long your employees are expected to work, and fine-tune how they track their work and break times.

Working hours and breaks

In the table, enter the number of hours your employees should work on each working day, and recommended break duration.

Start and end times are guidelines only: employees can record attendance and overtime (if enabled) on any day. While you can't change that, set up an approval workflow using the Start time is earlier or later than working schedule condition to review these time entries.

Start and end times also impact the calculation of hourly time off. Any hourly time off requested beyond the defined start and end times don't count towards the time off calculation.

Multi-week working schedule

To create rotating schedules with different hours for up to four weeks, click Add week. This helps you set up flexible work arrangements with a recurring pattern.

The system considers the work schedule and number of hours you set for each different week when calculating overtime, attendance, target hours, and time off.

Time off entitlement proration based on working days

For accrual policies set to prorate entitlements according to weekly working days, Personio compares the working schedule's days with the reference value set here.

For example, if the part-time schedule has 4 days and the reference is 5, employees on that schedule get 4/5 of the regular vacation entitlement.

If you set up a multi-week working schedule, the system compares its average working days against the reference value.

Limit maximum hours worked per day

Set up a limit for the number of work hours that employees can track per day. After you set the limit, choose one of the following options:

Setting

Description and notes

Alert people when tracking more than the limit

Employees:

See a warning when tracking more than the limit.
Can save the time entry and add a reason for it.

Attendance approvers see these requests as non-compliant through the Time Tracking Approvals.

Restrict people from adding work hours after reaching the limit

Employees:

See a warning when tracking more than the limit.
Cannot save the time entry.

Apply time tracking restrictions to past or future calendar days

You can restrict your employees from adding or editing time entries for days in the past or future. These rules impact if and how employees can track time in bulk. For example, if you disable adding new time entries to future days, employees can only track time in bulk for past days.

Employees with Attendance data edit rights can bypass these restrictions.

Setting	Description and notes
Restrict adding new time entries to the past	The employee can only add time entries to a limited number of past days. If you set this to zero, the employee: Can only track time for the current day and future days if permitted. Can’t track overnight hours.
Disable editing of existing time entries after they are approved	The employee cannot modify a time entry after it’s been approved. With no approval workflow in place, time entries are automatically approved as soon as submitted. In this case, the employee can only edit an auto-approved time entry on the same day they enter it.
Lock previous month's attendance on a set day of the month	The employee can only add time entries for the previous month until a specific day of the next month. If you choose this option, you can’t choose either of the first two.
Disable adding new time entries to future calendar days	The employee can’t add time entries for days in the future.

Configure breaks

Set minimum break duration

Employees see a warning when tracking a break shorter than the minimum, and can’t save the time entry.

Break rules

Add up to two break rules to define the minimum required break length for every set amount of work. The length of the required break can’t be shorter than the minimum break duration set above.

After you define break rules, choose one of the three actions described in the table. These actions trigger exactly as specified by the break rules.

Setting	Description and notes
Alert people when breaks are missing or don't comply with the break rules	Employees: See a warning when not tracking enough break times. Can save the time entry and add a reason for it. Attendance approvers see these requests as non-compliant through the Time Tracking Approvals.
Restrict people from saving time entries if breaks are missing or don't comply with the break rules	Employees: See a warning when not tracking enough break times. Cannot save the time entry.
Automatically add breaks if they are missing or don't comply with the break rules	When employees don't track enough break times, the system deducts the required break from their working time to comply with both break rules. If there isn’t enough working time to deduct the break, the system reduces the working time to avoid break rule violations. This applies to time entries tracked via Attendance tab, time clock, mobile app, and terminals. Automatic breaks don't apply to time entries with break property submitted via public API (PAPI), and to imported ones. Employees: See a warning when not tracking enough break times. Can save the time entry and the system will apply the breaks automatically. Can edit the time entry and the auto-break applied. If they do, the break times they add must comply with the established break rules.

Break rules example

You set up the two break rules below, and choose the option to add breaks automatically.

After 6 hours of work, employees must track a 30-minute break.
After 9 hours of work, employees must track a 45-minute break.

Employee A tracks 8 hours of work, without any break. To comply with the first rule, the system automatically deducts 30 minutes of working time and adds the break after 6 hours of working time.

Employee B tracks 7 hours of work, 45 minutes of break, and 3 additional hours of work. The break added manually complies with the second rule, so the system doesn't change it. However, to make the time entry comply with the first rule, the system adds a 30-minute break to the first work period.

Employee C tracks 6 hours and 15 minutes of work. According to the first rule, the system should add a 30-minute break, but there’s not enough working time to do so. So, the system reduces the working time to 6 hours instead.

Track overtime and deficit hours

Overtime includes any time tracked beyond the hours set in an employee’s working schedule.

Setting	Description and notes
Calculate overtime	Choose how often to settle overtime hours: daily or weekly.
Add monthly overtime cliff	Define the number of overtime hours already covered by the monthly salary. They won't count towards the overtime balance.
Overtime limits
Add a limit to people's total overtime balance	Define an overtime limit for your employees. When this option is enabled, you can quickly see which employees are nearing or surpassing their overtime limit. To do so, go to People list and add the Overtime Balance column.
Track deficit hours	Only enable this option if your employees are actively tracking time, as the system starts tracking deficit hours immediately. If an employee tracks fewer hours than planned on a workday, the system creates a deficit entry for the shortfall and subtracts it from their overtime balance. When you enable this option, employees can also track a 0h day in the Attendance panel.
Deduct hours daily if no time is tracked	Only enable this option if your employees are actively tracking time, as the system starts tracking deficit hours immediately. If you activate the setting in work schedules assigned while your employees are not tracking time, this results in a high number of deficit hours. Only available when calculating overtime daily. If an employee tracks no hours at all on a workday, the system creates a deficit entry for the whole amount and subtracts it from their overtime balance. To avoid employees’ time off from being calculated as deficit hours, consider time tracked during time off as overtime.

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