This article explains how to schedule a long-term leave period for an employee in Personio. A long-term leave is a formal, extended absence during which an employee remains employed but temporarily steps away from their duties. Examples include parental leave, sabbaticals, and extended sick leave. Unlike standard time off, long-term leave can affect broader HR operations. For example, it can affect an employee's compensation, employment status, and entitlement to other types of paid leave.

In Personio, you manage long-term leaves like any other time off. However, you configure long-term leave rules at the policy level for each relevant time off type. For example, for a time off type like “Parental leave” or “Sabbatical”, you can configure the downstream effects, such as pausing compensation, changing an employee's status to Leave, or reducing paid time off entitlement. Personio applies those rules automatically when you approve a qualifying leave period.

If you want to schedule a maternity protection period, follow this process instead. You can still use a time off policy to apply long-term leave rules, such as compensation proration, status changes, or entitlement adjustments, for maternity leave. However, you need to schedule the maternity protection period itself through the Add child flow in the employee's profile.

Before you start

• You need a time off type set up for long-term leave purposes, for example, parental leave, sabbatical, or extended sick leave.
• The employee needs a time off policy assigned to them for that time off type. Without a policy, the time off type doesn't appear in the dropdown. You also need to add a time off policy in order to add or edit time off periods.
• If you want the leave to automatically affect compensation, employee status, or other paid time off entitlement, you first need to add the relevant long-term leave rules to the time off policy. If the policy is already assigned to employees, you can edit it to add these rules for upcoming leave periods.

Permissions

To follow the steps in this article, you need the following permissions:

• To schedule or manage a long-term leave on an employee's behalf, you need Edit permissions for People data > Time off for the relevant time off type.
• If you also need to configure or edit the time off policy's long-term leave rules, you need Edit permissions for Account configuration > Time off.

To request their own long-term leave, employees need at least Propose permissions for the relevant time off type.

Understand long-term leave effects for time off policies

Time off types related to long-term leave might include, for example, parental leave, sabbatical, and maternity leave. For these time off types, you can configure rules in each relevant time off policy specific to long-term leave. These rules affect compensation proration, employee status, and impact on paid time off. For example, you can set an employee’s status to Leave after a specified number of days. For time off types unrelated to long-term leave, such as paid vacation, we recommend leaving these settings disabled.

If you haven’t already done so, learn how to add long term leave rules to time off policies and understand their downstream effects. You only need to configure these rules once in each relevant time off policy. From then on, they apply automatically to every qualifying time off period for employees on that policy. For example, the rules apply once the period exceeds a specified number of days.

If you don’t enable any long-term leave rules for a time off policy, scheduling a long-term leave only records the time off itself. The system doesn’t automatically apply other downstream effects.

Schedule the long-term leave period

To schedule a long-term leave period for an employee, follow the steps below. The process is the same as scheduling a regular time off period.

1. Go to the employee's profile > Time off.
2. Click Request time off.
3. Select the time off type you're using for the long-term leave.
4. Enter the start date, and the end date if known.
5. Fill in any other required fields, for example, a substitute or comment.
6. Submit the request to trigger the usual approval workflow or approve it right away.

Depending on the permissions you've granted, employees can request their own long-term leave. An HR Manager can also schedule it on their behalf.

Once you approve the period, the time off policy's long-term leave rules (if configured) apply automatically. You don't need to make any further manual adjustments to compensation, status, or entitlement.

Edit or end a long-term leave period

You can update a long-term leave period the same way as any other time off period:

1. Go to the employee's profile > Time off.
2. Open the long-term leave period.
3. To change the dates, edit the start or end date directly.
4. To end the leave early, change the end date to the new, earlier date.
5. To remove it altogether, delete the time off period.

Keep in mind the following points regarding the time off policy: 

• If you've configured long-term leave rules in the relevant time off policy, these recalculate automatically to match the updated dates.
• In general, the time off policy that applies to a time off period is the one assigned on the day the period starts. This policy's rules apply for the entire period, even if you assign a different policy partway through. 
• Because of this, if you update an employee's long-term leave period, make sure their assigned time off policy still fully covers the updated period. Otherwise, long-term leave rules may not apply as expected.

Set up part-time work during parental leave

If an employee wants to work part-time during their parental leave, follow the steps below. These steps ensure that the system calculates entitlement and salary correctly. 

Step 1: Assign a part-time work schedule

If you haven’t already done so, create a part-time work schedule for the employee. To ensure correct proration of time off entitlement, configure the setting Time off entitlement proration based on working days.

Then, in the employee's profile, go to the Attendance tab. Assign the part-time work schedule. Set the effective date to the day the employee starts working part-time.

Step 2: Adjust the weekly hours attribute

Schedule a change to the employee's Weekly hours attribute, effective from the day they start working part-time. Set the value to the number of hours per week they plan to work during this period. This update automatically prorates their salary and FTE value.

Optional: Track and report on the part-time parental leave period

To track and report on the part-time parental leave period, follow the steps below. This allows other employees to see that the employee is on part-time parental leave. It also allows you to report on it in Analytics.

1. If you haven’t already done so, create a separate time off type for part-time parental leave. We recommend setting Reduce target hours and count any time tracked as overtime during time off? to No. This helps ensure that attendance and overtime calculations aren’t affected.
2. Use a time off policy with the settings Compensation proration, Employee status, and Impact on paid time off disabled. You can then expect the following behavior:
   • The employee's status remains Active. 
   • The Weekly hours attribute handles salary impact. 
   • The work schedule automatically handles entitlement proration.
3. Create a separate time off period for the part-time phase. If the employee was previously on full-time parental leave, end that time off period on the day before they start working part-time. Then, create a new time off period starting from the first day of part-time work. This new period signals that the employee is on parental leave. It doesn’t affect salary, attendance, or entitlement.