This is step 2 of 5 of the implementation module Attendances and Absences.

In this article, you will learn how to create absence types in Personio so that your employees can request different types of absences, such as sickness, vacation and parental leave.

What are the benefits?

• Cover your organization's internal requirements regarding time off. You can create as many absence types as needed to fit your company policies (for example, depending on the market, you may need to make the distinction between an absence to work remotely from a different country and an absence to work from home).
• Create one central database for all of your employees' absence data, so that employees can easily keep track of their planned absences and, depending on their Company Calendar access rights, also other employees' planned absences.
• Ensure that absence data is always up-to-date. Employees will be able to request absences themselves as they see fit and, once approved, this information will be instantly reflected in Personio. 

Step 1: Create a new absence type

1. Go to Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Absence.
2. Click on Add new and enter a name (example: “Paid vacation”, “Sick leave”, “Remote work”, etc.).
3. Click the Edit button to configure the absence type you have just created.
4. In the Color option, select a calendar color for the absence type.
5. In the Category option, select the absence category that the new absence type should be assigned to. For example, select the Paid vacation category for the Paid vacation absence type or the Remote work category for the Remote work absence type. This step is mandatory.
6. In the Unit of time option, select either Days or Hours. Keep in mind that you will not be able to change the unit of time after the absence type has been successfully created.
   

   Tip
   Absences tracked in hours allow you to track:
   ▶ full-day absences (example: an absence of 8 hours over the course of a day) such as a vacation day.
   ▶ multi-day absences (example: an absence of 8 hours over the course of two days or, in other words, an absence starting at 13:00 and ending at 12:00 the day after).
   ▶ partial-day absences (example: an absence of 2 hours over the course of a day) such as doctor appointments or sudden absences due to urgent matters.

7. Only applicable to absences tracked in days: In the Allow half-day requests? option, define if the employee can request half days for this absence type.

8. In the Substitute option, define if employees must name another employee as their substitute. The name of their substitute will be displayed in the Company Calendar.

   Note
   The import functionality for absences is only available if substitute requests are not set up as mandatory in the system.

9. In the Certificate option, define if employees must upload a certificate when requesting this absence type and, if so, from which day onwards. 
   

   Note
   If you are a Germany-based Personio customer, your employees with statutory or another (non-private) type of health insurance do not need to manually upload a medical certificate into Personio. A digital version of the certificate (eAU) gets automatically sent to the employees' health insurance, and you only need to retrieve them either manually or automatically (via de DATEV integration).

10. Only applicable to absences tracked in days: In the Request of a substitute for this absence type option, define if employees who are named as substitutes during a certain period can still request this absence type.

    Note
    We recommend that you only activate this option for absence types that are considered unplanned (example: “Sickness”) and that you disable for absence types that are considered planned (example: “Paid vacation”). This will guarantee that an employee who is currently substituting for another employee cannot go on vacation during the substitution period.

11. In the Valid on option, choose which days of the week should be counted when calculating the absence entitlement. Absence entitlement is calculated based on the overlap between the assigned work schedule and the days selected within this option.

12. Activate the Consider time tracked during absences of this type as overtime? option if you want all hours worked during a period flagged as an absence in Personio to be counted as overtime. This requires that the employee tracks their working hours in Personio.
    

    Note
    We recommend that you enable this settings option for all absence types that are considered as actual absence periods in your company (example: "Paid vacation" and "Sick leave"), as automatic deficit hours will be generated if the setting option Track automatic deficit hours for days with no time tracked? is active. Automatic deficit hours are meant to only be generated for informative absences or, in other words, absences where an employee is still supposed to work, such as "Remote work".

13. Activate the Enable accrual policies option if applicable. Go to the next section in this article to learn more about how to assess if an accrual policy is needed.
14. Click on Add absence type to save your settings.
    

    Note
    Your employees will only be able to request the new absence once you grant them proposal rights to the specific absence type, and if applicable, also once you assign an activated accrual policy to them.

Step 2: Assess whether an accrual policy is needed 

Whether you need to activate the Enable accrual policies? option, and therefore create an accrual policy, depends on whether the absence type can be taken:

• An unlimited number of times (for example, “Sickness” or “Remote work”)
  You do not need to create an accrual policy because you are simply recording the number of days/hours, instead of deducting them from a total count. In this scenario, you do not need to activate the Enable accrual policies? option, but instead simply click on Add absence type to successfully create the absence type.

• A limited number of times (for example, “Paid vacation” and “Parental leave”)
  You need to create an accrual policy so that the system automatically subtracts the number of taken days/hours from a total count. Go to the next article to learn how to do so. 

Congratulations 🎉
You are ready to move on and Create accrual policies for the absence types in Personio.