Frequently asked questions about employee management – Personio

This article addresses the most frequently asked questions about employee management.

How do I hide the year of birth from all employees?

You can hide the year of birth from all employees. Employees with view-only access to the section containing the Date of birth attribute see only the day and month. Administrators and employees with propose or edit access always see the full date of birth, including the year, regardless of whether you select the Show year only to users with edit or propose permissions option.

To hide the year of birth, select Show year only to users with edit or propose permissions on the Date of birth attribute in Settings > People > Personal information.

If an employee has permission to run reports, they see the full date of birth, including the year.

The Celebrations card on the homepage always shows only the day and month. The year visibility setting doesn't affect the Celebrations card, so employees never see the year there.

How do I show birthdays only for employees who have given consent?

You can control birthday visibility by creating a custom consent attribute and using conditional viewing rights to show birthday information only for employees who have opted in.

Create a new Single Selection attribute with two options: "Yes" and "No". This is the consent attribute employees use to record their consent.
Create a new section containing this consent attribute and move the Date of birth preset attribute into this section.
Grant employees propose rights to this section so they can record their consent. Employees select "Yes" so colleagues can see their birthday or "No" to keep their birthday hidden from colleagues.
Set conditional viewing rights on the new section so the Date of birth attribute is only visible when the consent attribute value equals "Yes".
Set conditional viewing rights on the birthday calendar so only consenting employees' birthdays appear there.

How do I hide the date of birth for a specific employee?

You can hide the date of birth for a specific employee by moving the Date of birth attribute into a new section and using conditional viewing rights.

Move the Date of birth attribute into a new section. Name the new section something like "Birthday".
Open the All employees role and go to the Permissions tab.
Under Personal data, find the new section and set View to Own and Custom.
Set the custom condition to Name, is not, and enter the name of the employee whose date of birth shouldn't be visible.

How do I allow colleagues see birthdays on the Celebrations card and in the team calendar?

To allow colleagues to see birthdays on the Celebrations card and in the team calendar:

Select the employee role in the Roles & permissions settings (for example, All Employees).
Grant View access to Employee profile > Public profile > All.
Grant View access to Employee profile > the section containing the Date of birth attribute.
Grant View access to Team Calendar > Birthday visibility.
Go to Homepage settings, open the Celebrations card options, and turn on Birthdays.

The Celebrations card only reads from the preset Date of birth attribute. A custom attribute, even if you name it "Birthday" and fill with it with date data, doesn't work for this card.

How do I show only employees with a certain status in the People List?

To show only employees with a certain status, add the Status column to your view and use the Filter tab to add a rule for the Status column. For example, to see only active employees, add a rule for Status set to Active.

To see employees with a status other than Active, you need the right permissions for the profile section containing the Status attribute. Learn more about viewing employees by status.

Why don't I see the Additional supervisor or Person relationship types when creating a new attribute?

The Additional supervisor and Person relationship attribute types require a Core Pro subscription and aren't available on the Core plan. If you have Core Pro, set up the attribute following these steps.

If you're on Core, you can use a Single selection custom attribute type to manually record additional supervisor names. Add each supervisor name as an option in the attribute, then assign the relevant value in each employee's profile. Keep in mind that using a Single selection attribute this way stores the name as a value only. It doesn't connect to the Org Chart, approval workflows, or reporting line access the way the Additional supervisor or Person relationship types do.

How do I fix an incorrect termination date or undo an accidental termination?

The right approach depends on whether the employee is actually leaving.

If the termination date is wrong but the employee is leaving:

Open the employee's profile.
Click the three-dot icon.
Select Terminate Employment.
Update the termination date to the correct value.
Click Terminate to confirm.

If the termination was entered by mistake and the employee is not leaving, follow the troubleshooting steps to reverse an accidental termination.

If the incorrect date was in the past, the system might have already deleted time-off periods after that date and recalculated entitlements based on proration settings. These changes don't automatically reverse when you correct or remove the termination date. Review the employee's Time off tab afterward and adjust balances manually if needed.

Can I set an employee from Inactive back to Active without creating a new profile?

It depends on why the employee is Inactive. If they cancelled a planned exit or you entered the termination by mistake, follow these troubleshooting steps to restore the employee to Active status on the same profile without creating a new one.

If the employee genuinely was Inactive and left the company but is now returning, use the rehire feature to create a new active profile while keeping the original as a historical record.

An employee I added to Personio never started — can I delete their profile?

The approach depends on whether the employee has been part of a payroll run.

If the employee has not been part of a payroll run, delete the profile. This removes the employee profile and avoids a misleading termination record. This action is irreversible and removes all profile data and documents. You should export any relevant documents before deleting a profile. To delete the profile:

Open the employee's profile.
Click the three-dot icon.
Select Delete profile.
As an added layer of security, you must also type DELETE to confirm the deletion.

If the employee has been part of a payroll run, terminate the employment instead of deleting the profile, using the hire date as the termination date. The profile moves to Inactive and no longer appears in active employee lists, but Personio retains all data. To terminate the employment:

Open the employee's profile.
Click the three-dot icon.
Select Terminate Employment.
Enter the hire date as the termination date.
Click Terminate to confirm.
Optional: add a note in the Notes tab to record that the employee never started.

Can I add custom termination reasons to the type of termination?

Personio defines the Type of termination options and you cannot customize them. It's also not possible to add a custom attribute that appears in this list of options. To document a specific termination reason, use the free-text Reason field when terminating an employee.

How do I suspend an employee's employment or put them on long-term leave?

In Personio, the long-term leave feature covers long-term absences such as parental leave, sabbaticals, or extended sick leave. This includes situations where you need to temporarily suspend an employee's active status. Learn how to schedule a long-term leave period.

Can I hide an employee from colleagues after their last working day but keep them in reports until their termination date?

There's no setting on the employee’s profile to hide them from other colleagues in Personio while their status is Active, even after their last working day. The simplest way to remove an employee from the active employee list visible to colleagues and remove their Personio access is to terminate their employment. Their status changes to Inactive the day after the termination date. Terminating an employment preserves the employee's historical data. They continue to appear in historical reports but are no longer visible in the active employee list.

An alternative approach is to use custom access in the employee roles and set the condition to exclude that specific employee. This approach is a temporary solution for an employee who has had their last working day but is still employed, for example, while an employee is released from work until their notice period ends. Learn how to use employee filters to grant custom permissions.

Can an employee keep access to Personio for a limited time after they leave?

No. Access to Personio depends on the employee’s Status. When an employee leaves, their access ends the day after their Termination date. At that point the status changes to Inactive and they can no longer log in. You cannot keep an inactive employee’s access active.

A former employee can’t log in to Personio. How can I give them their documents after they leave?

When an employee leaves, their Status changes to Inactive the day after their Termination date. A former employee with the Inactive status cannot log in to Personio, so they cannot access the documents in their old profile. Changing their login email or resetting their password doesn’t change this.

You don’t need to rehire the former employee to give them their documents. Choose one of these options:

If you need specific documents:

Go to the former employee’s profile.
Click the Documents tab.
Select the category, then download the documents.
Share the documents with the former employee in a way that complies with your company’s data privacy requirements.

If you need all of the former employee’s documents:

Export your company data. The export contains a folder for each employee with all their documents.
Share the former employee’s folder with them in a way that complies with your company’s data privacy requirements.

Why do I get an error when I try to rehire a former employee?

If Personio shows an error message when you try to rehire a former employee, your account may have reached its employee seat limit. Your browser’s network tools may show the error “429 Too Many Requests”. In some cases, this error appears because your account has reached its seat limit, not because you sent too many requests. If the seat limit is the cause, waiting and trying again won’t fix it.

A rehire creates a new active profile, and each active employee profile uses one seat. Inactive profiles don’t count toward the limit. Check if your account has reached its employee seat limit in Settings > Account & support > Subscription & billing. If you need more seats, add employee seats to your plan and try the rehire again.

Why is the "Rehire this person" option missing on a former employee’s profile?

Rehire this person doesn’t appear on a profile in these cases:

The profile isn’t Inactive yet. You can only rehire from a profile that is Inactive, with a Termination date in the past.
You already rehired the employee from that profile. The new profile links to the old one, and you can switch between them with the dropdown in the profile header.

An employee switched to a new contract and we created a new profile. How can the employee access the data and documents from the old profile?

When an employee gets a new profile, they can only access the new, active profile. They cannot access the old, inactive profile or its documents. The data is not lost because the old profile stays in Personio and administrators can access it.

During the rehire process, you can transfer data from the old profile to the new one by selecting Copy all other remaining details to new profile. This only transfers the employee data from the Personal info tab, and you cannot do it for the new profile afterwards.

The data in the other tabs, such as Documents, doesn’t transfer. To transfer this data, you need to add it to the new profile manually or import it. To give the employee their documents, download them from the Documents tab of the old profile, then upload them to the new profile. You need to do this for each document, because you cannot transfer documents between profiles in bulk.

To give the employee their personal information from the old profile, export it from the People List.

An employee received the notification “Your master data has been updated”. How can I see what changed and who changed it?

Use the Audit Log to find out what changed and who changed it. The notification can come from a workflow that sends a notification or email when employee data changes (not from an approval workflow). Go to Automations > Workflows to see a list of all your workflows and information about each one. To see which workflow ran for the employee, go to Automations > Activity.

Why can’t I add more employees even though I have fewer active employees than my plan includes?

Your plan’s employee seats cover every profile that isn’t Inactive, not only Active ones. Profiles with Onboarding or Leave status also use a seat, because these employees are expected to become active. Only Inactive profiles don’t count toward the limit.

To free up seats:

Terminate the employment of profiles you no longer need, such as test profiles or duplicates.
If you need more seats, add seats to your plan.

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