This article explains how to manage part-time employees in Personio and what to look out for. 

For part-time employees, you must make a basic distinction between employees who work on the same days each week and employees whose working days vary from week to week.

This involves the settings example, which you will need to configure appropriately: entering the weekly hours, entering the salary, defining the work schedule and assigning the vacation entitlement. Since part-time employees with flexible working hours are a special case in terms of continued payment of wages during absences, this point will be explained separately.

Weekly hours

In Employee profile > Personal info > HR information > Weekly hours, define:

• how many hours is the employee is expected to work on a weekly basis as per their employment contract (example: 30/40 hours).
• how many hours are considered a full-time schedule for the employee if they were to work full-time (example: 30/40 hours).

This setting determines an employee's part-time value and contributes to the full-time equivalent (FTE) of the company. If the weekly working hours are adjusted, the salary adjusts accordingly based on the resulting part-time value. However, this does not impact vacation entitlement.

 

Salary

The salary setup differs depending on if the employee receives a fixed salary or an hourly salary.

Note
For fixed salaries, the employee is paid the same amount each month. For hourly salaries the monthly salary is calculated based on the set hourly salary, the amount paid will depend on the number of attendance hours entered and confirmed in the attendance tab of the respective employee profile.

 

Fixed salary

To set up a fixed salary, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Employee profile > Salary.
2. In the Salary tab, click Edit and select Add salary. 
3. Then select the salary type Fixed salary. 
4. Enter the salary that the employee would receive if they worked full-time in the column Salary (100%).
5. Then insert the employee's weekly working hours. Personio will then automatically calculate the gross salary that the part-time employee will actually receive.
   
   

   Tip
   Alternatively, enter the weekly hours first and then enter the gross salary that is actually paid.

6. Enter the date from which the salary should apply, and click Save.

 

Hourly salary

To set up an hourly salary, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Employee profile > Salary.
2. In the Salary tab, click Edit and select Add salary. 
3. Then select the salary type Hourly salary. 
4. Enter the hourly salary and the date from which the salary should apply, and click Save.

Notes
If your employee receives an hourly salary, please also note the following:
▶︎ All working hours must be entered into the Attendance tab in the employee profile. Further information on tracking attendance can be found here.
▶︎ Define the respective access rights for the hourly salary earners and, if required, set up a corresponding approval process.
▶︎ The amount payable is calculated based on the hours entered during the payroll period.
▶︎ Employees will only be automatically paid during absence periods if the Consider time tracked during absences as overtime function is enabled for the corresponding absence type. This function will be explained in more detail at the end of this article.
▶︎ If you want those of your employees who receive an hourly salary to be paid for public holidays, add the corresponding daily salary to the Salary tab in the employee profile.

 

Work schedule

A work schedule reflects your employees' working days and monthly target hours and can serve as the basis for calculating vacation. There are two different basic schedules that provide for fixed and flexible working days.

Note
Hours actually worked and confirmed by employees with hourly salaries are directly used to calculate their salaries. Therefore, it is not possible for employees with hourly salary to build up overtime. The overtime balance for an employee with an hourly salary therefore only serves the purpose of recording any additional work.

Fixed working days 

The working hours of employees who work on fixed days can be distributed over the corresponding days of the week. If you do not already have a suitable work schedule for this, you can create one via Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Attendance > Add schedule. Once the work schedule is created, you need to assign it to the respective employees. Learn how to Create and assign work schedules.

Flexible working days

The working hours of employees who work on flexible days can be distributed evenly over the corresponding days of the week (generally Monday to Friday). If you do not already have a suitable work schedule, you can create one via Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Attendance > Add schedule. Then assign the work schedule to the respective employee. Learn how to Create and assign work schedules.

Vacation entitlement

To grant vacation entitlements to your part-time employees, you must create an accrual policy and assign it to them. When you create the policy, you can choose whether to grant the full entitlement, or to reduce it proportionally. If you choose the latter, you can prorate by working days or hours.

Grant entitlement based on worked time

You can also decide to grant entitlements based on the amount of time the employee actually worked in a month. This option requires:

• The part-time employee to track their working hours regularly.
• The HR manager or supervisor to manually adjust the employee’s balance every month.

To set this up, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Work Hours & Absences > Absence, and select the relevant absence type.
2. Create an accrual policy with an annual entitlement of zero.
3. Assign the policy to the relevant employees.

Then, at the end of each month:

1. Check the part-time employee’s tracked time in their Attendance tab.
2. Use the figure to calculate their monthly entitlement.
3. Adjust their balance accordingly.

Pay out salaries during absences

To make sure that employees who are paid by the hour continue to receive their salary during an absence period, navigate to Settings > Work Hours & Absences > Absences and enable Consider time tracked during absences of this type as overtime?. When an absence day is recorded, employees will be paid for the hours designated for that day in the work schedule. 

Depending on whether your employees have fixed or flexible working days, it is recommended that you activate or deactivate this function.

 

Fixed working days

If your employees have fixed working days, you should enable the function Consider time tracked during absences of this type as overtime?. This ensures that your employees will receive the corresponding salary also on vacation or sick days.

 

Flexible working days

For employees with flexible work schedules, it is advisable to disable the function Consider time tracked during absences of this type as overtime? if the number of hours for which employees should be paid on an absence day differs from the number of hours specified in the work schedule. When they have an absence day, employees will then need to enter the number of hours for which they should be paid on that day absence day in the Attendance tab of their employee profile. This ensures that the overall attendance balance for this group of employees is displayed correctly.

Tip
If you are tracking the attendance of two groups of different employees in your company, it can be helpful to create the same absence type twice. This way, employees with fixed working days can be automatically paid the corresponding hourly salary for an absence day, with the hours entered during the absence counted as overtime. Employees with flexible working days will additionally need to enter the hours they should be paid for each time they enter an absence day.

 

Summary

	Fixed working days Fixed salary	Fixed working days Hourly salary	Flexible working days Fixed salary	Flexible working days Hourly salary
Salary	Fixed monthly salary	Salary based on the working hours entered under Attendance	Fixed monthly salary	Salary based on the working hours entered under Attendance
Work schedule	Working hours distributed over the fixed working days agreed with the employee	Working hours distributed over the fixed working days agreed with the employee	Working hours distributed equally over the possible working days in the work schedule	Working hours distributed equally over the possible working days in the work schedule
Accrual policy	Fixed total accrued days, prorated based on the work schedule.	Fixed total accrued days, prorated based on the work schedule.	Accrual of 0 days is assigned. Vacation entitlement manually assigned at month end based on hours worked.	Accrual of 0 days is assigned. Vacation entitlement manually assigned at month end based on hours worked.