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

For part-time employees, you will need to 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 following settings, 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

Before you enter a work schedule for a part-time employee, navigate to Employee profile > Information > HR information > Weekly hours and enter the weekly hours for the employee. The weekly hours will then be set in relation to the weekly hours of the assigned department. You can find further information on adjusting weekly hours in Set up part-time employment.

The weekly hours you enter determine the employee's part-time value. If the employee has a fixed salary, they are also relevant for the prorated salary calculation.

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 employees, you can create corresponding vacation accrual policies (vacation allowances) in Personio and assign them to your employees. When calculating and assigning accrual policies, it is once again necessary to differentiate between employees with fixed working days and those with flexible working days. Learn How to set up accrual policies.

Fixed working days

Assign a previously defined accrual policy to your employees in Employee profile > Absence under Absence types select for example the absence type Paid vacation and select Manage policy. Then select the accrual policy for the employee and select the date when it should be applied.

Among other things, this determines how many vacation days you give your employees during a specific period.

If your part-time employees get the same number of paid vacation days as your full-time employees, but it is prorated based on the days they work, you can assign the same number of accrued days to your part-time employees as you do to your full-time employees. Personio will calculate the prorated entitlement automatically based on the hire date and the working days of the work schedule.

To enable the prorated vacation calculation, navigate to Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Attendance and activate the checkbox Prorate vacation in the corresponding work schedules. Also, enter the reference value for the prorated vacation calculation. This determines how many working days your employees would have to work each week to receive the full vacation entitlement.

Learn more about Prorated calculation of PTO in part-time employees.

Flexible working days 

If you have part-time employees who work flexibly on different days, you still need to create a work schedule for them. 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). The vacation accrual will be based on the hours worked.

• Employee type D works part-time, with a 5-day (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri), 20-hour week

Navigate to Settings > Work Hours & Absences > Attendance to create that work schedule and call it Part-time, 20 hours (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri). Since vacation entitlement in Personio is calculated based on the days that are entered in the work schedule, employees who work on flexible days cannot be assigned a total leave entitlement. To correctly calculate the leave entitlement of those of your employees who have flexible working hours, you have two options. Either you create an accrual policy with 0 days and adjust the balance manually, or you can create separate accrual policies and assign them accordingly.

Vacation accrual option 1: Create a 0-day accrual policy

With this option, you will need to calculate each month the leave entitlement for these employees based on the hours they worked.

1. Under Settings > Work Hours & Absences > Attendance, disable the option Prorate vacation for the specific work schedule.
2. Then go to Settings > Work Hours & Absences > Absence and for example in the absence type Paid vacation add an accrual policy of 0 days. 
3. Then assign this accrual policy to the respective employees.

At the end of each month, you will then need to manually assign a leave entitlement based on hours worked to the employees with flexible working days. Learn how to Adjust absence balances.

Vacation accrual option 2: Create separate accrual policies

With this option, you would need to create an accrual policy that assigns the exact amount of leave entitlement to these employees.

Example
If a full-time employee (working 40 hours per week) receives 25 days of paid vacation per year, this employee would receive 20/40 × 25 = 12.5 days. You therefore need to create an accrual policy for Paid vacation for 12.5 days per year and assign this accrual policy to the respective employees.

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. Learn more about Consider time tracked during absences as overtime.

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