Note:
If you can't edit an assigned time off policy, it means we haven't yet rolled out the update to your account. We're starting the rollout on 27 July 2026 and continuing it in stages.

We're changing the way we manage long-term leaves. Examples of long-term leaves include parental leave, sabbaticals, and extended sick leave. Here's an overview of what's changing:

• Previously: You scheduled long-term leaves from the employee profile by using the three-dots icon and selecting Schedule leave.
• Now: You'll manage long-term leaves through your time off policies and time off periods.

No existing data is lost as part of this change. All leave periods already in your account remain visible and continue to run as before. The only thing that changes is where you go to create and manage long-term leaves from now on. If your account has leave periods on record, read on to learn what you need to do. Most of these need no action. 

Why we're changing long-term leave management

Here's an overview of the changes we're making and how they improve your experience of managing long term leaves:

• One place for all leave management: We're bringing long-term leaves into Time off & attendance. All time off, both short- and long-term, will now run through one unified flow instead of two disconnected systems.
• Flexible configuration: We're replacing the hard-coded, Germany-only proration logic with customizable leave rules per policy. With this change, you can configure compensation, employee status, and PTO entitlement impact for any market or leave type.
• UI improvements: We're updating the time off policy UI for more clarity, including clearer examples and descriptions.
• Automated compliance: We're introducing automated compliance through market-specific policy configuration. With this change, you can avoid error-prone manual workarounds for non-German markets.
• Editing an assigned time off policy: You can edit an existing time off policy and set an effective date from when new settings apply. You no longer need to use the workaround of duplicating a policy and reassigning it. You can see a changelog of assignments in the time off policy drawer, as well as other details on any changes made.

What's changing

You can no longer use the Schedule leave button to create long-term leave periods directly from the employee profile. Instead, long-term leave management, including compensation proration, employee status changes, and paid time off entitlement, moves into your time off policies. You now manage long-term leave alongside your existing short-term time off.

This change brings a few concrete benefits:

• One system instead of two: Short-term time off and long-term leave now run through the same time off policies, rather than a separate hard-coded flow.
• Rules that fit your market: You can now customize compensation, status, and entitlement rules per policy for any market or leave type. These were previously hard-coded rules, covering a limited set of use cases.
• Easier edits going forward: You can edit a policy that's already assigned to employees and set an effective date for when the new settings apply. You no longer need to duplicate and reassign policies to make a change.

This change doesn't affect existing long-term leave periods already in your account. You don't need to take action on these unless you need to edit one. Learn more about what you need to do.

The table below gives a summary of what to expect once the update is live for your account.

Transition timeline

Starting on 27 July 2026, we're rolling out the new long-term leave settings in cohorts. This applies to everyone who previously used the Schedule leave button. 

What you need to do

You need to edit your time off policies so that time off periods can create the downstream effects needed for long-term leave management. This includes compensation proration, status changes, and PTO entitlement adjustments. The system applies these effects flexibly and automatically based on your policy settings. 

You only need to edit time off policies that are currently in use for time off types you want to use for long-term leave periods. This might include policies for time off types like parental leave, sabbatical, or maternity leave.

If you can't yet edit an assigned time off policy, it means we haven’t rolled out the new settings to your account yet. We're rolling out in stages starting 27 July 2026.

Before we roll out the change

1. Confirm you have the right permissions in place:
   • Edit rights for Account configuration > Time off. You need these permissions to add leave rules to time off policies.
   • Edit rights for People data > HR information. You need these permissions to view and delete leave periods from the calendar.
   • For employees to see their own time off periods in the calendar, you need to grant them at least View rights for the relevant time off type under People data > Time off (via their employee role).
   • Edit rights for the relevant time off type under People data > Time off. You or other HR Managers need these permissions to create and edit long-term leaves in the future. In other words, these permissions let you manage time off periods for a specific time off type.
2. If you don't currently use Time off in Personio to track absences, decide whether you want to start or continue managing long-term leave changes manually going forward. See this section.

After the update is live

1. Edit the time off policies you currently use for long-term leave types. The edits involve setting up the new Compensation, Employee status, and Impact on paid time off rules. See this section.
2. Clean up any conflicts: If the rules you add overlap with existing leave periods, Personio flags them in a conflict summary. Resolve each flagged period before moving on. See this section.
3. Check whether you need to edit any existing leave periods using the file we sent you via the preannouncement email. This might include leave periods with no end date or ones where a date needs to change. You can no longer edit these directly after the update, so you need to move them to the new system first. See this section.

Add long-term leave rules to relevant 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, we recommend adding long-term leave rules to all time off policies that are currently assigned to employees. We recommend editing existing time off policies, not creating new ones.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Time off.
3. Select the time off type you use for long-term leaves, for example, parental leave or extended sick leave. 
4. Under Time off policies, open the relevant policy.
5. Click the three-dots icon to edit the policy.
6. The following policy sections relate to long-term leaves: Compensation, Employee status, and Impact on paid time off. Learn more about long-term effects for time off policies. You can apply recommendations for common use cases using information from the relevant time off policy template.
   • If you use Personio Payroll, the Compensation step isn't available for you to set up. Instead, the system automates compensation proration based on the additional questions you answer in the time off request flow.
   • If you use DATEV, the Compensation step is available for you to set up. If you do set it up, the time off periods (and the respective assigned time off policy) override any potential proration adjustment generated from the additional questions you answer in the time off request flow.
7. Set the effective date to Today. This is the recommended choice for most customers for the following reasons:
   • A future date leaves a gap where new time off periods won't have the correct leave rules applied until the changes take effect.
   • A date too far in the past flags more duplicate conflicts, creating cleanup you don't need.

8. If the system detects future leave periods that overlap with the new policy rules, a conflict summary appears. Read the section below for guidance. If no conflicts show, simply save the policy, and you are done.

   

9. Review the policy changes and save.

If you manage multiple leave types, for example, parental leave and extended sick leave, repeat this for each relevant policy.

Apply time off policy template recommendations

Time off policy templates recommend settings for Compensation, Employee status, and Impact on paid time off. However, these recommendations only apply when you create a new policy.

If you're editing an existing policy and are unsure what to set, follow these steps:

1. Walk through the new policy creation flow for that time off type.
2. Select your country's template and note the recommended settings (without saving).
3. Apply those settings to your existing policy.

We don't recommend creating new policies, as this will result in more setup work for you.

What to do if a conflict summary appears

If your changes overlap with leave periods created using the old functionality, a conflict summary appears. It lists every leave period that needs action to ensure your employees' data stays accurate.

Why this matters: When you configure a policy with long-term leave rules, both the new policy and the existing leave period try to apply those rules at once. This effectively doubles the adjustment and can potentially cause errors in compensation, status, or time off entitlement.

The conflict summary includes:

• Each flagged leave period by employee and date range, and
• A downloadable CSV with direct calendar links for each affected employee.

If a conflict summary appears, follow these steps:

1. Download the CSV and open it. 
2. For each row that contains "leave_period" in column B, use the link in column C to go to the flagged leave period in the Team calendar. The leave periods appear with a "Leave period" label and distinct styling, separate from regular time off periods. 
   
    
3. Delete each flagged leave period from the Team calendar. This doesn’t delete the time off period.

Note:
Important: Don’t delete the periods marked as “time_off_period”. These are the time off periods where your new time off policy settings apply going forward. Only delete leave periods that are listed in the CSV files or that the Help Center specifically instructs you to delete.

The remaining time off period now controls the effects on compensation proration, status, and PTO entitlement proration.
 

Example:
Julia has a parental leave period in the calendar from 1 August 2026 to 31 December 2026. It's linked to the "Parental Leave" time off type.

You edit the Parental Leave policy to add compensation proration, with an effective date of today (July 2026). The system detects that both the existing leave period and the new policy will apply proration rules to Julia's compensation. It flags it as a duplicate, and the conflict summary appears.

To fix the duplication, delete Julia's existing leave period. The time off period (her time off on the Team calendar) remains. The new policy handles proration automatically for the entire period, since the leave starts after the effective date.

Note the following:

• When deleting existing leave periods, the associated time off period for each employee stays intact, and you can still see it in the calendar. The system only removes the existing leave period and its hardcoded rules.
• The new policy rules take over from the effective date.

Review edge cases

Before reviewing the edge cases below, check the list of existing leave periods attached to the pre-announcement email we sent on 14 July 2026. You only need to act on a leave period if you expect to edit it in the future. Leave periods that you don't need to change continue to run as before, with no action required.

For each leave period you do need to edit, check the list to identify which case applies:

• Open-ended leave periods: The end date in column E is empty, or the leave period is shown as open-ended in the Team calendar. See this section.
• No linked time off type: The columns for linked absence ID, absence link, and time off type are empty. These are leave periods that appear in the Team calendar without the time off period in a separate color. See this section.
• Edit any other leave periods: For example, if the date range for an existing leave period changes and the leave period doesn't fall into one of the categories mentioned above. See this section.

Once you've identified the case, follow the matching resolution path below. The edge cases described below don't appear in the conflict summary and require a separate resolution path.

Open-ended leave periods with no end date

Existing open-ended leave periods don't have an end date. This means that the system considers them as still "running". Because editing existing leave periods is no longer possible, you can't close them by adding an end date. The resolution depends on whether the leave period has a linked time off type and period. It also depends on when the leave period started.

Policy editing only allows effective dates back to the start of the previous period (1 January 2025 for this year). The following table shows the resolution path for this scenario.

Open-ended leave periods that started before January 2025 aren't covered by a policy edit. The following table shows the resolution path for this scenario.

Leave periods without a linked time off type and period (with an end date)

If someone previously created a leave period without linking a time off period, it won't appear in the conflict summary. This is because no time off period exists for it to conflict with. If left in place, it continues running under the old system until its end date. This is fine if you don't need to edit the leave before it ends.

If you do need to make changes, resolve it as follows:

1. Create a new time off policy with the required leave rules.
2. Assign the time off policy to the employee effective from the relevant date.
3. Create a new time off period for the employee from scratch. Use a bulk import if you have multiple cases to handle.
4. Delete the existing leave period.

Edit existing leave periods

You can no longer edit existing leave periods created in the old system. You might need to change the dates, for example, if the dates for a parental leave change. If so, make sure the employee has a time off period and a time off policy spanning the whole leave period. With the time off period, you can edit the dates. The policy applies the correct leave rules.

Time off policy rules only apply when a time off policy fully covers the time off period. If a policy with the new leave rules doesn't fully cover your time off periods, follow the steps for open-ended leave periods to edit the dates for your existing leave periods.

If you don't track your employees' absences using Time off

If you don't use the Time off functionality in Personio to track your employees' absences, you have two options to manage leave periods in Personio going forward:

1. Recommended: Set up time off types and time off policies. This way, the system can handle compensation, status, and entitlement changes for long-term leaves automatically.
2. Adjust your employees' compensation, status, and entitlement manually for any new long-term leave.

For Option 1, we recommend taking our Academy course on how to set up time off in Personio. This covers how to do the following:

• Create a time off type for each long-term leave category you manage. This might include, for example, parental leave, extended sick leave, sabbatical, etc.
• Create a time off policy for each type and configure the rules you need: Compensation proration, employee status changes, and entitlement impact.
• Assign the policy to employees and set necessary permissions, so everything's ready before you schedule anything new.

Once you've set up your policies, you can create new long-term leaves directly as time off periods in the employee's calendar.

FAQ