As you may know, we're changing the way we manage long-term leaves in Personio. Previously, you scheduled long-term leaves using the three dots in the employee profile. Going forward, you'll schedule it the same way as any other time off, after configuring long-term leave rules at the policy level for each relevant time off type. You can configure these rules so that certain time off periods have specific effects on compensation proration, employee status, and impact on paid time off.

We're currently transitioning from the old system to the new one. If you haven't already done so, refer to our transition article for more information and for steps on what you need to do. This article troubleshoots common issues that might arise during and after this transition.

Before you start

Make sure you're familiar with the following concepts, as they are the most common source of confusion:

Which periods can I delete from the Team calendar?

If you haven't already done so, first add long-term leave rules to relevant time off policies, as described in our transition article. If the rules you add overlap with existing leave periods, Personio flags them in a conflict summary and provides a CSV to download.

Only delete leave periods that appear with the label "leave_period" in the file and display with a gray "Leave period" label in the Team calendar. Furthermore, only delete leave periods that are coxvered completely by a time off policy with the new rules active.

To check if your new policy rules already cover an employee's time off period, follow these steps:

1. Go to Time off & attendance > Team calendar.
2. Find the relevant time off period in the Team calendar. You can search by the employee's name to surface it quickly.
3. Click the time off period. This opens a summary view.

Important:
You don't need to delete currently active leave periods unless you need to edit them (for example, changing their start or end date). If you do, make sure a time off policy with the new long-term leave rules, as well as a time off period covers the entire time frame of the leave before you delete it. All other existing leave periods continue running under the old system as before.

However, if you need to change a leave period that started before your policy's effective date, we do not recommend editing your existing policy to an earlier effective date—this creates unnecessary conflicts for you to clean up. Instead, follow the detailed steps to create a new (duplicated) policy and assign it retroactively.

Troubleshooting employee status issues

Employee status isn't updating to "Leave"

This is the most common issue following the transition. It has two distinct root causes.

The time off period started before the time off policy's effective date

This is the most likely cause. Your new policy rules only apply to time off periods whose start date falls on or after the effective date you set when editing the policy. If you set the effective date to "today" (as recommended in our transition article), the new policy rules don't cover any leave that started before today.

To check: Open the time off period in the Team calendar or the Time off page of the employee's profile. If the period's start date is before your time off policy's effective date and the item Time off policy impacts does not appear in the summary, this is the cause.

To resolve: You need to assign a time off policy to the employee that covers the full time off period from its start date. Follow these steps:

1. Create a new time off policy by duplicating the existing one. Add the required long-term leave rules, then assign it to the affected employee from their time off period's start date (or from the employee's hire date if the leave started before January 2025). Once the new policy is fully effective across that period, it applies its rules to the existing time off period.
2. If hire date doesn't appear as an option, unassign the employee's current policy first, then assign the new one. The hire date becomes available once no policy is currently assigned. Refer to the table in this article section for the full list of "effective from" options. These options depend on entitlement and whether you're assigning a single employee or in bulk.

Note:
Don't attempt to change the effective date in the current time off policy's settings or reassign the same policy from an earlier date. Neither approach works because the policy's existing settings definition still applies from its original date. You need to create a completely new policy.

I deleted the old leave period before the time off policy covered the period

In this scenario, the employee had an existing gray "Leave period" entry on the calendar, and you mistakenly deleted it before assigning a policy that fully covers the time off period. The old leave period's effects, including the status change, were therefore removed without anything to replace them.

To resolve: Assign a duplicated policy with the correct long-term leave rules to the employee, effective on or before the leave's start date. The time off period already on the calendar then has the status, compensation, and entitlement rules applied from its start date.

The status update hasn't processed yet

The system processes status changes triggered by policy rules asynchronously. The changes can take up to 30 minutes to appear. If you've just edited or assigned a policy, wait 30 minutes before investigating further.

Troubleshooting compensation and entitlement issues

Compensation or entitlement rules aren't applying

The same logic that governs status changes also applies to compensation proration and paid time off entitlement reduction. The policy, or a definition of it, must be fully assigned across the entire time off period.

Check the following:

1. Is the policy assigned from a date on or before the leave's start date? If not, follow the steps above to create a new (duplicated) policy and assign it from the correct date.
2. Is the policy containing the new rules assigned continuously across the full duration of the leave? A gap in the policy assignment or in its definitions means the rules only apply to the covered portion.

Note:
This note is only relevant for Personio Payroll customers. If all your legal entities use Personio Payroll, the Compensation proration step isn't available for you to configure. Instead, for employees managed via Personio Payroll, compensation proration is automated based on the additional questions you answer in the time off request flow. You can and should still configure the Employee status and Impact on paid time off rules.

The threshold defined in the time off policy isn't triggering as expected

If you've configured a time off policy to change status or prorate compensation after a certain number of days, the threshold only counts consecutive days within a single, continuous time off period. Separate time off period entries don't add up automatically toward the defined threshold, even if the periods are close together.

Example:

An employee is sick for 30 days, returns to work, and is then sick again for 20 days. The second period starts a new count from day 1. The system doesn't aggregate across separate entries. For the German rule (42 days in the last 6 months), this means you cannot rely on the system to automatically flag when an employee crosses the 42-day threshold if their sick leave is split across multiple periods.

How to manage cumulative leave across multiple periods

If your legal requirement is to count cumulative sick days across multiple periods with the same underlying cause, you have two options:

Option 1: Extend a single continuous time off period (recommended where possible)

Extend the same time off period as new sick certificates arrive, rather than creating separate entries. This works only for consecutive absences with no breaks in between. Each time you extend the period, the policy automatically recalculates from the original start date, ensuring accurate threshold calculation without any manual tracking or workflows.

• When to use: This is the most common scenario (consecutive absences, back-to-back periods with no gaps).
• How it works: Fully automated—the policy handles all calculations. No manual intervention needed.

Option 2: Create separate periods and manage manually

If you need to create separate time off period entries (for example, with gaps between absences), you'll need to manually update the employee's status, compensation, and entitlements for each period to reflect your legal requirements. This approach requires more administrative effort but may be necessary in certain situations, particularly for sick leave.

To track cumulative days, use the workflow in Automations > Time off > Long-term sick leave—it notifies you when an employee reaches a certain number of days absent. Once an employee passes your threshold, we recommend creating one open-ended time off period going forward if they continue to be out.

• When to use: This is necessary when there are breaks between sick leave periods.
• How to stay on top of it: The workflow helps monitor cumulative days across separate periods and triggers your manual update when the threshold is reached.

Hinweis:
If you use Personio Payroll, the system will automatically do a pre-sickness check during payroll processing in your Compliance tab that flags when an employee has reached the threshold for sick leave rules. Alternatively, the system allows you to manually review and connect time off periods, resulting in the respective pay codes.

Choose the approach that best fits your workflow and legal requirements.

Troubleshooting calendar visibility issues

A leave period I didn't expect is now visible on the calendar

Throughout this transition, all previously created leave periods become visible on the Team calendar with a gray "Leave period" label. Some were created without a linked time off type and were therefore invisible on the calendar before.

These leave periods have always existed in the system. No new leave periods were created with this update—they just became visible in the calendar. If you don't need to edit them, you don't need to take any action. They'll continue running under the old system until their end date.

If you do need to edit one, refer to the edge cases section of the transition article.

The Status field no longer shows leave dates

Previously, the employee's Status field showed leave details inline, for example, "On parental leave from 01.03.2026 until 28.02.2027". After this update, the Status field links to the Team calendar instead, showing all previously created leave periods as a gray bar marked as "leave period".

This section applies only if your old long-term leaves were linked to a time off type. If you used only the "Schedule leave" functionality without attaching a time off type, the Team calendar and employee's personal time off tab are the only places where you can view those leaves. They cannot be filtered or reported on in the new system, as they were never included in Analytics before.

To find leave information for periods linked to a time off type, you have two options:

1. Go to Analytics > Create report and select the Time off periods template, filtering by your long-term leave time off types. This shows all time off periods across any date range.
2. Open the Team calendar and apply a filter for the relevant time off types and the "Out of office this month" option. Note: This filter only shows current month data and won't help you view past or future leave periods. To check leave periods from other months (as you could previously see in the employee's Status attribute), use the Analytics report instead.

You can save your preferred view for easy access going forward.

An employee's status reverted to Active after I deleted an ongoing leave period

This happened because the leave period you deleted was still ongoing. It was the only thing driving the status change, so nothing replaced its effect once you deleted it. The time off period on the calendar wasn't yet covered by a policy with status rules.

To resolve:

1. Create a new policy (or edit an existing one if no changes were made). Configure the employee status setting to switch to Leave from the relevant day.
2. Assign the policy to the employee effective from a date on or before the time off period's start date. If you are editing an existing one, its new definition will automatically apply to time off periods of employees that have it currently assigned.
3. The status updates within 30 minutes once the policy is fully assigned across the period.

To avoid this: Confirm via the "Time off policy impacts" check above that a policy with leave rules already covers the time off period. Otherwise, you might remove the leave effects with nothing to replace them. Check this before deleting the corresponding gray leave period.

Contact support

If you've worked through the steps above and the issue persists, go to the Support section in your Personio account to get in touch with us. When reaching out, include:

• The employee ID(s) affected
• The time off type and policy name
• The effective date you set on the policy
• The start date of the time off period

Share your feedback

Go to Settings > Time off and leave us feedback on the update via the banner on top of the page > Give feedback.