techport HR Suite
Leave Management: Holiday Planner and Absences in a Single System
Leave requests by email, remaining leave in a spreadsheet, the team calendar on the office wall. Leave management in the techport HR Suite turns this into a single workflow: employees request leave in the browser, managers view the team calendar and approve, and the holiday balance automatically updates. Sickness notifications, cover arrangements, and other absence types run through the same system. Because absences are part of personnel administration, people and teams match the personnel file.
Sound familiar?
- Three leave requests for the same week are sitting in three inboxes, and the manager only notices on the third.
- Only HR's spreadsheet knows how much remaining leave someone has, and it is out of date.
- In summer, half the team is away at the same time because no one had an overview.
- A sickness notification arrives by telephone call, but the person covering hears nothing about it.
- At the end of the year, everyone asks about their remaining leave at the same time.
How a leave request works
- Submit request. Employees request leave via self-service, at their workstation or on the go on their smartphone.
- Review and approve. The manager receives a task, sees in the team calendar who is away during the same period, and approves or rejects.
- Arrange cover. A designated substitute is assigned for the absence.
- Update balance and calendar. Following approval, the leave appears in the team calendar, and the holiday balance displays the updated remaining leave.
Leave management features
- Leave requests with manager approval
- Remaining leave and holiday balance per person
- Team calendar as an absence calendar for planning
- Record sickness notifications
- Assign cover arrangements
- Configurable absence types, such as special leave, parental leave, or educational leave
- Shared notifications and tasks with other suite modules
- Roles and permissions: each role only sees what it is permitted to see
The holiday planner runs in the browser on desktop, tablet, and smartphone. Your employees do not need an app from the app store for this.
Team holiday planning: how to make it work
Good holiday planning begins before the first request is submitted. In practice, four things have proven effective:
- Collect requests early. Many teams gather holiday requests for the summer and the turn of the year at the start of the year and resolve clashes before trips are booked.
- Set rules in advance. Minimum staffing levels per team, holiday embargo periods, handling of bridge days and school holidays. The clearer the rules, the less dispute over individual cases.
- Use the team calendar as a shared basis. Seeing who is already away before requesting leave leads to requests that can be approved.
- Check remaining leave in autumn. This leaves enough time to plan outstanding days.
Added to this is the legal framework:
- Under § 7 Abs. 1 BUrlG (Federal Holiday Act), employees' holiday preferences must be taken into account. Exceptions apply in the case of urgent operational requirements or where the preferences of other employees take precedence on social grounds, such as parents of school-age children.
- Leave must be taken during the current calendar year. A carry-over is only permitted for urgent operational or personal reasons, and then within the first three months of the following year (§ 7 Abs. 3 BUrlG).
- Statutory leave generally only lapses if the employer has informed the employee of their remaining leave in good time, requested that they take it, and pointed out the impending forfeiture (BAG (Federal Labour Court), judgment of 19 February 2019, 9 AZR 423/16).
- If there is a works council, it has co-determination rights regarding general holiday principles and the holiday schedule (§ 87 Abs. 1 Nr. 5 BetrVG (Works Constitution Act)).
Digital sickness notification: what the suite handles
Employees must notify their incapacity for work and its expected duration without undue delay (§ 5 Abs. 1 EFZG (Continued Remuneration Act)). Employers have retrieved the medical certificate itself as an electronic certificate of incapacity for work (eAU) from the health insurance fund since 2023, via certified payroll software or the SV-Meldeportal. The eAU does not contain a diagnosis.
In the techport HR Suite, you record the sickness notification so that the team calendar and cover arrangements are correct. You continue to retrieve the eAU via your payroll system or tax advisor. Details regarding incapacity for work are health data under Art. 9 GDPR. You should therefore define who needs to see the reason for an absence. For team planning, the information that someone is absent is usually sufficient. How you handle prolonged absences and occupational integration management is described in our consulting on absences and BEM.
What leave management does not cover
The techport HR Suite does not record working hours or plan shifts. For time tracking, you continue to work with your existing system. What applies legally here is described in our consulting on working time recording. Payroll also remains with your payroll system or tax advisor.
Part of the techport HR Suite
Absences use the same core HR data and organisational units as the digital personnel file. New employees enter the system with their personnel file via onboarding, without HR having to retype data. Managers find leave requests and other approvals in the same task list.
See leave management in a demo
We will walk you through the process from leave request to team calendar, from the perspective of employees, managers, and HR. Afterwards, you will know whether leave management fits your rules.
Frequently asked questions
What is leave management?
Leave management is software that enables employees to request leave, managers to approve it, and HR to keep track of holiday balances and remaining leave. A team calendar shows who is away and when. In the techport HR Suite, leave management is part of personnel administration and also encompasses sickness notifications, cover arrangements, and other absence types.
Is the holiday planner available as an app?
There is no app from the app store. The holiday planner in the techport HR Suite runs in the browser on smartphone, tablet, and desktop. Employees can therefore submit requests on the go, and managers can approve them there without installing anything. The interface is accessible and can also be navigated via keyboard.
Can the techport HR Suite retrieve the eAU?
No. You continue to retrieve the electronic certificate of incapacity for work from the health insurance fund via your payroll software, the SV-Meldeportal, or your tax advisor. In the suite, you record the sickness notification so that the team calendar and cover arrangements are correct. The notification obligation of employees under § 5 EFZG remains unaffected.
Does the techport HR Suite also track working hours?
No. The suite manages leave, sickness notifications, and other absences, but not working hours or shift rosters. For working time recording, you continue to work with your existing system. You maintain core HR data such as weekly hours and organisational unit in the suite and export reports as CSV files when needed.
Does the works council have co-determination rights in holiday planning?
Yes. Under § 87 Abs. 1 Nr. 5 BetrVG (Works Constitution Act), the works council has co-determination rights regarding general holiday principles and the holiday schedule. The introduction of leave management software is also subject to co-determination, as it is considered a technical system under § 87 Abs. 1 Nr. 6 BetrVG. Find out more on our page on software for the works council.
How much does leave management cost?
Leave management is part of personnel administration in the techport HR Suite. We provide pricing on request; it depends on the number of employees you have and the modules you use. The offering is aimed exclusively at businesses. In a demo, you can see in advance what requests and the team calendar would look like in your organisation.