Vacation Schedule
A current vacation schedule is essential for effective workforce planning. With the help of the vacation schedule, it is always possible to keep track of which employees are absent and for whom a substitute needs to be scheduled accordingly. However, several legal requirements must be observed when creating and publishing the schedule!
What is a Vacation Schedule?
A vacation schedule is used to record and organize employee absences within a company. This includes vacation days as well as absences due to illness or other reasons. It provides a systematic overview of the planned vacation days of individual employees that become relevant throughout the year. Additional absences occurring during the year are also documented here.
With the help of a vacation schedule, it is always possible to keep track of which employees are absent and plan substitutes accordingly.
A carefully organized vacation schedule is crucial for a smooth workday. Employee absences need to be thoroughly planned and coordinated to avoid overlaps whenever possible. This ensures that both employers and employees always have an overview of absences, ideally presented in a clear and organized manner.
How Do I Create a Vacation Schedule?
There are several aspects that a well-designed vacation schedule must address. This includes organizational considerations—absent employees must be covered by present colleagues. However, legal regulations and data protection issues must also be taken into account.
What Legal Frameworks Must Be Observed?
The number of vacation days is typically specified in the employment contract. If not, the Federal Vacation Act (Bundesurlaubsgesetz, BUrlG) applies to employees. It establishes a statutory minimum entitlement to recreational leave. For employees working a five-day week, the minimum entitlement is 20 days of leave. For a six-day week, it is at least 24 days. This minimum threshold cannot be undercut.
Section 7 of the BUrlG stipulates that an employee's vacation request should generally be granted. However, an employer may deny vacation for specific reasons, such as operational requirements, like fulfilling a major client order or handling the holiday season, or if other employees’ vacation requests—based on social considerations, such as school holidays for employees with children—take precedence over those without children.
According to the Federal Labor Court, already approved vacation can only be canceled or postponed in cases of urgent operational needs. In such cases, the employer is required to cover all costs incurred by the employee as a result.
What Must I Consider Regarding Data Protection in Vacation Planning?
Like a work schedule, a vacation schedule is a document that contains personal data. This includes information such as full names, addresses, dates of birth, as well as vacation and sick days. Such data must not be freely published, even within a company. If misused, these details could potentially be exploited against the employees concerned.
Even with good intentions from all parties, it remains the individual employee's right to decide whether they want to share their personal data with all colleagues. Therefore, strict attention must be paid to data protection regulations when handling such information.
The total price for your company consists of the licensing fee for either the Professional or Enterprise package and the number of employees to be scheduled. Feel free to contact us for a specific quote. Apart from the licensing fee, there are no additional costs with Shyftplan. This way, you benefit from a clear Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
shyftplan is designed for companies with a three- to five-digit number of shift employees. If needed, shyftplan can also be used for companies with fewer employees. However, please note the minimum price of €700 per month.
No, you don’t need programming skills to set up shyftplan. All settings can be easily configured through the user interface. Programming skills are only needed if you plan to integrate other software systems.
