Efficient holiday management is essential for the smooth running of a company. It ensures that employees can take their well-earned time off without operational processes coming to a standstill. Both employers and employees benefit from clear regulations and transparent communication.
Legal requirements of German legislation on holiday arrangements
The German Federal Leave Act (BUrlG) regulates the statutory minimum leave entitlement for employees in Germany. With a six-day week, the minimum holiday entitlement is 24 working days per year, which corresponds to four weeks. With the five-day week that is common today, the entitlement is reduced accordingly to 20 working days per year.
Full holiday entitlement first arises after six months of employment. In certain cases, unused holiday can be carried over to the next calendar year, but should generally be taken by 31 March of the following year.
Tips for employers
- Regularly check remaining leave:
Continuously monitor your employees' remaining leave days, especially towards the end of the year. In this way, you can ensure that employees fulfil their entitlement and avoid an accumulation of remaining leave. Use our SaaS.de tool to fulfil the legal requirements for remaining leave. - Define substitution rules:
Your employees should nominate a replacement before they start their holiday. This can be done by making it mandatory when applying for leave in your administration system(can be set in SaaS.de). This keeps the workload distributed and important tasks continue to be processed. - Implement digital holiday management:
Use digital leave management tools to simplify the process. Such systems offer simple, clear and legally secure planning of absences and help to keep track of remaining leave days and overtime(SaaS.de/leave management). - Clear communication of leave policies:
Ensure that all employees are aware of applicable leave policies. Transparent communication promotes coordination and reduces potential misunderstandings. - Encourage early holiday planning:
Encourage your employees to plan and request their holidays early. This facilitates personnel planning and ensures that all employees have the opportunity to take their holiday.
Tips for employees
- Check your remaining holiday entitlement yourself:
Keep an eye on your remaining holiday entitlement and plan in good time to avoid stress at the end of the year. Your employer will inform you of this. - Organise a replacement:
Make sure a deputy is appointed to cover your duties during your absence. This facilitates the flow of work and ensures that important tasks are not left undone and that you are not overwhelmed with unfinished tasks when you return from holiday. - Use digital tools:
Use the digital systems provided by your employer for holiday planning. These often provide a clear overview of your remaining leave days and make the application process easier. - Know the holiday guidelines:
Familiarise yourself with your company's leave policies to avoid misunderstandings and know your rights and obligations. - Submit leave requests early:
Plan your leave early and submit your requests on time to minimise overlap with colleagues and increase your chances of approval.
Save two thirds of working time with digital holiday management
The introduction of digital holiday management can significantly reduce the administrative workload. Processing an analogue leave request usually takes 30 minutes (including filling out, submitting, checking, approving and archiving).
By using a digital solution (e.g. SaaS.de/leave management), the processing time for a leave request can be reduced from 30 to just 10 minutes.
Annual expenditure for analogue leave administration
With 50 employees and an average of three leave requests per employee per year, companies have an expenditure of:
50 employees x 3 requests x 30 minutes = 4,500 minutes = 75 hours
(that is approx. 9.5 working days)
Annual savings through the digital holiday process
Using a digital solution results in a time saving of
50 employees x 3 applications x (30-10) minutes = 3,000 minutes = 50 hours
(that is approx. 6.3 working days)
💡With digital solutions, you save 2/3 of the working time and of course 2/3 of the costs (that's several thousand euros)!
Environmentally friendly digitalisation: more than just holiday management
The introduction of digital holiday management not only saves time and money, but also significantly reduces paper consumption and therefore CO₂ emissions:
- Paper savings per year: 150 sheets of A4 paper
- CO₂ savings per year: 0.75 kg CO₂
- Paper savings over 5 years: 750 sheets of A4 paper
- CO₂ savings over 5 years: 3.75 kg CO₂
Modern solutions from SaaS.de not only offer you digital holiday management, time recording and personnel file management, but also other smart HR tools.
The greatest sustainable effect is achieved when other HR processes such as digital personnel file management including digital time recording are also integrated. Companies that rely entirely on digital HR solutions can not only drastically reduce their administrative workload, but also significantly improve their environmental footprint.
💡 If you want to increase your company's productivity and boost employee satisfaction at the same time, you should opt for SaaS.de 's digital solutions now. The investment will pay off quickly - and your team will thank you for it!
📖 Find out more about the benefits of digital time recording in our article: Benefits of digital time recording
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn to make sure you don't miss any tips & tricks on digital personnel file management and get more useful information on digitalisation in HR! 🚀