Designing Absence in Workday is one of those areas where small setup decisions can haunt HR and payroll for years. A messy mix of Time Off Plans, Leave of Absence types, ad-hoc eligibility rules and unclear accrual logic quickly turns into employee disputes, manual payroll fixes and constant “can you fix my balance?” tickets. The goal is simple: build Time Off and Leave plans that are compliant, predictable and easy to explain to employees and managers.
Start with policies, not pages in Workday
Before creating any Time Off Plan in Workday, capture the real-world policy in plain language. For each policy, clarify:
- What is the absence type? (e.g., Vacation, Sick, Casual, Parental Leave).
- Is it Time Off (short-term) or Leave of Absence (longer-term, usually job-protected)?
- How is entitlement earned: front-loaded, per period accrual, or no accrual (e.g., unpaid leave)?
- Who is eligible and from when: on hire, after probation, based on Worker Type, Location, or Company?
- What happens at year end: carryover limit, forfeiture, or payout?
Treat this as your functional design. Then map each policy to Workday configuration objects like Time Off Type, Time Off Plan, Leave Type, Absence Plan and Eligibility Rules.
Time Off vs Leave: use the right tool
In Workday Absence Management, Time Off and Leave of Absence exist for different use cases.
- Use Time Off Plans for day-level or hour-level absences such as vacation, sick days, casual leave, floating holidays or compensatory time.
- Use Leave of Absence for extended, often job-protected absences such as maternity/paternity leave, long-term medical leave, sabbaticals and unpaid extended leave.
Typical mistakes include:
- Implementing long parental leave as a large Time Off balance instead of a Leave with clear start/end and impact on benefits and payroll.
- Using Leave for short absences where employees actually need partial-day bookings and clear Time Off balances.
Being strict about which bucket each policy belongs to will keep your reporting, balances and integrations much cleaner.
Designing Time Off Plans that behave like policy
When configuring a Time Off Plan, walk through the fundamentals:
- Unit and frequency: Decide if the plan is in Hours or Days, and whether accruals are per pay period, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
- Accrual rule: Configure how workers earn time – fixed amount per period, tenure-based tiers, or pro-rated based on FTE and Hire Date.
- Scheduling and period dates: Align Time Off Plan periods to your Calendar (e.g., calendar year vs fiscal year), as this drives carryover and balance reset.
- Validation rules:
This is where Workday’s rules engine is powerful but unforgiving. If your accrual and validation logic does not mirror the written policy, users will find edge cases in days.
Getting eligibility right the first time
Eligibility Rules determine who can enroll in a given Time Off Plan or Leave Type. Instead of hard-coding multiple versions of the same plan, design reusable rules based on:
- Company or Country (for country-specific regulations).
- Location or Region (for state or province variations).
- Worker Type, Employee Type or Job Profile (for different entitlements by grade or union).
Good patterns:
- Build generic plans (e.g., “Vacation – Global”) with country-specific Eligibility Rules and different Accrual configurations when required.
- Use clear, documented naming for rules, such as “EL – India – Vacation – Regular FT”, instead of cryptic codes only one consultant understands.
Poor eligibility design is a top reason HR “regrets” absence configuration later, because fixing it means unwinding enrollments and recalculating balances.
Carryover, forfeiture and payout: the regret zone
Nothing generates more escalation than employees losing or gaining unexpected Time Off at year end. When designing carryover and forfeiture rules:
- Define the maximum carryover per plan in the policy first (e.g., “carry up to 10 days to next year”).
- In Workday, configure Carryover Limit, Forfeiture, and, where applicable, Payout rules that match the policy line by line.
- Decide whether carryover happens on a fixed date (e.g., January 1) or based on worker-specific dates (e.g., work anniversary).
Always test these rules with edge-case workers:
- Mid-year hires.
- Employees changing Work Schedule or FTE during the year.
- Workers moving between countries or companies with different plans.
HR regrets absence design when year-end jobs run and hundreds of balances look “wrong”. Robust testing and clear communication can prevent that.
Integrations with Time Tracking and Payroll
Absence Management does not live alone. It needs to work with Time Tracking and Payroll (Workday or third-party).
Key integration checkpoints:
- Ensure Time Off Types map correctly to Time Entry Codes if you are using Time Tracking, so time-off hours flow consistently into timesheets and reports.
- Confirm which Time Off Plans impact pay and how – for example, paid vs unpaid leave, and how they should feed Earnings and Deductions in payroll.
- Check that export integrations to third-party payroll or leave systems receive clear indicators for Time Off, Leave, and Leave Status (e.g., Active, Returned Early).
If payroll teams cannot easily reconcile Time Off and Leave with pay results, they will pressure HR to simplify or manually override the system – which defeats the purpose of a clean design.
Make it easy for employees and managers
A technically perfect configuration still fails if employees and managers cannot use it intuitively.
Focus on:
- Absence Calendar: Make sure the employee calendar shows clear balances, upcoming holidays and approved absences.
- Intuitive Time Off Types naming, such as “Vacation – India” or “Sick – US”, instead of internal abbreviations.
- Simple Business Processes for Request Absence and Request Leave of Absence with minimal approval steps and clear notifications.
From a practitioner view, “HR won’t regret it” when:
- Employees self-serve correctly most of the time.
- Managers approve with confidence, without asking HR which option to pick.
- HR and payroll see the same truth on balances and leave dates.
Testing and ongoing monitoring
Before go-live, always run a structured test cycle for Absence:
- Simulate a full year of accruals, carryover and forfeiture for representative workers.
- Test real scenarios: partial-day vacation, long sick leave, maternity leave overlapping with public holidays, and retroactive changes.
- Validate key absence reports: balances by worker, time off taken by period, people on leave by type and date.
Post go-live, monitor:
- Top absence-related tickets raised to HRIS.
- Patterns of manual adjustments to balances.
- Feedback from HR business partners and payroll on pain points.
Then iterate your Time Off Plans, Leave Types and Eligibility Rules in controlled, well-communicated changes instead of constant one-off fixes.
Designing Absence in Workday the right way is less about clever rules and more about alignment: aligning configuration to policy, to payroll, and to how people actually request time away. When Time Off and Leave plans are clean and predictable, HR can stop firefighting balances and focus on strategic workforce planning instead.
