How do I map short-time work in absence.io?

If your company is in short-time work (Kurzarbeit), you'll naturally want to document your employees' reduced working hours cleanly in absence.io. Depending on how clearly the working hours are defined during short-time work, there are two approaches:

1. Fixed, clearly defined working hours

If you already know exactly when your employees will be working during short-time work (e.g. only mornings or on specific weekdays), you can simply create a new work schedule with the corresponding reduced hours and assign it to the employee for the short-time work period. You can find out how to create a new work schedule here.

2. Flexible working hours

If short-time work is more flexible — which is often the case — employees log the time they leave early via a dedicated absence type (e.g. "Short-Time Work"). You can create this under Settings > Absence Types > Create New Absence Type.

Important: This absence type must not be set up like an overtime compensation, i.e. not with the "Counts as remote work. Work time must be tracked" setting (this is the trick used, for example, when taking time off for overtime — more on that here). With that setting, the hours would be deducted from the overtime balance as soon as they aren't clocked.

Instead, set up the "Short-Time Work" absence type as a normal absence, so that the target hours are credited automatically just like a regular absence (e.g. vacation). This way, your employees' balances won't go negative because of short-time work.

Reporting

Via this absence type, you can then check at any time under Reports > Absence Days how many hours or days a person was on short-time work.