Guidelines & Policies:

This page aims to clarify everything you need to know about the Vacation Payment process. General policies, how to review edge cases and correction compensation.

Some parameters of the vacation days are dependent on when the employee was hired. Based on this, the number of days accrued can vary. Therefore, the first two sections have been divided to accommodate the conditions for the difference in hire date- employees hired before 31 March 2024 and employees hired after 31 March 2024

Employee will receive 24 holidays per year, no matter their contractual hours, and as long as they have passed probation. The employees accrue 2 days per month during their probation and are entitled to the full 24 days after their probation.

Their 24-holiday balance will then refresh and begin in January of every year and employees can carry a max of 5 vacation days from one year to another. Any remaining days will be lost. The carry-over days are only valid till 31 March 2024 and need to be used before this date.

Tip! The vacation balance can be found in Zendesk using the Vacation Tool feature

Accrual only begins on the date of hire. For example: If an employee joins on the 6th of January, their accrual will not start until the 6th of February.

Within the probation period of employment, the employee accrues 2 days per month.

If the probation period is 2 months: The employee accrues 4 vacation days and then accrues the remaining 20 days at the end of 2 months. Totally, 24 days

If the probation period is 6 months: The employee accrues 12 vacation days and then accrues the remaining 12 days at the end of 6 months. Totally, 24 days.

Employee will receive 20 holidays per year, no matter their contractual hours, and as long as they have passed probation. The employees accrue 1.67 days per month during their probation and are entitled to the full 20 days after their probation.

Their 20-holiday balance will then refresh and begin in January of every year and employees can carry a max of 5 vacation days from one year to another. Any remaining days will be lost. The carry-over days are only valid till 31 March 2024 and need to be used before this date.

Tip! The vacation balance can be found in Zendesk

Accrual only begins on the date of hire every month. For example: If an employee joins on the 6th of January, their accrual will not start until the 6th of February.

Within the probation period of employment, the employee accrues 1.67 days per month.

If the probation period is 2 months: The employee accrues 1.67 x 2 = 3.34 vacation days and this is approximated to 3 vacation days and then accrues the remaining 20 days at the end of 2 months. Totally, 24 days

If the probation period is 6 months: The employee accrues 11.67 x 6 = 10.02 vacation days and this approximated to 10 vacation days and then accrues the remaining 12 days at the end of 6 months. Totally, 24 days.

The vacation days approximation:

In case the vacation days accrued as seen above are in between two whole numbers, they can be approximated accordingly to approve vacation days.

For example, if an employee has accrued 3.34(1.67 x 2 days) vacation days, it is less than 0.5th of the value/ vacation day and therefore is approximated to 3 vacation days.

For example, if an employee has accrued 6.68(1.67 x 4 days) vacation days, it is more than the 0.5th of the value/ vacation day and is therefore approximated to 7 vacation days.

Remember! All employees with a disability are allowed 5 extra vacation days per year.

How long of a notice period do employees have to request their holidays?

At least 11 days' notice must be given for planning purposes. Accrued holidays should be taken within the same calendar year (before December).

⚠️ If the employee resigns from their employment contract or is terminated by the company, the 11-day advance policy does not apply. They can request for vacation days and these days are automatically approved considering their vacation balance and confirmation of contract termination on SAP.

What if an employee was unable to use all their vacation days for this year?

If the employee cannot take their vacation days due to business needs (for eg: operations during the Christmas period), employees can carry a maximum of 5 days over to be used before 31st March of the following year, i.e. for 2026.

Remember! Hub Managers will approve a higher carryover for employees who had been sick or could not take their holidays because of an emergency. This must be previously flagged and finally approved by their hub manager and/ or area manager/ cluster lead.

What if an employee wants an unpaid holiday?

Unpaid vacations can be requested once all vacation days have been used and need to be escalated and approved by the Hub manager. We will then process this and get back to the employee with a response. Only a maximum of 20 unpaid vacation days can be approved and only once in an entire calendar year.

What happens to the employees’ vacation days when they resign/are terminated?

- Inside their probation time (First 6 months)

If the employee resigns or is terminated by the company inside the probationary period they are entitled to take their 2-day-per-month accrual before the end of their contract.

For example, if an employee hired before 31 March 2024 starts on 5th January and ends their contract on 31st May, they will have accrued 8 days.

- Outside probation time (after first 6 months)

First half of the year (01.01 - 30.06): If the employee resigns after their probation time and in the first half of the calendar year they are entitled to take the vacation days that they have accrued until their last working day.

Remember! Carry Over days are valid until 31st of March and must be considered in case of termination within this time frame.

Second half of the year (01.07 - 31.12): If the employee resigns after their probation time and in the second half of the calendar year they are entitled to take the full annual vacation that they have accrued.

- Terminated after probation period: We only handle cases where the employee was terminated without leave of absence. This means the employee needs to work and take unused vacation days until the exit date (if they want to be paid for that period). If we encounter a case that differs and an employee requests a leave of absence, forward the ticket to payroll with a detailed explanation.

Remember! The 11 days notice is not applicable to employees who are ending their contract. We can approve their vacation manually.

Do we as WFS manually approve the employees’ vacation requests?

We do not approve vacation unless it is an escalation from the hub manager. We have an automated vacation tool that will take care of most tickets. However, it is important to understand how the vacation is accrued. You can check the employee´s remaining vacation days in the Vacation Tool.

How should I approve a Vacation Escalation from the Hub Manager?

In this case, the vacation tool will have rejected the holiday, so we can create an absence in Quinyx and leave a note with ‘HM escalation’.

Tip! If the vacation has still not been rejected, we must not reject it ourselves. We should leave the tool to auto-reject. However, we can manually create and approve the vacation without deleting the first one.

Navigate back to the ticket and send macro [VACATIONS] Approval changing the beginning with ‘Your Hub Manager has approved your vacation” and adding the tad hm-veto-wfs-denailapproval to the ticket.

How is vacation pay calculated?

Since 01.04.2023, we base calculation on a 5-day work week.

For new contracts where the employee accrues 1.67 days per worked month. Remember we always round decimals <0.5 up to 1 and >0.5 down to 0. (i.e. 1.3 = 1 and 1.8 = 2)

If an employee is outside of their probation period, they will receive their yearly accrual of vacation days plus any carry-over days they are eligible for.

For example, if an employee is entitled to 20 vacation days per year and they have 3 unused days from the previous year, they would start the new year with a total vacation balance of 23 days (20 yearly entitlement + 3 carry-over days). If an employee is on probation he will start the year with the days he carried over.

When the employee passes probation, the employee will receive the remaining vacation days accrued from their hire date to the end of the year. For example; If an employee's first working day is 01.04-2023, they’ll accrue 15 days from 01.04.2023-01.12.2023 [9x1.67].

On 01.10.2023, they will have passed their 6 month probation period and can use their full balance of 15 days.

If an employee is sick during vacation will they get the vacation days back?

If the employee gets sick before and during vacation, they will get the vacation days back. This does not apply during the first 28 days of employment or after 42 days of sick leave.

Employees can not have a vacation in the first 28 days as they will not have accrued any days.

Is it possible to transfer from the employee's previous job unused vacation days to Flink?

People operations should be doing it. In general, yes, it's possible if the previous employee tells how many vacations they have used. This is based on the document "Urlaubsbescheinigung" from the employee.

Step by Step

1. Receive a ticket related to missing vacation pay on Zendesk.

Tip! Remember to always check "Which month is affected?" in the ticket.

2. Navigate to the employee's SAP profile and click on the "Compensation" tab to view their payslips.

3. Look for the payslip related to the month in question and open it.

5. Proceed to check the T2 shared drive for the relevant month's payroll file(DE *MONTH* Payroll) and check the Master Vacations tab to see which dates they have been paid for.

6. Open the employee's Quinyx Schedule(Quinyx -> Set location to Flink SE and look for the employee's hub -> Schedule -> Go to the month of relevance by toggling front and back in the monthly view of the schedule). Here you can identify the approved vacation days of the employee.

7. If the dates and hours in the DE *MONTH* Payroll sheet -> Master Vacation tab match the dates that the employee has mentioned in the Zendesk ticket and also what is approved in Quinyx, and the hours match the hours in the payslip, go back to the Zendesk ticket and use the macro "\[PAYMENT\] Vacations pay calculation clarification (no issue)".

Tip! Often the employee does not understand the way vacation pay is calculated so they assume that they have been paid incorrectly. If the dates that they write in the Zendesk ticket match the dates shown in the Payroll file then there is no need to use Quinyx. You can simply reply on them using the "\[PAYMENT\] Vacations pay calculation clarification (no issue)" macro.

7. Replace "XX" with the number of paid vacation days and click "Submit as Solved".

In case of incorrectly processed vacations (e.g. vacation request is not approved on Quinyx but a confirmation email was sent by the agent), you need to approve them on Quinyx first and issue a payment correction for it.

1. Go to the Quinyx schedule of the employee to ensure the days have been approved as per the older approved ticket. If there was an error in approval, add the vacation days manually.

2. Navigate to Missing Absences in the HR Tracker Payroll DE sheet and fill out the next empty row.

For incorrectly processed vacations, add only the vacation period that's missing payment. Remember to keep an eye out for overlapping sick leaves.

8. Go back to the Zendesk ticket and apply the "\[PAYMENT\] Correction confirmation (Wrong Vacation Days)" macro.

9. Replace "XX" with the number of affected vacation days and click "Submit as SOLVED

Tip! To verify the accuracy of the paid vacation days, you can cross-check the information in the Master Vacations sheet with the approved absence/ vacation days recorded on Quinyx

Employee Contacts Us After Their Last Working Date for Vacation Pay:

Sometimes employees did not use their vacation earned before being terminated or resigning from the company. In this case, we can issue a payment correction for the employee if needed. Employee´s should raise this claim within 3 months of the end of their contract, due to contractual limits.

Step By Step:

1. Employee raises a ticket with us stating that they didn´t get vacation pay after resigning/being terminated.

2. Check The Employee´s SAP. Look at their most recent month and see if vacation time was paid out for their last working month.

3. Calculate the time period from the employee´s hire date to their last working date. Remember the rules we mentioned earlier in this SOP. We can only grant vacation days that they have actually accrued during their time with us.

Lets take an example - an employee started working 14. February 2025. Their last working date with us was 16. April 2025. In this case we take 1.67 (vacation days per full month worked) x 2 (2 full months worked) = 3.34 days. We round this down to 3 full vacation days for the employee.

4. Respond to the Employee on SAP with the Macro (PAYMENT) DE < EN < vacation accrual explanation after LWD:

4. Fill out the needed information by entering the text in bold referring to months they worked and the accrued calculated days to be paid.

5. Navigate to the HR - Tracker Payroll DE Sheet and go to the tab marked Vacation Compensation. Enter the information in the relevant fields:

Here you will mark the date of the request/processing, select your name as the specialist processing, enter the Payroll ID of the employee, enter their Last Working Day. You will also then list the Days of Vacation Compensation, their Weekly Hours, their Hourly Wage, the Zendesk Ticket of the Request. You can also then select Early Payout Request - ONLY if the employee is escalating strongly or threatening legal action. Refer to your manager for feedback if a case qualifies.

Do not touch anything further - starting with the column Payroll Status - the rest is filled in by the Payroll Department.

6. From here, go back to the original Zendesk ticket. Leave a note stating the action you have taken for records/QA purposes.

7. Solve the ticket.

Flowchart of the Vacation Process:

Tools

Zendesk: Employee will raise a ticket and inform us of their issue.

SAP: We will always use this to verify the employee's information

HR- Tracker Payroll DE

T2 Shared drive.

Macros

Contact Reasons