Time off and absence management
Absences are one of Personio's cleanest features on paper, but vacation calculations, part-time models and the absence-to-reports link draw consistent complaints from reviewers across the EU.
What people actually say
✕Reviewers describe the vacation calculation as not functioning well and the absence model as tricky to set up, particularly for part-time and evolving roles.
Source: Capterra Personio verified reviews ↗✕Absences and reporting aren't fully linked, so a sickness-rate report only takes the absence in days into account and not in hours — the systems don't communicate cleanly.
Source: Capterra Personio verified reviews ↗✕Personio contracts don't allow downward seat adjustments mid-term, so working students and short-term contractors continue to consume paid licenses even when the absence module sees them as inactive.
Source: CostBench, Personio pricing and contract terms ↗
Leave management runs on Postgres tables with policies as code: accruals in hours or days, per-country statutory rules for Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK, and bank-holiday calendars seeded from real public sources. Approval chains branch on department, location and tenure, Slack and Teams approvals route through a small Inngest workflow, and a Metabase dashboard shows liability per cost centre — including the contractors Personio still wants to bill you for.