How to manage employee absences and holidays: a complete guide for SMEs

Holidays, sick leave, paid leave, unjustified absences... The more employees a company has, the easier it is for absence management to turn into a chaos of WhatsApp messages, outdated spreadsheets and verbal approvals nobody remembers. And it's not just an organizational problem: mismanaging absences can lead to payroll errors, conflicts with staff and even fines. This guide covers the types of absence that exist, what the law says about each one, the most common mistakes and how to avoid them.

Types of absence and what the law says

Holidays. Under Article 38 of the Workers' Statute, every employee is entitled to a minimum of 30 calendar days of holiday per year, which cannot be replaced with financial compensation except when the contract ends before they are taken. If an employee hasn't completed a full year with the company, holidays are calculated proportionally (30 days ÷ 12 months = 2.5 days per month worked). The holiday calendar must be communicated at least two months in advance.

Paid leave. Regulated under Article 37 of the Workers' Statute, with extensions from Royal Decree-Law 5/2023 and Law 6/2024. These are justified absences paid by the company, distinct from holidays and sick leave. The most common in 2026:

• Marriage or registration as a civil partner.
• Birth and childcare (parental leave in addition to birth leave).
• Death of a family member: a minimum of 2 working days (extendable if travel is required).
• Accident, serious illness or hospitalization of a family member: up to 5 working days.
• Breastfeeding: 1 hour a day until the child is 9 months old.
• Family force majeure (a recently introduced type of leave): up to 4 days a year, paid, which can be taken by the hour without needing to take the full day.

Sick leave (temporary incapacity). Since 2023, the INSS sends the sick note, confirmation and return-to-work note directly to the company electronically. But this doesn't exempt the employee from their duty to personally notify the company of their absence (call, email or internal channel), regardless of whether the medical note arrives later through another channel. Failing to report it can be treated as a disciplinary offence.

Unjustified absences. Any absence not covered by any of the above and not authorized by the company, which can have disciplinary consequences if repeated.

Most common mistakes when managing absences

• Approving leave and holidays verbally or over WhatsApp, with no official record: this creates misunderstandings, duplication and problems if you later need to prove what was authorized and when.
• Keeping everything on spreadsheets or paper: data goes out of date, versions get lost, and it's easy for two people to request the same period without anyone noticing in time.
• Not cross-checking absences against shifts or scheduling, which causes overlaps, lack of coverage or overload for the rest of the team.
• Miscalculating proportional holidays for employees who haven't completed a full year with the company, or failing to correctly deduct days already taken.
• Leaving no record of sick leave reported by the employee, which makes it harder to justify absences during an inspection or a labour dispute.
• Not giving notice of the holiday calendar with the minimum two months required by law.

Best practices for absence control

• Centralize all requests (holidays, leave, sick notes) in a single system, not across several different channels.
• Make sure every request is automatically dated, approved (or rejected) and archived, without relying on anyone's memory.
• Always cross-check approved absences against the team's shifts and schedule, to detect overlaps before they happen.
• Keep the key legal deadlines handy: 30 calendar days of holiday per year, 2 months' notice to communicate the calendar, and the exact number of days for each type of paid leave.
• Keep an accessible history of all absences, in case you need to refer to it during an inspection or a payroll query.

How Clockio handles it

Clockio includes holiday and leave management even in its most basic plan (Startup), integrated directly with time tracking:

• Employees request their absences from the Employee Portal, and the manager approves or rejects them in a couple of clicks, with the date and record saved automatically.
• The holiday and leave calendar is visible to the whole team, which helps detect overlaps before they become a coverage problem.
• Everything is connected to time tracking and reports, so there's no need to cross-check data from several different places when calculating payroll or reviewing history.

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