Understanding the two decisions
A time-off policy decides two completely separate things:
Deducted days: Which days count against the balance. Measured in days.
Hours per deducted day: What each day is worth in hours. Measured in hours.
Example: An employee requests Mon–Fri (same request).
Policy A: Working days + Scheduled hours → 5 days, 40 hours
Policy B: Calendar days + Scheduled hours → 7 days, 40 hours
Same request. Same hours per day (8h). But different deduction based on setting means different number of days deducted.
Note: When you set your deduction method to calendar days, this means a public holiday will always cost 1 day of time off balance, even if you configure the policy to charge 0 hours on that day. Days and hours are independent..
Note for DSPs: Your organizations use contract hours and work days from the Employee Profile (People > [Choose Employee] > Personal) instead of formal work schedules. The work schedule setting reads the weekly contract hours from each employee's profile. The logic is the same, but the source is different.
Scenario 1: Vacation with a regular or shift plan schedule
Your situation: Your team uses fixed work schedules (Mon-Fri or rotating). You want vacations to be fair and predictable. Two employees with 40 hours/week each taking the same vacation day should lose the same hours, regardless of shifts.
What to choose:
Deducted days: Working days in the work schedule
Hours per deducted day: Scheduled hours
Why: The work schedule has fixed hours for each weekday. Here 9 hours Mon-Thu and 4 hours on Fri. Those are the vacated hours, not the published shift, which might be longer or shorter. This keeps vacation deductions consistent across employees and time.
Example: An employee is contracted for 40h over 5 days (9h/Mon-Thu and 4h/Fri), and takes Mon-Fri vacation. Deduction: 5 days, 40 hours exactly the contract.
Scenario 2: Sick leave with a shift plan
Your situation: Sick leave is unplanned, what matters is what the employee actually missed that day. If the shift plan shows a 10-hour night shift and the employee called in sick, they missed 10 hours.
What to choose:
Deducted days: Working days in the work schedule
Hours per deducted day: Actual shift
Why: The published shift is what was really scheduled for that day. Actual shift reads it first; if no shift exists, it falls back to the work schedule (or working hours and days in Employee Profile). This gives an honest accounting of what the employee owed.
Important for shift deletion: When you record sick leave, do not delete shifts before the request is fully processed. Deleting shifts too early prevents Kenjo from calculating the correct deduction.
For retroactive sick leave: delete shifts immediately after approval
For future absences: delete shifts only after the first absence day at 00:00
Scenario 3: Irregular schedule with no fixed weekly pattern
Your situation: Your team has irregular schedules — no fixed pattern per weekday, no shift plan. A weekly contract exists, but it's unevenly distributed (e.g. some days 8h, some 5h, some off). You can't read a scheduled hours value because there's no schedule to read.
What to choose:
Deducted days: Working days in the work schedule
Hours per deducted day: Average daily hours (per working day)
Why: The only neutral value when there is no daily pattern is the weekly average divided by working days. This avoids arbitrary highs and lows on individual days.
Example: An employee on 30h/week with 5 working days (6h/day average). Every vacation day costs 6 hours, not 5h on one day and 8h on another.
Note for DSPs: This is common for delivery partners with flexible schedules. The contract hours are evenly distributed across working days, not tied to daily shifts.
Scenario 4: Custom or atypical schedule
Your situation: Your company has a structure the standard work-schedule setup doesn't fit — perhaps an annualized contract, or a bespoke weekly rhythm with specific hours per weekday. Off-the-shelf deduction options would misrepresent your actual hours.
What to choose:
Deducted days: Custom workweek
Why: You define the weekdays that count and the hours each is worth. The grid is your answer, all other options are hidden, because the custom workweek already specifies both days and hours.
Public holidays and the checkbox
When you choose Calendar days (rare for regular schedules, more common for DSPs with multi-country payroll), a checkbox appears: Deduct 0h on public holidays.
Important: This setting only affects hours, not days. A public holiday always counts as 1 day of absence. The setting only determines whether the employee is charged for those hours or if the public holiday covers them.
Enabled (default): The employee is not charged hours for the public holiday; the public holiday covers its own hours.
Disabled: The employee will be charged the full hours corresponding to the public holiday.
Checkbox | Employee loses | Holiday covers |
Enabled (default) | 0 hours | All hours for that day |
Disabled | Full hours for that day | 0 hours |
Example: A Mon-Fri request with a paid public holiday on Wednesday. Calendar days + Scheduled hours + checkbox ticked:
Days deducted: 5 days (every calendar day)
Hours deducted: 32 hours (Mon 8h + Tue 8h + Wed 0h + Thu 8h + Fri 8h)
The employee ends the week even in both cases, only the attribution changes.
How your choice affects the request and balance
Set up your policy and here's what happens
When an employee requests Monday-Friday with a paid public holiday on Wednesday (Scenario 1 settings: working days + scheduled hours, 9h/Mon-Thu and 4/Fri):
Day | Deducted from balance | Hours on request | Why |
Monday | 1 day | 9h | Scheduled hours for that weekday |
Tuesday | 1 day | 9h | Scheduled hours for that weekday |
Wednesday | 1 day | 0h | Public holiday pays its own day; request charges 0 |
Thursday | 1 day | 9h | Scheduled hours for that weekday |
Friday | 1 day | 4h | Scheduled hours for that weekday |
Total | 5 days | 31h | Employee owes 30 hours; balance loses 5 days |
This is a worked example, your time off policies calculate with your actual schedule settings.
Requests without a published shift schedule
When no shift schedule has been published yet for a shiftplan employee, employees' ability to submit requests depends on the time off policy.
Example: Connie has 21 weekly hours and works flexibly (3-5 days per week). She wants to request a full week in advance, before any shift exists.
If policy is set to Working days in the work schedule
Connie requests Mon-Wed (the days she usually works):
Accepted. Kenjo deducts 21 hours / 3 absence days = 7h per day. Total: 21 hours.
Connie requests Thu-Sat (not her usual days):
Treated as non-working days. The system cannot calculate a deduction for these days without a shift schedule.
Solution: Connie should request the full period where she usually works (Mon-Wed), and the system distributes the 21 hours evenly.
How to set it up
For an existing time off policy
Go to Time off > Settings > [Select Time off Policy] > Deduction
Under (1) Deducted days, choose one:
Working days in the work schedule: Only days with a plan/schedule count; weekends excluded
Calendar days: every calendar day counts, including weekends
When you choose calendar days you will see a checkbox Deduct 0h on public holidays.
Ticked (default): The employee is charged 0 hours for public holidays.
Unticked: The employee is charged full hours for public holidays.
Custom workweek: you define which days and their hours
If you chose Custom workweek: you're done. Ignore the next step.
Under (2) Hours per deducted day, choose one:
Scheduled hours: from work schedule or shift plan per weekday (recommended for vacation)
Actual shift: published shift hours (recommended for sick leave)
Average daily hours: weekly total / working days (for irregular schedules)
If you chose Average daily hours and Work Schedules in (1) you'll see this option:
Average per working day: spreads contract across actual work days
If you chose Average daily hours and Calendar days in (1) pick the basis:
Average per working day: spreads contract across actual work days only
Average per calendar day: spreads contract across all 7 days (rare; used for specific entitlements)
Fixed value per weekday: you define Mon-Sun manually
3. Save.
Quick decision table
Your setup | Deducted days | Hours per day | Basis | Public holiday box |
Vacation, fixed schedule | Working days | Scheduled hours | — | Hidden |
Vacation, shift plan active | Working days | Scheduled hours | — | Hidden |
Sick leave, shift plan | Working days | Actual shift | — | Hidden |
Irregular or flexible hours | Working days | Average daily hours | Per working day | Hidden |
DSP, no shift plan, flexible contract | Working days | Average daily hours | Per working day | Hidden |
Calendar-day entitlement (rare) | Calendar days | Average daily hours | Per calendar day | Hidden (does nothing) |
Atypical structure | Custom workweek | — | — | Hidden |
When to delete shifts (shift plan employees only)
If you use a shift plan and record time off, follow this timing:
Request type | Delete shifts |
Retroactive (past absence) | Immediately after approval |
Future absence | Only after the first absence day at 00:00 |
Why: Kenjo needs to see the published shift to calculate the correct deduction. Deleting shifts early breaks the calculation.
Frequently asked questions
Why do two employees who took the same vacation day have different hours deducted?
Your policy is set to Actual shift. Each day is worth what was published that day. If one shift was longer, more hours deduct. For fair vacation deductions, use Scheduled hours instead — then a vacation day costs the same regardless of the shift plan.
A public holiday fell inside my vacation and I lost a day. Is that right?
Yes. The Deduct 0h on public holidays checkbox only affects hours, not days. A public holiday in a calendar-day request still costs 1 day of allowance — the checkbox just decides who covers the hours.
Half of my vacation was a public holiday and I was charged a full day.
The public holiday covers its hours (0 or full, depending on the checkbox). Your absence covers the rest. Both together count as 1 full day from the balance — that's what a calendar-day entitlement means.
My time balance went negative after vacation. Why?
The policy deducts Actual shift, and published shifts for those days were longer than your contract. Extra hours show as negative required time and are settled at period end like any other variance.
What does Average daily hours actually do?
It divides your weekly contract by the number of working days (or calendar days, depending on what you chose). Example: 40 hours / 5 working days = 8h per day. Every vacation day costs 8h, regardless of shift plan.
For hour-based requests, do these options apply?
No. These options apply only when time off is requested as a full day. If an employee requests "3 specific hours", exactly 3 hours are deducted — no calculation.
Can I use calendar days with average per working day?
Yes, but the product warns you: the balance counts every day, but the average divides only by working days. A full week of absence loses only 5/7 of a week. Use average per calendar day if you want the week to split evenly.
My existing policies now show deduction settings I never chose. Did something break?
No. Your policies were automatically migrated to the setting that matches their previous behavior. Numbers stay the same. The policy shows a notice with the mapping applied.
Where do I see how many hours a single day cost?
On the request itself, in the time-balance breakdown, in the attendance report, and the PDF export. Everywhere reports hours, the same number appears.
My policy uses "scheduled hours" but no schedule exists for a day. What happens?
The system falls back to the daily average (contract hours / working days). Without any scheduled value, Kenjo uses the safest neutral value to avoid 0-hour deductions.
How do I know if my setup is right?
Ask yourself:
For vacation, is it fair that one day = one standard day (use scheduled hours)?
For sick leave, is it fair that one day = what they were scheduled (use actual shift)?
For irregular plans, is it fair that one day = the weekly average (use average daily hours)?
Your answers guide your choice.