---
title: Company rules and public holidays
description: "Blackout periods, team quotas, part-time, default carryover, sickness alerts and public holiday calendars."
url: "https://illizeo.com/en/centre-aide/absences-company-rules-and-public-holidays/"
updated: "2026-11-01"
category: Absence Management
---

# Company rules and public holidays

Beyond types and policies, a few rules apply to the whole organisation: periods when absences cannot be booked, the maximum number of people absent at the same time, the calculation method for part-timers, the default carryover and, of course, public holidays. This article is for administrators and HR staff.

## Before you start

- The **Leave & work time** page opens with the "Work Schedules" permission. Each section then requires its own permission, at the **Execute** level to make changes:

| Sections | Permission required (role matrix) |
| --- | --- |
| Blackout periods | "Configure submission rules (lead time, retroactive)" |
| Team quotas, Pregnancy hours | "Configure policies (proration, carryover, rounding)" |
| Part-time, Balance carryover, Counter payouts, Clock / Absence Reconciliation | "Provisional payroll — Presence tab" |
| Sickness alerts | "Work Schedules" |
| Public holidays | "Manage public holidays (calendars by country)" to view; "Create / Edit / Delete a public holiday calendar" at the Execute level to make changes |

## Company leave rules

Open **Settings › Time Management › Company Rules**, then the **Leave & work time** tile. Only the sections your permissions allow are shown.

![The Leave & work time page of the company rules: blackout periods, team quotas and pregnancy hours](https://i0.wp.com/illizeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/absences-company-rules-and-public-holidays-01.en_.png?resize=800%2C500&quality=80&ssl=1)
The Leave & work time page: blackout periods, team quotas, pregnancy hours.

### Blackout periods

No absence requests are accepted during these periods (year-end closure, stocktaking, peak activity).

1. Click **Add**.
2. Fill in the **NAME**, the **SCOPE** (Company, Office, Department or Team, then which one), the **START**, the **END** and, if you wish, the **REASON**.
3. Leave **Active period** ticked and click **Create period**.

The period appears in the schedule of the employees concerned, and the request form refuses submission on those dates. An absence type set to "Exempt from blackout periods" (sickness, for example) is not affected on the server side.

### Team quotas

A quota sets the maximum number of people absent at the same time in a team, department or office. **Add**, choose the **SCOPE** and the **MAX**, then **Create quota**. When a request would exceed the quota, the employee sees a warning; if it is sent, it is recorded and then rejected automatically, with the reason. Types "Exempt from team quotas" are not counted.

### Pregnancy hours

A weekly reduction of working time during pregnancy and after the birth. Tick **Open the pregnancy hours entitlement**, choose the hourly **Absence type** that carries them, the **Hours per week** (prorated to the activity rate), the pregnancy month it starts and the number of months after the birth; for a days-based schedule, the number of half-days per week. This type must have a policy assigned to the employees concerned. HR enters the dates on the employee file, the employee books her hours, approved by her manager; anything unused is lost at the end of the week.

### Part-time — Calculation method

Defines how entitlement and deductions are adjusted for part-timers. Three methods:

| Method | Principle |
| --- | --- |
| Symmetric prorata | Both entitlement AND deductions follow the work rate. Swiss standard (art. 329a CO). Default value. |
| Bridging days deduction | Everyone has the same number of days; non-worked days in between are deducted too. Working-day logic (France). |
| Hours conversion | Leave is converted to hours based on the weekly schedule. Recommended for variable schedules. |

A simulation over one holiday week and the list of employees (rate, schedule, entitlement) show the effect of the chosen method.

### Balance carryover (leave)

The company default for unused balance at year rollover: **No carryover**, **Carryover with expiry** (fixed annual date or a delay in months after the period ends), **Capped carryover** (cap in days) or **Unlimited carryover**. A type or a policy can have its own rule, which takes precedence.

### Counter payouts

The **Allow counter payouts** switch enables paying out attendance counters and absence balances in salary. Each balance is then made payable in its absence policy. When disabled, no payout option appears; pending requests resume if you re-enable it.

### Clock / Absence Reconciliation

What happens when a clock entry conflicts with an absence, in two situations: **Clock-in on absence day** (the employee clocks in on a day covered by an approved absence) and **Absence on clocked day** (an absence is approved on a day already clocked). Each situation offers its own actions, for example **Allow**, **Warn approver**, **Alert HR**, **Block clock-in**, **Block absence request**, **Overwrite clock entries** or **Top up to scheduled hours**. The request form takes this into account in its "Existing clock entries" banner.

### Sickness alerts

Notifies HR, and only HR (health data), through the "Long-term sick leave" workflow: a long absence from N consecutive days or N days over 12 rolling months, and the Bradford factor (S² × D over 12 months) above a threshold. Days are counted in calendar days; each alert is sent once a year per person.

The same page also holds clocking settings (sessions, entry lock), covered in the Attendance articles.

## Public holidays

### Calendars

Open **Settings › Time Management › Public Holidays**. On the left, the **Calendars** list separates **System** calendars (official holidays by country and by canton or region) from **Custom** ones (yours). On the right, the holidays of the selected calendar for the year shown.

1. To create a calendar, click **New calendar**.
2. Enter the **Calendar name**, the **Country**, the **Region / State** (or **Entire country**), the **Year** and the **Holiday types** to include.
3. Click **Create**: the matching official holidays are imported.

In a custom calendar, **Add** opens **Add holiday**: choose the **Kind**, the date (or a range **From** / **To (optional)**), the **Name**, the **Type** and the **Duration** (Full day or Half day). **Edit** and **Delete** act on each day.

| Kind | Effect |
| --- | --- |
| Public holiday | Given, debits nothing. It is not deducted from an absence, except for a type counted in calendar days. |
| Bridge day | The day drops to 0 h in the planned schedule and debits the "Bridge-day compensation" counter of compensating profiles. No absence request is created. The screen shows the employees concerned and the debit before you confirm. |

![The Public holidays page: list of system calendars by country, holidays of the selected calendar for the year, Duplicate and New calendar buttons](https://i0.wp.com/illizeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/absences-company-rules-and-public-holidays-02.en_.png?resize=800%2C500&quality=80&ssl=1)
Public holiday calendars: system calendars on the left, the year's holidays on the right.

### Preparing the next year

A calendar covers one year. **Duplicate** creates its copy for the following year: fixed dates move across, movable feasts are recalculated. Remember to duplicate your custom calendars before 1 January.

### Which calendar applies to whom

The company's calendar is chosen on the company record (Organizational repository); an office can follow another calendar (the **Holiday Calendar** field of the office record). For each employee, Illizeo takes, in this order: a personal assignment, the calendar of their contract's office, that of their own office, then the company's. For a system calendar, only national holidays and those of the office's canton or region apply. The **Public holidays** tile in **Company Rules** shows the company calendar and its holidays for the year.

### Public holiday worked

In **Company Rules › Public holidays**, the **Compensation rule** for a public holiday worked credits time to the "Public holiday hours" counter: **None**, **Time premium** (a percentage of the hours), **Time off in lieu** (hour for hour) or **Compensatory rest day**. Rules by population (executives and non-executives) can replace it. These compensations belong to the Attendance module.

## Good to know

- A calendar to which employees are assigned cannot be deleted: deactivate it.
- Changes to a blackout period or a quota apply to new requests and edits, not to absences that are already approved.
- The sections of this page are in French and English; other languages see English.

### *Similaire*