Holidays and absence

The basic principle for holidays at the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering (MPE) is that all paid days of holiday and special holidays earned by the employee must be taken within the holiday periods determined by legislation and collective agreements.

Holidays may only be transferred to the next holiday period or disbursed in exceptional cases. This must only be in case of holiday obstacle, which lasts until the end of 31 December for holidays and 30 April for special holidays, and the payment will follow the ordinary rules, just as the transfer of the 1st-4th holiday week. A heavy workload is not considered a holiday obstacle.

Ordinary holiday

You earn 2.08 days of ordinary holiday every month from September to August – 25 days in total. The holiday must be taken in whole days and is available from the month following the one in which it was earned.

The holiday may be taken from 1 September to 31 December in the following year (16 months ahead), i.e. four months into the new period in which the holiday is earned.

It is not possible to take paid ordinary holiday before it is earned. This is in accordance with AU's decision not to make use of the option to agree on taking holiday in advance.

Special holiday

You earn 0.42 days of special holiday every month from January to December – 5 days in total. The special holiday may be taken in whole or partial days and is available from the 1 May in the year following the year in which it was earned.

The special holiday must be taken in the period from 1 May to 30 April.

Holiday without pay

Employees are entitled to 25 days of holiday during the year. If the employee has not earned 25 days of paid holiday, the employee has the right to take holiday without pay until their total days of holiday with and without pay together constitute 25 days. Holiday without pay is not standard registered, and the employee must therefore report when they are taking these days off.

The right to take special holidays only applies if these days have been earned with pay.

As a standard, holidays are taken based on the fixed standard holiday periods (see periods in the next section). The specific dates will vary from year to year and will be published on the Department's website.

If an employee has not earned enough days of holiday to take a whole holiday period (e.g. if they became employed in the middle of the holiday year, have changed their holiday etc.), the period is partially registered with the holiday available to the employee starting on the 1st day of the given holiday period.

The employee must contribute to informing and ensuring that the days of holiday taken correspond to the days of holiday earned.

You can find an overview of holiday accrual by clicking on "ProjektTid og fravær" when you have logged onto mitHR. Hereafter, select "Absence Balance" where you can find the number of holidays that you currently have. If you click on "Holidays" and select a future date in "Balance As-of Date", you can find the number of holidays you have available on that day. 

For changes to the standard periods please read further down. 

Ordinary holiday

• Five days in connection with Christmas/New Year
• One day the Friday after Ascension Day
• Four weeks in July/August

Special holidays

• Two days in week 42
• Three days before Easter

Special holidays are held in a separate period (1st of May to 30th of April). The standard registration takes the separate period into account, but if the holiday is taken outside the standard periods, the employee must help inform and ensure that the special holidays are taken within the applicable deadline.

If you wish to change your holidays you register the changes in mitHR (please find the instructions here).

• You can only change your holidays if your changes do not conflict with your teaching or other work obligations. If there is a conflict, you have to get approval from your immediate manager/supervisor.
• You can only change your holidays 1:1. This means that the number of holidays that you change from the standard period needs to equal the number of holidays you register and the other way around.
• You need to register your changes to your holidays before the date of the holidays you want to change. 
• You need to register the days before the day of the holidays. 

When you have made your changes, the secretariat will get a notification and approve of your changes as long as they meet the requirements above. 

When you take your vacation, you need to inform your immediate manager/supervisor, update your calendar and set up an automatic e-mail reply.

In connection with termination of employment, any holiday residual may per standard not exceed the number of holiday days that would have been residual if the employee had followed the standard holiday periods.

It is the responsibility of the individual employee to ensure that all paid holiday is taken within the holiday periods determined by legislation and collective agreements.

During the course of the holiday year, the local holiday and absence administrator will carry out a number of status checks of holiday taken by employees. If any discrepancies are identified during these checks, the holiday and absence administrator will contact the employee, their immediate supervisor and head of section, who must then find a solution to the discrepancy as soon as possible and report the solution back to fravaer@mpe.au.dk.

• 1st of September; new holiday year begins
• Early September; an email will be sent with dates from the standard holiday and notification of holiday
• 31st of December; deadline for taking remaining holiday from the previous holiday year
• 30th of April; deadline for taking special holidays
• 1st of May; allocation of new special holidays

Before the planned maternity/paternity leave, the employee must have drawn up a plan for when the already earned holiday can be held, as a starting point before the commencement of the maternity/paternity leave. The plan must also include dates for when the holiday the employee earns during the maternity/paternity period should be held.

The plan must be approved by the employee's head of section and afterwards registered by the employee in mitHR. If there is any doubt about the number of holiday days available to the employee, it can be seen in mitHR as described above. 

The employee can also contact the Department's absence administrator at fravaer@mpe.au.dk.

• Register your absence (illness, child care days etc.) in mitHR (you can find instructions on how to here). When you have registered your absence, it will be sent for approval in the secretariat, and you will receive a receipt when your registration has been approved. Also, please inform your immediate manager/ supervisor and relevant colleagues of your absence. 
• Update your calendar and set up an automatic e-mail reply.
• You have to register your absence every day until you have recovered. 
• When you have recovered, you have to make sure that you have registered the correct number of days of illness. 

You cannot register longer-term ilness or leave of absence yourself. You have to contact the secretariat or the HR Specialist Team to register these types of absence.