Banking time off

Effective 1 May, AU employees can now bank certain types of time off to take later. For example, you might want to take time off when your kids start daycare, or to care for sick family members. You might also want to bank time off for a longer holiday or trip.

You can bank the following kinds of time off:

• Special days of holiday, i.e. days from the sixth week of holiday (from the 2024 holiday year onwards)
• Time off in lieu you have accrued through overtime/additional work, or weekend, evening and/or night work which has been approved by your manager.

• Your banked time off must be registered in mitHR. by your unit/department’s leave registrar.
• To bank time off accrued in the previous calendar year, you must notify your leave registrar before 1 September of the current year.

Example: You would like to bank your five special days of holiday (the sixth holiday week) from the 2025-2026 holiday year – in other words, the days of holiday that are available for you to take from 1 May 2025. In this case, you must let your leave registrar konw before 1 September 2025. 
 

• Special days of holiday: If you want to bank any of your special days of holiday (the sixth holiday week), you should send an email to your unit’s leave registrar before 1 September. In the mail, explain how many special days of holiday you would like to bank under the scheme.
• Time off in lieu: If your manager has approved your overtime/additional work, you can bank these hours. Send an email to your unit’s leave registrar before the deadline for taking time off in lieu. If you and your manager have agreed to have your overtime/additional work paid out, you can’t bank the hours.

No. Trainees/apprentices are not covered by the agreement.

If you accrue special days of holiday, you can bank these hours.

• You can only bank approved time off if 1) you have a right to compensation for overtime/additional work under the rules on working hours that apply to your job and 2) you get your manager’s written approval. Read more about rules on working hours here.
• If you are an administrative officer (AC-fuldmægtig) with an availability requirement, you are only eligible for compensation for additional work when it amounts to significantly more than 20 hours per quarter.
• Academic staff and special/senior consultants are not eligible to bank time off in lieu.

Some categories of employees can bank time off in lieu accrued as compensation for:

1. Overtime and part-time employees’ additional hours up to full time (Section 8 of the Agreement on Working Hours for State Employees)
2. Additional work (Section 9 of the Agreement on Working Hours for State Employees)
3. Converted inconvenience allowance (Section 13(2) of the Agreement on Working Hours for State Employees)
4. Weekend work (Section 14 of the Agreement on Working Hours for State Employees)
5. Cancelled days off (Section 16 of the Agreement on Working Hours for State Employees)
6. Evening and night work within the 37-hour workweek (Section 17 of the Agreement on Working Hours for State Employees)
7. Additional work under the provisions in Section 14 of the collective agreement for university graduates employed by the state.
   
   Read more about banking time off in lieu from overtime and additional work under the 2024 collective agreement here

• Whether you can bank time off in lieu depends on what working hours regulations apply to you.
• Read more about working hours regulations here.

You can have a maximum of 15 banked days in your ‘account’.

• A maximum of eight of these days can be banked time off in lieu.
• The rest can be special days of holiday.

You can take banked days off once they have been registered by your leave registrar in MitHR. You must register when you intend to take your banked days off as far in advance as possible in MitHR

No, regular flexitime hours can’t be banked under the scheme. They don’t count as mandatory overtime/additional work, so they’re not covered by the scheme.

Note: If you register overtime/additional work on your working time registration timesheet, remember to write any hours you bank in the field ‘Balance reduction’. Use the field ‘Balance reduction’ to register hours that should be subtracted from your balance on the working time registration form.

• You can take full or partial days of banked time off.
• As long as your time off doesn’t interfere with your work tasks, You should decide on when to take your banked time off by agreement with your manager. As long as the timing does not interfere with your work tasks, your manager will sign off on your request.
• You need separate approval from your manager if want to take more than two consecutive days off or more than eight days over the course of a year,  You can take a maximum of 15 days of banked time off in a year.
• If you bank both special days of holiday and overtime/additional work, you must inform both your manager and your leave registrar which kind of time off you want to take in advance.

• If your employment ends, any banked time off will be paid out.
• As a rule, it isn’t possible to have banked time off paid out while you’re employed at the university.  However, in exceptional cases, you can make an agreement with your manager to have banked time off paid out.

• There are no hard and fast rules for when banked time off has to be taken.
• If your employment ends, any banked time off will be paid out.

If you switch to a different job at AU, you keep your banked time off.

If you switch to a job at another state-sector workplace, you have the option of taking your banked time off with you instead of having it paid out. You need your new employer’s approval to do this, and your new workplace must be covered by the banked time off agreement. If you switch to a job outside the state sector, your banked time off will be paid out when you leave.

As a general rule, AU won’t allow new employees from other state-sector institutions to transfer their banked time off.

Yes, you’ll receive your normal salary.