Managing Holiday Calendars and Policies

Purpose

Holiday policies define which holidays your company observes, who is paid for them and for how many hours, whether working a holiday earns premium pay, and the eligibility rules. Holidays then sync automatically to timesheets (with UZIO Time Tracking) and to payroll (with UZIO Payroll), and they are excluded from employees' time off requests. No manual entry is needed.

Who can do this: Users whose role includes the company-level Time Off permission for the holiday calendar. This is typically the Employer Administrator; custom-role admins can be granted it, and a view-only level exists for roles that should see the calendar without editing it.

Steps: Create a holiday policy

1. In the left menu under Time Off, click Policies, go to the Holiday tab, and click Add Holiday Policy. The tab's explainer sets the intent: "Set up holidays your company observes each year. Recognized holidays will not be deducted against in an employee's time off request."

Part 1: Basic details

[Screenshot: Holiday policy Basic Details form]

Part 2: Holidays

[Screenshot: Holidays year view with the pre-defined holiday list]

• Pre-defined list. UZIO ships major national holidays as a table (checkbox per row; columns Holiday Name / Date Type / Date / Action). Deselect any your company does not observe. The pre-defined list: New Year's Day (Fixed), Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Floating, third Monday in January), Presidents' Day (Floating, third Monday in February), Memorial Day (Floating, last Monday in May), Juneteenth (Fixed), Independence Day (Fixed), Labor Day (Floating, first Monday in September), Columbus Day (Indigenous Peoples' Day) (Floating, second Monday in October), Veterans Day (Fixed), Thanksgiving (Floating, fourth Thursday in November), Christmas Day (Fixed).
• Custom holidays. Click Add Custom Holiday to add fixed-date holidays (same date yearly) or floating ones (for example "third Monday of January").
• Multiple years. Year tabs cover the current year plus two future years (for example 2026/2027/2028). Use Duplicate for Future Calendars on a year to copy its list forward with one click.

Finish with Save, Save and Add Employees, or Cancel.

Part 3: Add employees

• Click Save and Add Employees during creation, or later via the policy tile's Manage (N) link and the Employees tab. Add individually or in bulk; the list includes active and future-dated hires.
• If an employee is already on another holiday policy, UZIO warns you. For employees on multiple policies, the most recently created policy's attributes win for holidays common to both.
• Remove employees any time (cross icon, or Remove Selected Employee(s) From Policy).

How holidays interact with time off requests

A holiday the employee is eligible for is never deducted from a time off request. If a request spans a company holiday, that day deducts zero from the balance and the employee cannot select it as a day off. Eligibility follows the policy's waiting period; a new hire inside the waiting period has no holidays yet, so a request over that date deducts a normal day. See Understanding Accruals, Carryover, and Balance Resets for the full deduction rules.

How holidays sync to timesheets (UZIO Time Tracking)

• Holidays sync only after the waiting period is satisfied.
• The timesheet shows the policy's standard hours as Holiday hours.
• Worked-holiday behaviour depends on the policy flags:

• Overtime worked on a premium holiday. A policy-level option controls what happens to hours that would otherwise be overtime or double overtime on a premium-paid holiday. When it is on, all worked hours that day (regular, overtime and double overtime) are reclassified as Holiday Premium. When it is off, only the regular-hours portion becomes Holiday Premium; the overtime and double-overtime hours stay classified and paid as Overtime and Double Overtime. If you are auditing a worked holiday and the overtime column looks wrong, check this setting before assuming a calculation error.
• A holiday made unpaid by the Exempt from Holiday Pay rule behaves like an unpaid holiday.
• Retroactive policy changes do not rewrite existing time entries. A manager or timesheet admin can manually edit entries that are not yet approved and synced to payroll.
• Employees with an assigned work schedule receive holiday hours only on their scheduled working days.

How holidays sync to payroll (UZIO Payroll)

Two system-seeded earnings carry the hours into the payroll grid automatically. This requires both UZIO holiday policies and UZIO Time Tracking; otherwise enter hours manually or via the payroll template.

• Holiday pays non-worked holiday hours at the employee's regular wage rate (rate not changeable).
• Holiday Premium pays worked holiday hours at 2× regular rate by default. You can set a different multiplier per employee (for example 1.5×) by adding the Holiday Premium earning on their payroll profile.

Expected outcome

• The policy appears on the Holiday tab as a tile showing Policy Type, Standard Hours, and Premium Paid, with View Policy and Manage (N) links.
• Eligible employees see holidays on their timesheets with the right hours, the holiday dates are excluded from their time off requests, and payroll picks the hours up without manual entry.

Common problems

Why didn't an employee get holiday pay?

Work down this list. The first match is usually the answer:

1. Waiting period not satisfied. Holidays sync only after the policy's waiting period; a new hire misses holidays before that date.
2. The holiday fell on a day they do not work. With a work schedule assigned, holidays on non-working days pay nothing (a 4×10 employee with Fridays off gets no pay for a Friday holiday).
3. The Exempt From Holiday Pay rule fired. They took a triggering PTO around the holiday, which makes it unpaid.
4. The policy is Unpaid, or the employee is not on any holiday policy at all (check the policy tile's Manage (N) employee list).

Why isn't the holiday showing on timesheets?

Only paid, non-exempted holiday hours sync, and only for employees past the waiting period, on accounts using UZIO Time Tracking. Also confirm the holiday itself is checked for the right year on the policy's Holidays tab. A custom holiday added for 2026 does not exist in 2027 until you add it or use Duplicate for Future Calendars.

An employee is on two holiday policies. Which rules apply?

For holidays common to both, the most recently created policy's attributes win. UZIO warns you when adding someone who is already on another policy. Heed it, and keep each employee on exactly one policy unless you specifically want the layering.

The overtime column looks wrong for a worked holiday

That is the OT-on-holiday option described in the sync section above. Depending on the policy setting, overtime and double-overtime hours either fold into Holiday Premium or stay as Overtime. Neither is a bug. Check which behaviour the policy is configured for.

A holiday was deducted from an employee's PTO request

Either the employee is not on a holiday policy that includes that date, or they were still inside the holiday policy's waiting period on that date. Check the Manage (N) employee list and the waiting period. Once the employee is eligible, cancel and resubmit the request; existing requests are not recalculated.

Related articles

• Adding and Managing Time Off Policies
• Setting Up Employee-Level Work Schedules
• Setting Up Company Level Earnings (where Holiday and Holiday Premium earnings appear)
• Time Tracking Setup and Configuration