HR-Glossar
Fehlzeitenmanagement (absence management)
How German businesses handle absence, when occupational integration management becomes mandatory and where data protection sets the limits.
1. What is Fehlzeitenmanagement (absence management)?
Fehlzeitenmanagement is a business's systematic handling of absence – recording it, analysing it, and the measures that follow.
It covers two directions that must not be mixed. The administrative side concerns recording, continued pay, evidence and reimbursements. The health-related side concerns prevention, reducing strain and reintegration.
Its statutory core is occupational integration management (BEM) under Section 167(2) SGB IX: where an employee has been unfit for work for more than six weeks within twelve months, continuously or repeatedly, the employer must offer a BEM. It is voluntary for the employee; a refusal carries no consequences.
The frame is drawn tightly: health data enjoy particular protection under Article 9 GDPR. The employer does not learn why somebody is absent, only that they are and for how long. Analyses may not serve to put individuals under pressure.
Two points deserve separating out for a group: this is a duty to offer, not a policy option, and the data-protection limit rules out the per-person absence comparisons that HR analytics tooling produces by default.
2. Origin and development
For a long time the handling of absence was shaped by mistrust – return-to-work interviews as an instrument of discipline, statistics as a means of pressure. That was neither effective nor lawful.
Introducing the BEM into the Social Code shifted the approach. What stands at the centre is not control but the question of how incapacity can be overcome and further incapacity prevented. The BEM is therefore also a protection for the employer: a dismissal on grounds of illness without a prior BEM is considerably harder to justify.
3. Core principles and how it works
An occasion rather than a suspicion
Measures attach to concrete occasions – the six-week threshold, conspicuous patterns of strain – not to individuals who are meant to stand out.
The BEM is an offer
The employer must offer it; the employee may refuse without that being held against them.
Data minimisation
Diagnoses are none of the employer's business. What is recorded are periods, not causes.
Separating care from personnel decisions
Whoever accompanies a BEM should not also decide on dismissals. Otherwise the offer becomes a risk for the person concerned.
Prevention before reaction
The most effective measures attach to strain, not to absence. The assessment of working conditions is the existing tool for that.
4. Who is Fehlzeitenmanagement (absence management) relevant for?
- Employers of every size – the BEM duty does not depend on company size. - Managers – they notice patterns first and conduct the conversations. - Works council and representative body for disabled employees – to be involved in the BEM where the person concerned agrees. - Occupational health services – frequently part of the process. - Employees after a long illness – for them the BEM is the offer of a way back.
5. How it differs from related terms
- Absence management and BEM – the BEM is the statutorily governed part; the management is the wider handling within the business. - BEM and the phased return under the Hamburg model – the phased return is a medically supervised measure; the BEM is a process for clarifying which measures would help. - Absence and continued pay – continued pay is the entitlement, the management is how it is handled. - Return-to-work interview and BEM – a return-to-work interview is not a BEM and does not replace one.
6. Variants and adaptations
- Occupational integration management – statutorily required from the six-week threshold. - Phased return to work – a step-by-step increase in working time after a long illness, medically supervised. - Workplace health promotion – preventive offers, with tax advantages. - Absence analysis – aggregated evaluation by area and period, without personal identification. - Return-to-work interview – a voluntary conversation after an absence; permissible where it does not serve disciplinary purposes.
7. Advantages and challenges
Advantages
- Concentrations of strain become visible before they lead to absence
- The BEM considerably increases the chance of a lasting return
- Legal certainty for a dismissal on grounds of illness — without a BEM it is barely tenable
- Aggregated analyses support workforce planning and occupational safety
- Reimbursements from the levy procedure are claimed more reliably
Challenges
- A high risk of sliding into impermissible monitoring of behaviour
- Health data enjoy particular protection and are quickly processed wrongly
- The BEM is misunderstood as a preliminary to dismissal and refused for that reason
- Managers are rarely prepared for these conversations
- Aggregated figures invite comparisons between teams that say little
8. Best practices for implementation
Standardise the BEM offer
An identically worded, friendly letter explaining the purpose and expressly noting that it is voluntary. That markedly increases the acceptance rate.
Separate the responsibilities
Whoever accompanies the BEM should not decide on personnel measures. Otherwise the offer is not credible.
Analyse only in aggregate
By area and period, not by person. Per-person rankings are neither permissible nor useful – and they are what absence dashboards produce unless configured otherwise.
Address the strain
Shift plans, understaffing, equipment, management. Absence is a symptom; working there is more effective than working on the symptom.
Keep documentation of the offer
Not of its content but of the fact that it was offered. That is the evidence that matters legally.
9. Tips for employers and employees
For employers
- **The BEM must be offered, not carried out** – a refusal is permissible and without consequence
- **Do not ask for diagnoses** – you may not and you do not need to
- **Without a BEM there is no tenable dismissal on grounds of illness** – the practically most important reason to take it seriously
- **Train your managers** – these conversations go wrong when they are held unprepared
For employees
- **The BEM is voluntary** – a refusal may not be held against you
- **You do not have to name a diagnosis** – not even in the BEM
- **Bring someone you trust** – the works council or the representative body can take part if you agree
- **The BEM can benefit you** – it is the route to adjustments to your workplace that nobody otherwise proposes
10. Conclusion
Absence management is permanently in danger of turning care into control. The statutory core – the BEM from six weeks of incapacity within twelve months – points the direction: offer rather than demand, clarify rather than judge, voluntary rather than compelled. For businesses it is at the same time the practically most important point, because a dismissal on grounds of illness without a prior BEM is barely tenable. Analyses stay aggregated, diagnoses stay outside, and the most effective measures address not the absence but the strain producing it.
For an international group the two halves of that pull in opposite directions from the usual starting point. The BEM is a duty that has no equivalent in most jurisdictions, and omitting it costs exactly where it matters – in a later dismissal. Meanwhile the analytics a group would normally deploy run into Article 9 GDPR: absence data by named individual, ranked and compared, is the one thing this process may not produce.
A note on sources: the Occupational Safety and Health Act has an official English version, cited below. SGB IX does not (checked on 2026-09-27); its German text governs.
Sources
- Section 167 SGB IX – Prevention and occupational integration management (German original; no official English version) (opens in a new tab)
- Section 5 ArbSchG – Assessment of working conditions (official English version) (opens in a new tab)
- Fehlzeiten-Report (absence report, German) (opens in a new tab)
- Gesundheitsreport (health report, German) (opens in a new tab)
Related terms
Our promise
Software supports. People take responsibility.
Let us talk about your payroll – no strings attached, specific, and with a dedicated contact from day one.