With Workday 2026R2, organisations can benefit from new Absence and Time Tracking enhancements that support greater efficiency, improved compliance, and more streamlined workforce processes.
Whether you’re evaluating new features or planning future optimisations, these updates provide opportunities to strengthen your workforce management strategy.
Here are the most important updates and features to be aware of, along with their potential business impact.
Workstream | Key Updates | Feature Description | Business Impact |
Absence | Leave of Absence Tasks on Mobile | Workday now supports two key Absence tasks on mobile: Request Return from Leave of Absence and Return Worker from Leave. | Enables workers to notify managers of their return date and initiate the necessary administrative steps from any location. Managers can likewise process a worker’s return from leave directly from a mobile device. |
New Revise Time Off Experience for Absence | Workday has introduced a new interface for revising time off within My Tasks, aligned with the familiar look and feel of the Absence Calendar. Users can now revise absence requests directly from the Manage Absence calendar, available on both desktop and the Workday mobile application. | Improves user efficiency and increases transparency when managing absences. Requests in Sent Back, Not Submitted, or Saved for Later status can be revised directly from the calendar, reducing the need to navigate through My Tasks. Users can view the reason a request was sent back at the point of entry, and benefit from a consistent editing experience across all entry points. | |
Donate Time Off: Peer to Peer | Users can now donate accrued time off directly to colleagues facing personal or medical emergencies, supported by configurable eligibility rules, donation limits, and approval workflows. | Enables organizations to support their workforce during critical periods through a structured leave-sharing program. Provides flexibility for employees while giving administrators control over eligibility, limits, and compliance with organizational policy and regulatory requirements, such as U.S. Federal regulations. | |
Donate Time Off: Time Off Bank | Workday enhances existing Time Off and Leave functionality by enabling your organization to set up voluntary time off banks. This will allow workers to contribute unused time off to a centralized pool that others may draw from during personal or medical emergencies. | Allows organizations to manage time off bank programs directly within Workday, including enforcement of minimum donation amounts, restriction of eligible time off types, and tracking of bank balances. | |
Time Tracking | Time Entry Validation Support for Multiple Positions | Time entry validations are now evaluated independently for each position held by a worker, rather than as a single combined data set. The Review Time task and My Tasks approval inbox have been updated to be position-aware for validation warnings. | The new feature improves accuracy and reduces incorrect time entries for workers with multiple positions, resulting in fewer manual adjustments and overrides. Streamlines the approval process and gives approvers visibility limited to the position under review, while supporting custom, position-specific validations. |
Assign Work Schedule Calendars by Position | Work schedule calendars can now be assigned at the position level, improving the accuracy of time block calculations, absence validation, and support for complex multi-position scenarios across Absence, Payroll, and Time Tracking. | With this new feature, Workday improves accuracy in managing and paying workers with multiple positions and reduces the potential for scheduling conflicts. | |
Position Display and Persistence for Auto-Filled Time | With this update, you can configure Workday to persist and display a worker’s position on time blocks when time is auto-filled or mass auto-filled from their schedule. | This enhancement provides greater flexibility for organizations that have workers with multiple positions. Reduces the need for manual workarounds and adjustments for organizations with multi-position workers, while improving visibility and accuracy for reporting. | |
Managing Time Kiosks | Workday delivers reporting and security enhancements to help you manage Workday Time Kiosk configurations. | Provides organizations with greater flexibility to configure Time Kiosks to suit the needs of your organization. |
Conclusion
The Workday Absence and Time Tracking updates in 2026R2 provide new opportunities to improve efficiency, strengthen governance, and optimise workforce processes.
We’ll also be exploring updates across Finance, Adaptive Planning, Recruiting, Integrations, and other areas in our upcoming blog series.
To help your team evaluate and implement these changes effectively, download our free Workday Release Strategy Template and create a structured approach to release planning.
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The information provided in this blog regarding Workday release features is intended for general informational and educational purposes only. It reflects our understanding of Workday features and capabilities available at the time of publication based on the information available in the Workday Release Center. This information should not be considered a commitment or a guarantee regarding the availability, functionality, timing, or applicability of any particular feature.
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