When an employee ends a contract and signs a new one a few days later (a fixed-term contract followed by a permanent one, a fixed-term renewal, an apprenticeship turned into a permanent job…), two questions arise: is it a real departure? And does the employee count in the headcount during the gap?
Reflect applies the 20-day rule: if 20 days or less separate the end of a contract from the start of the next one, the employee counts as neither a departure nor an arrival. This threshold can be customized for your organization.
This rule applies to Arrivals and Departures, but not to Headcount. This deliberate choice explains why the end-of-period Headcount does not always equal the start-of-period Headcount, plus Arrivals, minus Departures.
1. Arrivals and Departures: the 20-day rule
Definition: A departure is an employee who leaves the company for good. If a new contract starts 20 days or less after the previous one ends, Reflect considers the employee never left: no departure and no arrival are counted. Beyond 20 days, Reflect counts a departure, then a new arrival.
Why it matters: An employee who planned to come back is not a "real departure". Without this rule, every fixed-term renewal or switch from apprenticeship to a permanent contract would count as a departure and artificially inflate your turnover and attrition. The rule also applies to seniority: the arrival date stays the one of the first contract in the series.
💡 A customizable threshold
What makes a "real departure" varies from one company to another. 20 days is the default value. You can choose another threshold for your organization by contacting the Reflect team.
At 0 days, every contract end counts as a departure and every new contract as an arrival, even when they follow each other. It is the only setting where Headcount, Arrivals and Departures always add up, but your departures and turnover then include every contract change.
2. Headcount: counting people actually under contract
Definition: Headcount is the number of people under contract on a given date. During the gap between two contracts, the employee has no contract, so they are not part of the Headcount.
Why it matters: Headcount reflects the contractual reality on each date, with no assumption about a possible return. It is also the basis of your legal obligations (workforce thresholds, social report, BDESE…): a person without a contract cannot be counted as present. That is why the 20-day rule does not apply to Headcount.
3. Example
An employee ends a fixed-term contract on March 25 and signs a permanent contract on April 5 (an 11-day gap):
Measure | March | April |
Headcount at start of month | 100 | 99 |
Arrivals | 0 | 0 (the permanent contract extends the fixed-term one) |
Departures | 0 (the employee returns within 20 days) | 0 |
Headcount at end of month | 99 (no contract on March 31) | 100 |
In March, Headcount drops from 100 to 99 with no departure. In April, it goes back up to 100 with no arrival. Over the whole March-April period, the figures add up.
With a 0-day threshold, the same employee would count as 1 departure in March and 1 arrival in April: the figures match every month, but this contract change weighs on your turnover.
⚠️ The gap only appears when the end of a period falls during the break between two contracts. This is what can be surprising when you compare Headcount, Arrivals and Departures in the same table.
4. Why this choice, and how to handle it?
The two measures answer two different questions:
Arrivals and Departures answer the question:
"Who really joined or left the company?"Headcount answers the question:
"How many people are under contract on this date?"
Choosing the threshold is therefore a trade-off:
20-day threshold (default): turnover and attrition reflect real departures, at the cost of an occasional gap with Headcount.
0-day threshold: Headcount, Arrivals and Departures always consistent (useful to reconcile with Finance), at the cost of a turnover that includes every contract change.
For the figures to match exactly, also use the "Departure (day after last day) count" measure (finance view). Learn more: Definition of Departures: HR vs Finance.
👉 For consistent reporting: state in your reports that Departures count final departures, not every contract end.