Paying Commission When a Sales Rep Goes on Leave

These are two different decisions and conflating them causes most of the confusion. Quota relief means adjusting the rep's target downward to reflect the time they're out, usually prorated by the number of working days missed. Commission continuity means deciding what they're paid on deals that close while they're away, whether those deals were already in late-stage pipeline or newly created by whoever covers the territory.

Decide both before the leave starts, and put the decision in writing that the rep can read before they go.

Not every open deal needs the same treatment. A useful split:

• Deals already verbally committed or in contract review: the rep on leave typically keeps full credit, since the selling work is done
• Deals mid-cycle with active buyer engagement: split credit between the rep on leave and whoever covers the account, often fifty percent each, though the exact split is a policy call
• Deals still in early discovery: reassign fully to the covering rep, since most of the selling work remains

Put this split in the same written policy from step one so managers aren't negotiating it deal by deal under time pressure.

Someone has to answer emails and run meetings for accounts that can't just sit untouched for weeks. If you're assigning coverage to another rep, that person needs some form of credit for the extra work, whether that's a flat stipend, a percentage of deals they help close, or credit toward their own quota for meetings they run. Covering a territory for free, on top of a full existing book, is a fast way to burn out your best rep and discourage anyone from volunteering next time.

Managers sometimes default to spreading coverage across the whole team rather than naming one person, thinking it's fairer. In practice this tends to mean no one really owns the accounts, and deals stall because everyone assumes someone else picked up the thread. Name one covering rep per account, even if the workload gets split across a few people overall.

A rep coming back from a multi-week leave usually needs a short ramp before returning to full quota, similar to a new hire's onboarding period but shorter, since they already know the product and accounts. Set this ramp length in advance rather than deciding case by case when someone actually returns, so the policy feels consistent across the team regardless of who's asking.

Leave of absence tracking, prorated quota math, and covering-rep stipends all touch payroll, so the policy needs a home outside of a sales manager's personal spreadsheet. Rippling and Deel both handle leave tracking and payroll adjustments, which keeps the comp side of a leave policy auditable instead of living in someone's memory. Deel's statutory compliance features matter in particular if your team includes reps outside the country where leave laws differ from where your company is headquartered.

The worst time to design a leave-of-absence comp policy is the week after a rep tells their manager they need surgery or is expecting a child. Build the policy while no one's leave is pending, store it somewhere every rep can find on their own, such as an employee handbook or HR portal, and reference it briefly during onboarding.

A rep who already knows the rules before they ever need them is far less likely to feel like the company is making decisions about their paycheck in the moment, which matters for retention long after the leave itself ends.