Absence planner – UX thoughts and recommendations

I hope you all have some nice Christmas days.

I'm currently working on a new and responsive version of our company absence planner using Googles Material Design. As I build it from scratch I would like to improve the UX.

The current planner has two non-responsive pages, one with a 12 month calendar showing all month of the selected year with absence days highlighted and where you can also request a new absence (e.g. vacation). Another page shows the open and approved requests.

I'm now thinking about if I should reduce this to only one page and how this page should look like. I personally don't like the 12 month calendar but I see that it gives a good overview of all planned and taken absences including illnesses. Also the employees are used to it. Providing just a list of requests could also give an overview and would eliminate the need for two pages. A simple list would also make it easier to provide a good UX on both mobile and desktop devices.

What do you think about my above thoughts? I'm not asking for a final solution but for your ideas and hints and maybe some UX considerations that I should take into account.

Thanks for your answers.

Best regards, Gerry