You have set the time off lower limit to zero.

A lower limit of zero means Workday treats time off that would reduce the plan balance below zero as unpaid. That calculation setting alone does not necessarily stop the worker from submitting the request; it determines how much of the requested absence can be processed as paid.

To prohibit unpaid time off, configure the Maximum Unpaid Time Off Units Allowed validation with a value of zero. This establishes that no portion of the request may be unpaid. The Do Not Allow Request checkbox must also be selected so that a request failing the validation produces an error and cannot be saved or submitted. If that checkbox is cleared, Workday generates a warning but permits the request to proceed, which does not satisfy the requirement that workers request only paid time.

Setting the maximum unpaid units to eight would explicitly permit up to eight unpaid hours or days, depending on the plan’s unit of time. Therefore, options B and D conflict with the requirement. Option A uses the correct zero-unit threshold but configures only a warning. The combination in option C creates a hard validation: zero unpaid units are permitted, and any request exceeding the available paid balance is blocked.