New HR in Retail: How Do I Create Effective Leave Policies from Scratch?

Dear All,

I am a fresher, just now joined with an Apparel Retailing Company. I am the only HR person here, with around 50 employees across 7 stores in India. Here, there are no HR policies framed till now, and I have to implement them from scratch. Can anyone help me in framing the policies, especially the leave policy?

Regards,
Hyder

Hi Hyder,

It seems your organization is also new. Policies are essentially written processes designed to avoid any ambiguity within the organization, so there may be many depending on the needs of the organization. To begin with, you need to closely observe your current processes and identify where most of the conflicts arise. You can then outline these points, discuss them with the relevant individuals (to determine any legal implications or alignment with your company's specific needs), and propose them to your top management for approval before circulating them to all employees.

As a startup, you may want to focus on:

- Induction
- Leave Policy
- Reimbursement (Travel, Medical, etc.)
- Bonus/Ex gratia
- Exit
- Special occasions (Birthdays, Long service, performance, etc.)

You can use the following framework for each policy:

- Objective
- Effective date
- Coverage of the policy (if applicable to a specific set of employees)
- Process
- Amendment (with a clause that the policy can be revised as needed)

Go ahead and hope for the best.

Hi Sir,

Thank you for your advice. Our organization is very large, based in Hong Kong and widely spread across the Middle East and Far East countries. We have recently expanded with stores/branches in India. While we have a well-established HR department in the Middle East, the policies there are not suitable for implementation in India. I need to create new HR policies specifically tailored for the retail market in India. Could you please provide me with some sample HR policies that would be suitable for this purpose?

My E-Mail ID is hyder.hr@gmail.com.

Best Regards,
Hyder.

Dear Hyder,

I think my reply is too late; maybe by the time you must have done all basic work. Anyways, as someone has replied, processes and policies are just to set a standard and cannot be established in a day's time. A simple way would be (if your company's budget allows) to hire a consultant who can assist you because if you engage yourself completely in this, your routine operations would suffer. In today's time, there are many good consultants who can create complete policies as per your needs and help you implement them if required. Similarly, initially, to avoid legal hassles, you can hire a legal professional who can set things up for you, either full-time or for a short and fixed term. They can assist you in completing all the legal requirements, and once you feel ready to manage, you can terminate the contract.

All the Best.

Gaurav

It may not be feasible just to paste all the HR policies that are followed in other retail companies. Please find the attached file. It may help you to some extent in figuring out things at least.

Regards,
Krishna

Hi,

I have the same problem as Hyder mentioned above. We have two stores in Kerala, one of which is already registered with 10 employees, and the other needs to be registered with 15 employees. I am confused about whether registering the second store with the same proprietor's name will result in a total of 25 employees between both stores. In such a case, would ESI and EPF be applicable or not? Please advise me on what to do.

Regards,
Sunny