How Can I Revamp Our Leave Policy and Enforce New Office Hours Effectively?

Hello Friends,

I have certain queries in leave structure maintenance. Presently, I am working with an IT Company and have framed the leave structure as follows:

All employees are entitled to a minimum of 24 days of annual leave (excluding paid Holidays) - 5 Casual Leaves, 5 Sick Leave, & 14 Earned Leave.

Earned leaves may be accumulated up to 28 days. Earned leave balance over and above 28 days will be encashed.

1. Now the company has asked me to amend the policy regarding leave structure and office timing. What more can I add to the leave structure so that the leave policy would be smart and tight, and employees can take fewer leaves in a month?

2. How can CL, SL, and Earned leave be distinguished? For example, if a person is allotted 5 SL in a year and he exhausts all his SL due to sickness in a few months only, will we deduct his salary for the additional SLs he is taking? In that case, it may happen that he will not take SL further; he will mention it as CL or Earned Leave. I am not clear on these areas; please do clarify for me. Are there any other components of leaves?

3. Regarding the office timing, our office is from 9.30 am to 7.00 pm, but employees usually come after 10.00 am. Management has decided to change the office timing from 9.30 am to 6.00 pm, provided everyone comes at 9.30 sharp. What measures can be taken to enforce the office timing of 9.30 am?

Awaiting your valuable suggestions.

Thanks & Regards,
P. Chatterjee
(hr.itjobsresources@gmail.com)

I am working in a manufacturing unit of a limited company. We follow the following policy:

1. PL (earned leave): 16 days. It gets credited after completing the probation period. It can be accumulated for encashment.

2. CL: 7 days. You are not allowed to take more than 3 in a month. It can't be encashed, and it will lapse after the calendar year.

3. SL: 7 days. You should submit a medical certificate to avail more than 2 SL in a month. This also can't be encashed and will lapse after the calendar year.

The leaves taken for more than 3 days should be treated as PL, and you should get the PL sanctioned in advance except for unavoidable circumstances/emergencies.

During office hours, you can have a grace period of 15 minutes or a maximum of half an hour, beyond which it can be treated as half-day absent.

Issue show cause notice to regular latecomers. If they are late again, simply deduct their salary for three times being late for half a day (LOP).

With regards,
Md.

For CL & SL, you can restrict the use on a pro-rata basis per month, i.e., (CL + SL)/12.

To ensure everyone attends duty on time, you can install the "Biometrics attendance system." This will help prevent "Proxy" attendance punching.

Thanks & regards,
Hrishikesh

Dear All,

My friend has a small consultancy in Delhi, where he wants to set some HR policies for his employees. He wants to know the fees paid to the HR consultants.

Regards,
John

Hey there,

I am working for an ad agency in Bangladesh, and I am the first HR person as the type of industry didn't require any strict HR business. However, lately, they have decided to build a complete new department as the HR department, where apparently, only I and a part-time consultant are working together.

So, the scenario is something like this:

110 employees were not regulated by HR before and do not have any clue what I am supposed to do here. Well, I am working on the leave policy right now, but I am confused because the environment says it does not require any strict regulation as the way of working is pretty different from other types of industries. So, basically, I need support from someone who has a bit of an idea about how an ad agency makes their HR policies.

Let me make it clear that my company was running very smoothly without HR, but what I have found is that people here are getting sick but they don't fill out a leave form to count those days as sick leave. The person who was dealing with leave here says, "Sick leave will fall under annual leave," which doesn't make any sense to me. So, I took the sword in my hand and am getting ready for any challenge. Wish me good luck, and it would be nice if you could assist me with some knowledge about HR practices in ad agencies.

Thank you.

If you want to tighten up the office timings from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm, then you need to follow/prepare some formats pertaining to the matters mentioned above. For example:

1. Purchase a Biometric punching machine. It will provide the employees' in-time and out-time, allowing you to generate daily, weekly, and monthly reports.
2. Keep track of all late/early arrivals/departures and have employees sign off on the same day for late/early remarks. By doing this daily, employees will be aware of how many times they are late/early.
3. Prepare a format to track late/early attendance and ensure that staff are informed about the policy through an internal communication such as ION or an Inter-Office Circular. Violations may result in deductions from Salary/EL/PL/SL.
4. After monitoring late/early attendance, inform employees about the deductions mentioned above. If tardiness continues, issue a circular notifying employees of further deductions from Salary/EL/PL/SL.
5. If an employee persists in being consistently late/early, the management reserves the right to terminate their employment without further warning.

Regarding EL/PL/SL, the company can decide on the number of days to allocate, but it is recommended to adhere to the factories act, ensuring a minimum of 18 days for EL/CL/SL.

I hope this information clarifies the issue for you. If you need further clarification, feel free to email me at hrvelmurugan@gmail.com.

Dear Mr. Chatterjee,

My advice will be as follows:

Why have three different types of leaves instead of having only two types: EL and casual cum sick leave? It will save you from maintaining records in three different heads.

Earned leave is meant for planned reasons and has to be for a longer duration. You can restrict the number of occasions one can avail the EL in a year, say 3 or 4 times a year.

Casual cum Sick leave is for the reasons as the name suggests. Casual leave cannot be availed for more than 2 days at a time. But in any case, if somebody is sick for more than two days, then you will have to give leave for more days.

In case the balance of one type of leave is insufficient or exhausted, the other type of leave can be allowed.

There is a tendency to avail all the leaves before they lapse at the end of the year. To avoid this, either allow more accumulation of leave or encash them, and no leave will lapse. Unavailed Casual cum Sick Leaves can be transferred to the EL balance at the end of the year.

If you want to control the number of leaves availed by employees, then make sure that leaves are availed only after they are approved in advance by the concerned superiors. Sensitize all the superiors to approve leaves only when they are necessary and restrict the number of leaves availed by their subordinates. If superiors are approving leaves left, right, and center, then what can HR do? Make sure that overstay/extending leave is strictly prohibited. Make all overstays/extensions without pay.

Please formulate proper rules, get them approved, and published. Back all policies/rules with good procedures and systems. Without good systems, you will not be able to implement rules/policies. Make rules and policies that you can properly implement.

Thanks & Regards

Hi,

Let me tell you one thing: any implementation or any change will take some time to be settled. It is not possible that today you will tell the employees, and tomorrow they will come in on time. You can put a notice or send an email to everyone in a very nice way, asking them to arrive on time at the office. After 9:45, mark the attendance of those who have not arrived with a red mark, but do not take any immediate action. If they come to you, explain that the management wants everyone to arrive on time and they want to know the reasons for tardiness. Let's see how this goes, but remember, don't be too strict from the first month. Regarding your leave policy, I can only answer if I could know if Saturday is a holiday or not.

Regards,
Madhu:-|

Hi,

Here is what we are following: CL - 12 days (1 day per month), SL - 12 days (1 day per month), and 12 days of earned leave.

Regarding the timing, our office hours are from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. I faced a similar issue due to employees arriving late. To address this, we have introduced a new policy. We have implemented a grace period of half an hour where employees can seek permission for a 2-hour leave every month, in addition to their regular leaves. Anyone arriving after this grace period, even by just 5 minutes (e.g., 9:35), will be considered 35 minutes late. If an employee exceeds the 2-hour grace period, any further late arrivals will result in half a day of Loss of Pay (L.O.P). I recommend trying this approach as it has proven to be effective.

Thank you.

Hello,

That is very useful information. I have a query: what if an employee has already exhausted their SL and CL? Is it possible for you to adjust their PL instead of deducting their salary?

Regards,
Jyothi

Pls note that as per Law Minimum
EL you need to give is 18 days (Law says for every 20 days worked in a month 1 day has to be given so if you divide 365 by 20 days it comes to 18 days)
CL you need to give minimum 6 days
SL you need to give minimum 6 days
Though CL & SL should be 12 days a year depending on 1 per month…but normally company distribute the same to 6 days SL and 6 days CL…it can be more but not less……

Dear Mr. P. Chatterjee,

EL is based on the previous year's working days, normally 20 days per 1 EL. CL is basically provided by the employer under the Factories Act of 1948, with a minimum of 10 days per year. SL is also provided by the employer as per the Act, with a minimum of 12 days per year.

In this scenario, we can calculate CL and SL, but EL cannot be changed. If an employee takes one day of leave, it will be considered as CL. If they take more than one day off, we will consider it as SL or EL, without any limit based on their available leaves.

These are the basic guidelines.

Thank you.

:-x K. Karthikeyan.

Dear PC,

Leave as per law is:

- CL 7 Sick Leave
- 7 Earned Leave for 20 days

These leaves are after the probation period. During probation, you do not get these leaves. However, you can change these depending on the type of industry, number of employees, and decisions of your MD.

CL and SL are from January 1 to December 31. These expire and are not carried forward. Thus, in order to increase attendance, you can add the leaves not taken in the year and give salary for these number of days in January of the next year. EL can be carried forward for a total of 30 days. You can increase these number of days to any. In Defence services, it goes up to 300 days total. The only thing is these can only be encashed at retirement or when leaving the job.

Attendance is simple: for late arrival, cut half-day salary. That's it.

It may be better to circulate these rules before implementing.

Regards

Dear All,

We are opening a Pvt Ltd manufacturing company in Tamil Nadu. Initially, we plan to appoint only 4 or 5 employees. Please suggest what documents are needed to maintain - labour act forms, namuna, leave details form, wages book, etc.

Please suggest how to calculate the salary breakup. Are there any standard calculations available? If the total salary is below Rs 10,000/- or 20,000/-, how should we allocate HRA, Basic, Conveyance, Misc, etc.?

Please advise.

With regards,

Suresh Babu K

I am working in the Electronic Industry. For CL/SL/EL cases, we are providing CL-7, SL-7, EL-21. Casual leaves lapse at the end of the year, but SL may be carried over to the following year. Employees can encash EL.

In case of tardiness, we have implemented a late-coming board. Since its implementation, there has been a significant improvement in punctuality.

Regards, Lalita :-)

We are following a very good method in the company, i.e.

CL - 6

SL - 6

EL - 15

On a pro-rata basis (credited to employees’ accounts on a monthly basis), so nobody can avail much more than the leave balance in the account.

Our office timings are 9:30 am to 6:00 pm.

Two latecomings are permissible; after that, half-day leave should be deducted.

Regards,

Pankaj

Hello,

Thank you for all your feedback. I have a few more queries regarding how to manage CL, SL, and Earned Leave. For instance, if an employee takes a 1-day leave, will it be treated as CL/SL? And if they take more than 2 days of leave, can it be considered as EL?

Furthermore, if CL and SL are exhausted and an employee still takes a 1-day leave, will it result in LOP or can it be adjusted with EL? Please confirm the basic distinction between CL, SL, and EL.

I am looking forward to your prompt reply.

Thank you,
P. Chatterjee

Dear P. Chatterjee,

I was expecting similar queries from you, and I had already mentioned it in my earlier response. You will have to go by what the employee mentions in his/her leave application. You've got to believe your employees to know the reason for the leave. Anyway, the immediate boss has to sanction the leave, and if he is convinced that the employee is not giving a false reason (sick/casual, etc.), it is fine. Some companies insist that the employee will have to submit a doctor's certificate in case medical leave is availed for more than two days. Casual leave should not be allowed for more than 2-3 days at a stretch. As a pro-employee organization, you may allow employees to use other types of leave in case a particular type is not available. Make a decision on it. Make sure that you create well-thought-out Leave Rules considering all possibilities. Get them approved by the management and then implement them.

Thanks & Regards

Hello,

I have a query regarding how to manage CL, SL, and Earned Leave. If an employee takes a 1-day leave, will it be treated as CL/SL? And if they take more than 2 days of leave, can it be treated as EL?

Furthermore, if CL and SL are exhausted and the employee still takes a 1-day leave, will it be considered as LOP, or can it be adjusted with EL?

Please confirm the basic line of distinction between CL, SL, and EL.

I am looking forward to your prompt reply.

Thanks,

P. Chatterjee