Navigating Holiday Leave for Onsite Employees: Is My Colleague's Request Fair?

Hey all,

I need your help. One of our employees has gone onsite for a project and has now returned. During that period, he worked on Saturday and Sunday, as well as a few more holidays that are observed in India but not in other countries. Now, that person has requested leave for those holidays.

My question is: is he right or wrong? Secondly, when you work onsite, or if there are holidays observed in another country but not in India, or vice versa, how should those leaves or holidays be treated?

I am waiting for your replies.

Thanks,
Sujata

Sujata,

Usually, when deputed to a client location for a project, the employee is required to follow the holiday calendar and work timings of the client but the leave policy of his company. Leave can be sanctioned with the prior approval of the client manager.

Instead of giving compensatory time off, for the consultants working on a client project at the customer location, if they have successfully completed the project within the time limits, you can offer some kind of project bonus or 2-3 days of paid leave if they are deputed to any out-station project. This will boost the morale of the employee.

Thanks,
Geetanjali

Hi Geetanjali,

Thank you very much for your reply.

The employee is saying that for the days he worked at the client site on Saturday and Sunday, as well as another day, he is requesting paid leave for those days now that he has returned.

Regards,
Sujata

Hi Sujata,

What I feel is that he can be provided with a paid leave if work is not affected, and the HR can decide to distribute his leave according to the company policy (number of days at a stretch) and based on his performance for the project, which will motivate him to work further for the upcoming projects.

Regards,
Garima

Hi,

These things have to be actually clarified before deputation. You should include a clause that states while on deputation, the rules/laws/policies of the nation/organization will be effective. However, if a few days of compensatory off do not affect you, it could be given without affecting his motivation.

Regards,
Durgesh

Hi!

Leave rules and working on holidays are very important policies in an organization. Your HR department should sit with the project and operations people to plan a proper leave policy regarding these matters for the future. In the present scenario, if a person is on tour or deputation to a project site, then local rules may apply to them, or you may apply your company's existing rules. If the person has worked diligently on holidays and delighted your client, then as a progressive HR professional, you should compensate them with holiday leave. Plan now for how to handle these issues in the future. Some possible suggestions are:

a) The employee can encash these holidays at basic salary per day only.

b) The employee can avail Compensatory Off within the next 3-4 months only.

c) The employee can accumulate these types of leaves for a maximum of 15-20 days in a year, and at the end of the year, they can be encashed at gross salary. These are just suggestions; you can consider other creative options as well.

Regards,

Hi,

If any employee works on Saturday, Sunday, or any holiday outside India but abides by the company's rules, then they are entitled to paid leave.