Leave / Holiday Compensation

Dear All, We are a company working on 24X7 basis (service industry). Hence the employees will not be able to take leaves/holidays. However, we operate on a rotation shift basis 24x7 & ensure that each employee gets one whole day off as weekly off. Apart from this, do we have to compensate for any other leaves / holidays like... 1. 15 PLs/ELs every year credited in each employee's account. We would encash their leaves @ per day wages X No. of PLs to be encashed. Apart from this, do we have to compensate? 2. 5 National Holidays & 5 Festival Holidays - Total 10 - Since we're in service industry, we ask employees to work on these days but how do we compensate for this? Kindly clarify as to how we can adequately compensate for these holidays/leaves as per HR Stat. Compliance. Thanks, Vadiraj Kulkarni

Being service industry, your establishment should be covered by the respective state's Shops and Commercial Establishments Act. The above Act proved for weekly off, leaves and holidays. In some states separate Act (like in Kerala there is Kerala Industrial Employment National and Festival Holidays Act) may be there which demands granting of national and festival holidays. Under the Act, it is mandatory to fix such holidays and intimate the appropriate officer (Labour Officer) of the holidays. The employer can call any employee to work on a holiday by issuing notice in this regard. For such holiday work an employee is to be paid double the rate of wages and a compensatory holiday in lieu of holiday lost. This is as per Kerala Act. Please verify if there is any change in your state enactment. Employer can fix any day as weekly off. In service industries which work for seven days, the employer can notify the weekly offs of different employees. Ensure that days of off is put in the notice board and no employee works for more than 6 days without a weekly off. Normally, under Shops and Establishment Act, one day in a week should be observed as closed holiday unless otherwise permitted by notification in this regard by the government. Please find if your industry has got such exemption. For example, a hotel is exempted from the provision of weekly closing by notification. Regards, Madhu.T.K