Confused About Leave Rules: Should Holidays Count as Leave Days?

I am confused about the following rule of leave. Please suggest if I am wrong or provide some data to prove the following rule if it is correct.

In my opinion, if any person takes leave before a holiday, i.e., either a weekly off or a declared holiday and just after these holidays, meaning thereby Saturday as well as on Monday, then Sunday should be counted as leave. Similarly, if any person takes leave on 14/8, 15/08, and 16/8, then 15 should be counted as leave taken.

Please advise.

Hi,

Yes, you are absolutely correct. If any holiday or week off falls in between leaves, then that day is also considered as leave. Most companies do apply the same policy.

Regards,
Amit Seth

Not a rule, though most of the organizations follow this. We don't follow this in our organization; only the working days are considered as leave in this case.

Vaishali

Hi,

There is no such rule; it is up to the discretion of the company. It depends on the leave policy of the company.

If I am correct, National Holidays (26 January, 15 August, & 2 October) should not be marked as leave in such cases.

Dear all,

I would like to divide it into two parts:

1. EL (Earned Leave) - Sundays and holidays will be excluded (Authority Factory Act 1948).
2. CL, ML, or SL - There is no fixed rule, but Sundays should be calculated as leave.

If I am wrong, please correct.

Regards,
Dabas

Hi Vaishali,

You said that this is not a rule. Please tell me, if a person takes leave for the full month of September 2007 and does not have any due leave to avail, will your company pay him salary for the 5 Sundays in September 2007?

Regards,

Dear Mr. Neeraj ji,

There is no hard and fast rule to follow the leave rules. The Leave Rules are framed differently from one organization to another. However, it is noted that intervening holidays are coming for EL, it will be exempted. For example, 14/8, 15/8, & 16/8 (15th is Independence Day, a National Holiday, so it will be exempted if the person has applied for EL). If it is CL, all the days will be counted (i.e., three days). For Leave Policy, please refer to the 'Article column' on this citehr.

Regards,
PBS KUMAR

Hi Neeraj,

Most companies include Sunday as a leave day if you are on leave on Saturday and Monday. However, in our company, if a person requests leave well in advance for not coming on Saturday and Monday, then we consider Sunday as a regular off day and not as leave.

In another scenario, if a person is on leave for the whole month, we do not pay them for Sundays.

Please revert in case of any doubts.

Regards,
Shelly :)

Thank you, Shelly, for your valuable comment. I agree with you. I also agree with PBS Kumar. In fact, PBS Kumar has given me the correct definition. I will now follow that if any person is taking CL, then it is counted as leave, and if he is applying for EL (as Shelly said, informed well in advance), then it should be counted as a holiday. If I am wrong, then please let me know.

Regards,

Let's get a little clarity into the subject.

If leave is counted on working days, then there is no problem, i.e. if a person takes leave on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, out of which Saturdays and Sundays are paid holidays, then he is marked as absent only on 2 working days, i.e. Friday and Monday.

The problem is when leave is given on a calendar basis. Yes, if earned leave, sick leave, or casual leave is given up to the last working day in the week, then normally, the following paid holidays, i.e. Saturday (if applicable) and Sunday are not added to the leave given. However, some companies (even now), add the intervening paid holidays (up to the next working day) as leave taken. If it is company policy, then one cannot really object, except to request the company to reformulate its leave rules to the employees' benefit.

I am not sure about national holidays - normally they are included in the leave taken, but I may be wrong.

Jeroo

Dear Friends,

This absolutely depends on the company's leave policy. In my country (Bangladesh), both policies are available. For example, my company doesn't consider Friday (our weekly holiday) as leave if I take leave for Thursday and Saturday. Only 2 days will count in that case. However, many companies that I know of will count all 3 days and deduct them from his/her annual leave.

Thanks,
Asad

It depends on organization to organization. In our company, we do not consider Saturday and Sunday as holidays. Only weekdays are considered as holidays.

Dear Neeraj,

Leave policies vary from company to company. If you wish to change your leave policy, please proceed by obtaining approval from your management and then implementing it. These policies and rules have been established by us.

Regards,
Arumugam N

It's purely up to the discretion of the company. There is no rule in this regard. Some companies do consider Sunday or any other leave in between the taken leave period, while some companies do not. So, it's purely up to the company policy.

Regards,
Basant

Hi,

Yes, you are absolutely correct. If any holiday or week off falls in between leaves, then that day is also considered as leave. Most companies do apply the same policy.

Regards,
Vasu

Calculation of leave differs from company to company. If your company's leave policy provides for prefixing or suffixing of holidays, then the holidays prefixed or suffixed shall be exempted from being treated as leave. However, intervening holidays in between a continuous spell of leave are always treated as leave. This is from the leave policy of the Government of India for its employees. Hope it sounds very logical and has been tested for more than 60 years, hence more validated.

Neeraj,

It's a universal policy that if leave is taken before or after a weekly off or any other holiday, it is counted as leave. This policy is not only applicable in the private sector but also in the government sector.

With Regards,
Om Prakash

Dear All,

Hi! I would like to know what is applicable if a person has a weekly off on Sunday, takes leave on Monday, Tuesday is a paid holiday (a festival), and comes half-day on Wednesday (in the second half).

In this case, should Tuesday be considered a full day of leave (total of 2 1/2 days leave) or should the leave be considered for 1 1/2 days?

The company follows the policy of considering an intervening Sunday as leave if a person is on leave on Saturday and Monday.

Regards,
Tittli

Hi,

Please note that whatever the days may be, we have to pay for the National/Festival Holiday unless the employee is absent for the whole month.

To the best of my knowledge, if a person is covered under the ESI Act and has taken leave, the holiday need not be given since the individual would claim the same amount under the ESI benefit.

Therefore, it is purely based on the leave policy of the organization in some cases and also on other statutory acts applicable to the industry.

Regards,

Hi,

According to company policy, we only consider working days as leaves, as we have weekends off. This means we follow a 5-day work culture. Therefore, I believe only working days should be taken into consideration.

Regards,
Nikita Chhabra

Hello,

It depends on the type of leave taken. When Casual leave is taken, the days in between holidays will be treated as holidays. When Sick leave is taken, the days in between holidays will be treated as Sick leave. The same applies to Earned Leave as well. For example, if an employee is taking continuous compensatory time off and a national holiday falls in between, it will be treated as a national holiday.

However, the leave policy varies from company to company.

Regards,
R. Sudhakar

Hi,

I have been confused for a long time about how to calculate leaves in my company. They include public holidays and Sundays in the leave calculation since we also pay for those holidays.

For example, if a person takes leave from 14/08 to 20/08, it will be considered as a 7-day leave with pay. If another person is on leave from 14/08 to 17/08, it will be considered as a 4-day leave.

This is what we follow in our office. I would appreciate suggestions from other HR friends on this matter.

Cheers, Swati :)

Hi,

It is true that the respective company decides upon the types of leaves - whether they are earned or Privilege, Sick, or casual. In my company, if an employee is critically ill, they can avail one month of medical leave, but this has some applied conditions. We also have other special leaves such as bereavement, higher education examination leave (not to mention maternity and paternity leave, although it is only for a few days for paternity). Saturdays, Sundays, or public holidays are not counted as leave days, even if they fall between the leaves taken by employees.

So, there is no point in arguing about whether it is right or wrong to give employees leaves. Two things should be kept in mind while granting leaves - they should be applied for in advance and should not hamper the assigned work.

Regards, "A"

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your numerous replies.

Actually, I feel most of you did not understand my question.

Our organization is not governed by the Factory's Act; it is a small Ltd. company in the engineering field providing turnkey solutions to a wide variety of industries.

I am not clear whether it will be governed by the Shops & Establishment Act. The management feels it comes only under the registrar of companies, and our employee strength is around 14.

1) I would like to know which Act governs our organization concerning the Leave Policies.

2) We do not have any leave policy in place as of yet. We have just framed our leave policy - our management has allocated 7 CL, 8 SL, and 15 PL.

3) As of now, an employee on probation is not entitled to any kind of leave -

Is there any rule that states a probationary employee should be allocated CL & SL - if so, what is the rule that governs an organization like ours.

4) If a probationary employee takes leave as follows, what should be the action:

Sunday (Weekly Off)
Monday (Employee takes Leave)
Tuesday (Leave due to Rakshabandhan)
Wednesday (Employee Takes half-day leave- morning half)

For 31 days in the month of August, if the employee has not availed any other leave except the ones mentioned above, then in this scenario:

Will Tuesday be calculated as leave?
Will the working days of the employee be calculated as 28 1/2 or 29 1/2?

I hope all have understood my question. Please help out if you can.

Regards

Dear Tittli,

In most of the organizations, one may avail 7 days of leave during the probation period on a pro-rata basis. So in this case, Sunday will be the weekly off, Monday will be Leave, Tuesday would be Raksha Bandhan, and if he has leaves in his account, then definitely the first half may also be leave. But if he is applying for Wednesday leave in advance, then it will be for 2.5 days, i.e., from Monday to the first half of Wednesday.

However, this much leave must be there in his account; otherwise, it will be treated as Leave Without Pay (LWP).

Regards,

Amit Seth.

Shelly is right.

As a social compliance auditor, I have analyzed HR policies and procedures across industries. Let's take an example: If a person works the entire week, i.e., Monday to Friday, Saturday is a half day. If he applies for 1.5 days leave, i.e., half a day for Saturday and one day for Monday, Sunday is not counted in this case.

Now, the important part is that these are all good practices, and your company may or may not be following the same. Another example is Tata Steel and ITC Chirala, which have 3rd/4th generation employees. Now, would you expect to find the same in any BPO?

Surya Vrat

Hi,

At the same time, will you please tell me the procedure for calculating the earned leaves? 😉

Yes, you are right. If someone takes leave on Saturday and Monday, in this case, Sunday will be calculated as leave because the weekly off day has been sandwiched between his leaves.

Thanks,

Dev

I am confused about the following rule of leave. Please suggest if I am wrong or provide some data to prove the following rule if it is correct.

If any person takes leave before a holiday, i.e., either weekly off or a declared holiday, and just after these holidays, meaning thereby Saturday as well as Monday, then Sunday should be counted as leave.

Please clarify.