Recalling an Employee from Leave: How Should Payment Terms Be Handled?

If you were to recall a staff member from leave for official duty, what would be your suggested payment terms for the days retrieved? This is assuming there's no option for a refund of days.

Refund of days for the unused portion of leave is considered mandatory. However, if your company thinks otherwise, then compensation at double the rate might be satisfactory. Secondly, it goes without saying that you have to reimburse all his traveling expenses and daily allowances incurred. In case the employee is holidaying elsewhere with his family, you should reimburse the expenses pertaining to his family too. The whole idea is to COMPENSATE ADEQUATELY the employee for the inconvenience caused to him and his family due to the company exigency.

Hope the above suggestions help.

Warm regards.

You may want to check with your employer to see if they are willing to compensate double the pay.

Thank you.

Calculating Double Pay for Recalled Leave

Whether it is weekly wages or a monthly salary, calculate the daily wage and then multiply it by the unused number of days. Then, double the amount. "Double pay" means paying double the normal rate of salary/wages; that is, twice the normal rate.

Ensure there is a single line break between paragraphs.

I think you should also pay for the wasted money interns on canceled tickets, hotel booking amounts, etc., that he has spent in planning his holiday.

It will depend upon the Leave Policy of your Company. Normally, in every organisation, whenever an employee is recalled while on leave outside his place of posting, he is fully reimbursed for his actual traveling expenses as per his entitlement.

In addition, the leave taken, which he could not utilize due to recalling, has to be canceled from the total leave applied by him on that occasion. It is normally mentioned in the Leave Rules of the Company that in case of any emergency work, the employee may be called back for duty during his leave period and will be reimbursed for his actual traveling expenses for rejoining by the shortest possible route. Besides that, they do not pay for anything.

Where is the question of doubling the wages for recalled days? There is no logic in paying double. Expenses and wastages should be reimbursed, and there is no question about it.

Balance Days and Encashment Policy

However, balance days should be credited back to his/her account, and the employee can encash at the time of leaving if there is an encashment policy. In this case, the employee must have been paid for the leave days. Normally, all heads are paid for leave availed.

Balance leave must be treated as encashment, and whatever rules applicable for encashment must be applied, not straight double. Some companies do not pay all heads for encashment, and some companies do. Based on the company's policy, the same may be treated as encashed, and the amount paid.

Regards,
Sivasankaran

You must refer to your company policy. In general, if an employee is out of the station, reimbursement of fare to reach the place of work and debiting only actual utilized leave is fair and reasonable. Other than that, any extra compensation depends upon the culture of your company, like sponsoring their family vacation or tickets to a sports event in the city/abroad, etc. The basic idea is "Leave is not a right, and the interest of the Company should be the topmost priority of any employee."

Hi Friends, I fully agree with what Raj Kumar has suggested. Let's not always have a legalistic approach. A more humanistic attitude will prove to be a very useful investment for the future.

I was rather surprised to hear someone talk about LTA Rules. We do let our imaginations go out of hand. In this present matter, there was no suggestion that the concerned employee was on leave having availed LTA.

I will reiterate that let's go with what Raj Kumar has suggested.

Thank you,

Vasant Nair

This is quite interesting. For a moment, let us consider the case of a soldier who goes on leave for a month. Within a week, security concerns force the army to cancel all leave and ask him to report back on duty. Does he get paid double? No. He gets the balance leave credited back to his account and is paid the expenses back to his place of posting. Period.

The case of a soldier may be a little extreme, but it is not very different from other forms of employment. Even in government, there is no provision for double pay for recall from leave.

As Sivasankaran mentioned above, his expenses must definitely be paid to him, and the balance leave must be credited back to his account so that he can take that leave again in the future.

No company will recall an employee from leave just like that. It must really be an urgent situation. It is also rare that someone is recalled from leave. The sacrifice that the employee is going to make in coming back from leave earlier than scheduled will get reflected in his performance appraisal and other such times.