Designing a Holiday Calendar for Multi-State Branches: How Do You Handle Regional Differences?

I have recently joined as Manager-HR in an infrastructure company. As of now, there was no HR department in the company, and now I am supposed to develop the HR department here. I am confused about how to design a holiday calendar for employees as this company has branches in different states of India. As we all know, holidays would be different in different states depending upon the festivals celebrated there, except government holidays. Kindly guide me to design a proper calendar so that coordination during holidays in a state would not be a problem. I hope I am clear and waiting for your response.

Thanks and Regards,
Vijaya Bansal

If you have branches state-wise, you need to prepare a holiday calendar state-wise to be more prudent. You can have a simple format like this:

State-wise Holiday Calendar Format

State - Jan. Feb. March April May June July Aug. Sept Oct. Nov. Dec

Andhra Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh

The states can be mentioned in alphabetical order. Dates on which a state observes a holiday can be listed under the respective month column. This format allows you to know holidays state-wise and month-wise. Other members can also contribute with more utility-based ideas.

Regards,
B. Saikumar
Mumbai

You have to prepare 'n' number of holiday calendars for 'n' number of states. Each state gives importance to different holidays depending on the cultures. Therefore, you have to prepare the holidays list separately for all states.

Holiday Requirements Under the Factories Act

According to the Factories Act, you have to provide a minimum of 11 holidays to employees. The breakdown for national festivals and religious festivals is also given in the act. I suppose it is 6+5, if I'm not mistaken. Kindly check the Act and prepare accordingly.

Our company has prepared different holiday lists for different states (even though we have branches in more than one state).

Keep the above in view and prepare accordingly.

Regards,
Bharghavi

You have provided the answer to your query yourself, i.e., festival holidays may vary from state to state, whereas government holidays remain the same. It all depends on how many days of national and festival holidays your organization wants to give its employees. Let's say it is 10 days.

In this situation, what you can do is collect the details of festival holidays of the respective states where your organization has branch offices and include all those festival holidays that are celebrated with great pomp, show, and religious sentiments attached, along with the 3 national holidays. Even if it is less than 10 days, the rest can be allocated as restricted holidays which the employees can avail of according to their respective community rituals, for example, Sikh-Guru Nanak Jayanti, Christian-Christmas, etc.

Kindly make the list before proceeding with the list of holidays. Keep 5 leaves common to all branches in India, i.e., 15th August, 26th January, etc., and let the remaining leaves be as per importance in states. For example, Ganesh Chaturthi is the main festival of Maharashtra. Please make a list of festivals that are more important in the respective states.

If your head office is in Maharashtra, the first 5-6 leaves can be common for all.

Regards,
Ashok HRM

Central Government Holiday List 2013

Take a cue from the Central Government Holiday List 2013 (attached). You may reduce the number of holidays from the Government list to eight or ten! However, while deciding the number of holidays in a year, make sure that it is uniform across the various states.

Regards,
Rajusiachen

I am attaching a calendar that will help you design the paid holiday list for the corporate office, branch office, factory, etc.

Regards,
Clement

Considerations for Creating a Holiday Calendar

How to make a holiday calendar has been explained very well by other learned readers already. I have only one thing to add—try to take the heads of the various branches into confidence while making the holiday list for their branch, since they would be the best judges to know what are the important holidays for them/their branch. This way, you'd be able to make them feel empowered as well and not have any HR-related issues.

Regards

I have prepared the holiday list zone-wise: South Zone, North Zone, East, and West. All states are covered in this zonal holiday list. After drafting the holiday list, I have sent it to the respective HR managers state-wise and asked them to select 11 holidays based on the majority religion of the employees working in that particular company.

You can prepare one by making it weekly instead of monthly - one integrated calendar for all states so that at a glance, all information is immediately noticed. The purpose is to provide a bigger space/box for each date to accommodate more entries. To identify what state a particular holiday belongs to, you may color code the entries; for example, green - state 1, red - state 2, etc. Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Onilrem - Philippines

You can also check your company policies to see how many holidays you can provide in a year. It's a state-wise detail, so simple and suitable for you.

Regards,
S.K. Verma

Dear Vijaya,

Please find the enclosed sample state/branch-wise holiday calendar. I hope you get some idea once you check this enclosure. Kindly note that festivals may differ, and we will try to club the holidays to maintain uniformity across branches. Still, one or two exemptions will come up that we need to consolidate and tally with our total leave.

Thanks and regards,

Vijaya Bansal

Dear Vijaya,

Please find the enclosed sample state/branch-wise holiday calendar. I hope you get some idea once you check this enclosure. Kindly note that festivals may differ, and we will try to club the holidays to maintain uniformity across branches. Still, one or two exemptions will come that we need to consolidate and tally with our total leave.

Thanks & regards,

Hi Nisha,

Your calendar seems okay. You can implement it.

Best regards,
Nisha

This calendar is extremely good for the reference of management and HR people. However, we still need to issue separate lists to the down-the-line people. People in different states may think that others are lucky because they are getting more holidays, and vice versa. Hence, we can prepare this way, as it gives more clarity and understanding but provide separate lists to their respective offices.

After all, it's a usual human tendency to feel that way. Please correct me if I am wrong. Your views are welcome.

Regards,
Bharghavi

Holiday List Bifurcation

Bifurcate the total holiday list into three parts: National Holidays, Religious Holidays, and Domicile Holidays. National Holidays will be the same in all branches across India. Provide options for Religious and Domicile Holidays as Restricted Holidays, where the Branch Head can choose any three from six holidays or five from ten, as the case may be.

You could use the following format (which we use at our organization): two sets of holiday lists—one organization-specific and another location-specific.

Regards,
Noel

First of all, please try to match the holiday requirements of your customers. If there are none, please also find out the calendar being followed by other major organizations, if any, in your industry. If nothing specific is identified, then please refer to the calendar of holidays of the Central Govt. for guidance.

You will agree that having a calendar for holidays statewise for each of the units is not feasible. Therefore, in the total calendar, please keep slots for two holidays vacant. These slots are to be notified by the state units, considering the requirements of local nature, with intimation to you.

I am sure this approach will serve your purpose.

Regards,
S.K. Johri

You don't require special knowledge to prepare the holiday list; you need to know the number of NFH to be given in a year state-wise and compulsory holidays. Pragna HRCS has beautifully provided details for Tamil Nadu. For KARNATAKA, please find the details below:

COMPULSORY HOLIDAYS

- Republic Day
- May Day
- Independence Day
- Gandhi Jayanthi
- Kannada Rajyotsava (i.e., state formation day)

Additionally, any other 5 days can be chosen in consultation with your staff of respective branches. There is no separate form for this, and a copy of the holiday list has to be submitted to the LABOUR OFFICER of the concerned division for information. No prior approval is required from the labor department of the Karnataka region.

Thank you.