How Do You Fairly Manage Frequent Leave Requests in a Small Software Firm?

Managing Employee Leave Requests in a Small Software Firm

My company is a small software firm with only 20+ employees. I have a concern about employees' leaves. As per the calendar year, employees are eligible to take 21 PL, 6 SL, and 6 CL. Since they have leaves in their account, every month they ask for leaves for a day or two. I'm not sure how to deal with this situation.

Please help me with the proper way to reject or handle this situation, as approving one request and rejecting another could create an issue. Management has tasked me with making decisions on leave approvals or rejections.

Thank you for your assistance.

I believe you may have too many leave policies in place. The best approach would be to revise your leave policy. With a staff of 20 employees, consider implementing only privilege leave. Additionally, establish a clear process outlining how employees can request and utilize this leave.

Regards,

It's very easy to keep a record of employees' leave in an Excel sheet. In big companies, the Human Resource department has a lot of records and can easily calculate on a monthly and yearly basis as well.

I am sharing the leave and attendance formats for your perusal. Please find them attached.

Thank you.

It will not be good in the long run to reject leave every time. If the company has agreed and planned the leave as mentioned above, then it is incumbent upon the organization to respect its own policy.

Alternative Leave Management Strategy

It can be worked out in another way. Since it's an IT company, the work must be in project packets (an assumption. Please correct me if I am wrong). You should nominate a team of three to five people each and give them discretion to plan their leave within the group while maintaining 70-80% strength of the team at any given time. That way, you will reduce your workload; secondly, employees will feel part of decision-making, and it will nurture team spirit. Over a period of time, a team will weed out non-fitting members and work out their leave in a happy environment.

However, as an HR professional, one must ensure that an employee gets the full quantum of leave at the time of his/her choice, as far as possible.

Leave Policy Considerations

Sick leave and casual leave must be given on demand due to their nature. As for paid leave, it cannot be denied either, but timings are subject to workload and must be sanctioned by the next senior in the line of reporting. In principle, all leave must be availed by employees. If the availing of leave is affecting the smooth functioning of the organization, then the cause is inadequate staffing. This must be assessed based on available workdays and the time required after taking leaves into account.

Suggestion for Revising Leave Credits Policy

As you are a start-up, you need to revise your Leave Credits policy.

A general market standard is:

1. 18 or 20 total Paid Leaves in a calendar year. You can name it as paid leave, sick leave, casual leave, etc. The total count should be either 18 or 20. It is not recommended to exceed this count.

2. This does not include Maternity Leave and Paternity Leaves. Those are to be assigned separately.

3. National Holidays should be 8 or 10 days as fixed holidays plus 4 or 2 (respectively) optional holidays. These are separate from the leaves mentioned in point 1.

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