Long Leave and Week-Offs: Should My Company Deduct Salary for Non-Working Days?

Hi everyone, I want to know if any employee takes a long leave and week-offs are included in those days, does the company have to pay the salary for those week-offs or not? I was on a long leave for 10 days, and we have alternate Saturdays off, the 2nd and 4th Saturday. Now, the company wants to deduct the salary for those week-off days for 2 days. Is it correct or not? Please reply soon.

Regards, Sachin

Leave Policy Clarification

If you have taken permission for a leave of ten days, those leave days can be compensated with your credited Casual Leave or Privileged Leave balance. Declared holidays will not be considered for these leaves.

However, if you have been on leave without any prior permission, your continued leave will be considered as absent. Additionally, any declared holidays or weekly offs that occur between your absent days will also be considered as absent.

As far as I have been able to deduce:

Any holidays or weekly offs falling between the period of availed leaves will be considered as leave (except in cases where privileged or earned leaves have been availed). However, many companies are trying to consider weekly offs as just that and don't count them as leaves to improve employee engagement. This decision may vary based on the type of people and nature of the business.

The ideal practice is to count holidays as part of the leave and deduct them from the leave balance or deduct the salary for those days. However, if you believe that employees would be more motivated if they are given the benefit of leaves excluding the holidays, and that they would not abuse this facility, you can consider providing this benefit.

Leave Policy on Holidays and Weekly Offs

If any employee proceeds on long leave availing earned/privilege leave, the intervening holidays/weekly offs will be counted while calculating the leave period, and they are to be paid. Any holidays/weekly offs prefixing/suffixing will not be counted as leave, and they are to be paid. Hope it is clear.

Regards,
Eswararao Ivaturi.