Struggling with Comp Time for Holidays and Weekends? Share Your Solutions Here

I would like to check on new and innovative ideas on how to compensate for comp time off. We are finding it difficult to provide comp time off for working on national holidays, festivals, or weekends. Sometimes, we are not in a situation to offer comp time off due to various circumstances, especially for entry-level employees.

I would request people to share ideas on how we can tackle this situation.

As per the Factories Act, an employee should not work continuously for more than 10 days. If any employee works on Sunday or any national holidays, they are supposed to avail the compensatory off in the next 3 days. Only this formula will enable compliance with the above-mentioned act.

Hi Stephen, I also wanted to check if, apart from giving compensatory time off, there are any innovative ideas on how to compensate for comp offs? The reason being, when employees apply for a comp off, the team manager is not able to approve it for various reasons, and because of this, the employees are missing out on availing the comp offs. As a policy, we have allowed employees to utilize the comp off within 90 days from the time of grant. Many employees are accumulating these comp offs and taking them during the festival season when most of the other team members would have applied for leaves. We are facing a challenge in tackling this issue.

Dear Vijayendra HR,

It appears that more than compensatory off, your problem is inadequate manpower. Therefore, I recommend you conduct a workload analysis.

"Inability to give comp off due to various reasons" is easy to say for a manager. But does it impact the motivation of the employees? Does it disengage them rather than engage them in the organization? Does it foster employee attrition? Have you studied the cost impact of not giving compensatory off within the stipulated time period?

Today's entry-level employees are your tomorrow's supervisors. Would you like to groom them or allow them to leave your organization?

The word innovation is catchy, but you cannot give short shrift to labor laws and call them "innovation." This term, if restricted to new product development, curtailing operational expenditure, etc., is better. Accumulation of compensatory offs is strictly illegal.

Better ideas often come from employees who work at lower levels. When you make them overwork, they might work to protect their employment, but they could be withholding their ideas out of grudge. In that case, have you worked out the cost of lost opportunities?

You may not like my comments. Nevertheless, in forums like Citehr when queries are raised, we as members are supposed to provide unbiased views. My above views are out of equanimity. Please do not take these personally.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Hi Dinesh, Thanks for your valuable insights on this topic. We will definitely look into your suggestions. I totally agree with you that our entry-level employees are our supervisors of tomorrow.

Handling Comp Offs

Our major concern is handling comp offs. An employee is granted a comp off, and they are supposed to utilize it within 90 days from the grant. However, most of our employees are pooling these comp offs and utilizing them during festive times when the workload is higher. Our line managers are finding it difficult to handle these kinds of situations. As part of the HR team, we thought that if an employee does not utilize the comp off, we will encash them. However, the downside is that it will be taxed, resulting in a loss for the employee. Therefore, we are in the process of identifying new ways of encashing these comp offs.

Regards, Vijayendra

Hi Vijayendra, the normal practice (as per the Factories Act) is that the maximum period given to avail of Compensatory Off (Co-off) is 60 days. It is not clear whether yours is a factory or not.

If it is a Factory

1. HODs of concerned Technical Departments have to make shift schedules to deploy their workers in such a way that they utilize the services of their workers for extra work on Sundays or holidays only 2–3 days a month without affecting essential work, to reduce the accumulation of Co-off. In some companies, 2-3 employees alone used to work on Sundays or holidays to accumulate Co-off and create a monopoly. This practice should be discouraged by job rotation, and all available employees should be trained to do all types of work to the extent possible. Similarly, rules can be amended proposing employees take Co-off within 60 days, failing which it will lapse. Rules can also be proposed to fix the maximum number of Co-off days to be accumulated, beyond which it will lapse.

HR should insist that HODs maintain an Extra Work Register and Co-off Availed Register, mentioning details of work done on Sundays or holidays, and these should be checked by the HR Department before the sanction of Co-off. If there is abuse of working on Sundays or holidays only to claim Co-off, the matter should be referred to Senior Management for their information and guidance so that even if there is a violation of the rule, HR will not be blamed. The understanding and cooperation of Senior Management are required to avoid blame for the HR Department and to avoid violating rules.

Further, as advised by seniors, the manpower workload analysis and the need for extra work on holidays/Sundays should be checked to reduce the Co-off problem without violating rules.

Regards,
[Email Removed For Privacy Reasons]

HR Consultant, Ex-AGM-HR & Admin, Bengaluru
15.2.15