Balancing Festival Leaves in IT: How Can We Make Our Policy Inclusive Without Adding More Days?

I am working with an IT company. I am supposed to revise the leave policy and its process. Currently, we are providing 12 leaves per Financial Year and 10 other Festival and National Holidays, totaling 22 leaves in a year.

Additionally, the festival leaves include only Hindu festivals. Please suggest how I can adjust other festival leaves for other communities working at our place without increasing the number of festival leaves provided. Kindly let me know the best leave policy and processes that can be designed for the company.

Since your company is an IT company, it would fall under the purview of the State's Shops and Establishments Act. As such, the State's National and Festival Holidays Act would also automatically apply. Since there is no indication of the exact location of your company in the post, we, as respondents, have no option other than to offer our replies based on generalization only.

As per every Shops & Estt. Act, there would be a minimum of 36 days of leave comprising Casual Leave, Sick Leave, and Privilege Leave, each at 12 per annum, with the stipulation that PL can be availed of after the completion of one year of service only. Similarly, under the National and Festival Holidays Act, employees should be allowed 4 National Holidays and a minimum of 5 Festival Holidays every year. Since festivals have a socio-religious orientation, festival holidays should be specified by the employer in a way that avoids religious discrimination, as outlined in the Act and Rules for their initial approval and any subsequent changes. The number of leaves and holidays statutorily prescribed are minimum requirements only.

Therefore, while formulating your leave policy, you have to consider several factors such as the nature of the business of the establishment, the composition of the workforce in terms of sex, religion, etc., the actual number of working days, and similar considerations.

In the question, you have not described the working days—5 days or 6 days per week? According to the States National and Festival Holidays Act, it would also become automatically applicable.

I can suggest you revise your policy to 12 days per year from January to December and provide leaves for festivals common for Hindus:

1. Kanuma
2. Republic Day
3. May Day
4. State Formation Day (optional)
5. Independence Day
6. Vinayaka Chaturdhi
7. Bakrid or Ramzan
8. Mahatma Gandhi Jayanthi
9. Christmas
10. Mahashivarathri
11. Ugadi
12. Sriramanavami
13. Vijayadasami
14. Deepavali

If you do not provide any of the 12 mentioned above.

Hi Friends,

At the time of separation of employees, as per the Shops and Establishment Act provisions, what should be the salary payable for the balance of leave at credit of the employee on the date of separation? Is this to be calculated on the full salary consisting of basic, HRA, conveyance, and other allowances or only the basic pay component has to be computed? There are different views by different companies. Which is correct as per the act? Thanks.

Proposal for Inclusive Leave Policy

As you mentioned that only Hindu festivals result in a total of 22 leaves, I would suggest introducing a special leave quota for the following examples: Chitragupta Puja, Rakshabandhan, Id, Bakrid, Krishna Janmastami, Christmas, Makar Sankranti, etc.

These holidays are sometimes designated as public holidays and sometimes not. Individuals belonging to these communities could avail of a one-day special leave for these occasions. This leave quota would be valid from January to December, and if not utilized, it would expire.

Please consider if this proposal could work for you.

Regards,
Tushar Singh

Dear Anonymous,

The leave policy of any establishment in India depends on its location. It would not be wise to comment on the exact status until its location is disclosed, as different states have different rules for it.

Regards

Thank you for your query regarding Festival Holidays.

For continuous processing plants/establishments with uninterrupted work, you may provide 2 optional holidays along with the proposed National & Festival Holidays. This allows individuals from different communities to take holidays on their religious days without increasing the number of declared holidays. This approach helps maintain minimum manpower to manage essential services like production, electricity, HR, etc., as employees will not observe all festivals on the same date. When one set of employees from one community takes holidays, the other set will work, and vice versa. Thus, minimum manpower can be ensured by adjusting manpower to suit shift needs and avoid overtime or work stoppages due to holidays.

HR has to frame the leave rules, keeping in mind the interests of both the company and its employees.

Combined Rules Governing All Types of Leaves

I have framed the combined rules governing all types of leaves, including rules for earning work-offs, short & long leave rules, extra work - compensatory off rules, compensatory off application & register, reduction of leave due to absenteeism, leave without pay, maternity benefits rules, and paid leave encashment plus application for encashment forms and registers.

Leave administration and management are important HR functions and can be challenging not only for those who frame the leave rules but also for the HR staff who have to administer them in their day-to-day work. Conflicts may arise with employees when leave rules are not clearly spelled out. Each company management frames the rules to suit its business needs, and these can vary from company to company. However, they must be drafted/framed within the scope of rules framed under the Factories/Shops & Establishments Acts.

Most employees try to save leave (and they must save since that is what they'll get - un-availed leave as encashment when they leave the services). Similarly, the company also wants employees to exhaust their leave to reduce the company's burden/liability for encashment when employees leave the service.

As the urgency to take leave cannot be predicted, some employees may go in the middle of the week (say from Friday and return on Wednesday) as opposed to planned leave (from Monday to Saturday) to save pre-fixing and suffixing Sunday/holiday/weekly off. When an employee suddenly goes due to urgency (in the middle of the week) and returns after 4-5 days, how should the intervening work-off be adjusted to save their work-off?

Short Leave & Long Leave Policy

HR can frame a short leave and long leave policy so that needy employees will not lose their work-off in such critical times. Only when long leave is taken (planned leave) will intervening work-offs count.

Similarly, providing 2 optional holidays in the holiday list for 2015 will help both the company and its employees.

We have already filed/declared the holiday list with the Factory Inspector, Labour Commissioner, and Notice Board. We also have rules to give work-offs as per the Factories/Shops & Establishments Act. We also have rules regarding the minimum days to work/(apply leave with pay) in a week to entitle an employee for a work-off. We should have short & long leave rules policies so that the employee's grievance of losing a work-off due to taking short leave in the middle of the week will not happen, and HR will not be blamed for not framing proper leave rules.

Today, the HR department is becoming a target for not framing/implementing progressive leave rules, although leave rules are available to take care of both the employee's interest and that of the company.

I can assist in framing all the rules and policies. I have served over 30 years in HR, IR, legal, and administrative works of 6 manufacturing companies and dealt with all situations, ISO certifications, consultants' work, etc.

I request you to provide me with some details of the company, such as the company's name, location, your mobile number, email ID, HR department staff, total employee strength, products manufactured, etc., so that I can offer HR consultancy.

Please provide your email ID to send a consultancy proposal with all policies to set up the HR department, frame standing orders, leave rules, etc.

Thanks.

Regards

[Email Removed For Privacy Reasons], Ph: [Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]

HR Consultant & Advocate, Ex-AGM (HR&A),

# Rahaman Bldg., Chikkamaranahalli, Devasandra, BANGALURU, Karnataka, S. India.

#. FS 478, Dr. Ambedkar High School, CM Layout, HIRIYUR

Mobile No. [Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons] Email: [Email Removed For Privacy Reasons]

Email: [Email Removed For Privacy Reasons], Qualification: BA, LLB, PGDPM, (MBA-HR),

Ex-Member, NIPM, Calcutta, Ex-Trainee-Member, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Languages Known: All South Indian Languages + English & Hindi

Formulating Leave Policies for IT Companies

Any company or organization must formulate its own leave rules and policies as per the relevant Act and rules under which it was established. For government companies or organizations, there are systematic leave policies, such as Casual Leave per year, Sick Leave per year, Earned Leave, or Privileged Leave.

As your company is an IT company, it is typical to have 12 casual leaves per year. Regarding the remaining leave, your company should formulate the leave policy based on organizational behavior and management magnanimity. Employee welfare should be a priority. If your company is liberal towards employees, besides casual leave, you can formulate other leaves such as Sick Leave, Earned Leave, and Maternity Leave for female employees. Labor Acts and Shops and Establishment Acts clearly outline the facilities to be provided to employees concerning leaves, among other things.

Sirs,

Kindly clarify the following two situations for an office in TN:

1. Oct 3 & 4 are weekly off days. If a person avails casual leave on Oct 1 (Friday), do we include the off days?

2. Oct 3 & 4 are weekly off days. If a person avails PL from 28th Sep to 1st Oct, do we include the national holiday (2) and the weekly off days (3 & 4).

Thanks

Dear friend,

The number of days spent on authorized leave has to be treated as duty only. Prefixing and/or suffixing holidays to the single spell of leave is subject to the discretion of the sanctioning authority based on exigencies of work. Based on the above proposition, yes is the answer to your query numbers (1) and (2). However, combining of casual leave with weekly off days and national and festival holidays can be restricted to a certain limit as followed in government departments.

Hi Tushar,

Thank you! This can be useful, but we work for 6 days a week. The number of employees from other religions (besides Hindu) is very minimal. How can I provide this benefit to them in a special quota? The office will not be opened for 4-5 employees on a holiday to make them compensate for the leaves taken by them for their festival. Please guide on how it can be managed in such a scenario.