How Should I Calculate Leave for an Employee Who Returned Late After Vacation?

Dear Seniors,

I am working as a Senior HR Executive in a manufacturing company in Mumbai. In my organization, one of my employees was on PL for 5 days, starting from Monday to Friday, and was planning to resume office the following Monday. Due to his train being late, he arrived halfway through the day.

In this case, should we calculate his leave as half a day or 2 and a half days (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday half day)? Please suggest what to do.

Thank you in advance for the suggestions.

Regards, Tulasi

Dear Tulsi,

This matter completely depends on your company policy. Ideally, if you count time off due to prefix and suffix applications as part of leave, then it will be considered as 2.5 days of absence.

If your company takes care of employees personally and their benefits, then you will deduct half a day on Monday. However, most of the time, managers or employers will only consider half a day off on Monday.

Thank you.

Handling Absences Due to Delayed Return from Leave

If the employee has no past track record of such absences, this delay can be condoned. However, if he is regularly irregular, then you can deduct for half a day. In any case, if the company's office is closed, logically, it was not functioning, and hence, his absence cannot be treated that way. Therefore, deducting two and a half days would not be appropriate. Rules are there to guide people. Therefore, if you have no policy as such, you can mention as a sub-clause that in the event of somebody coming very late after five days of PL, only half a day on Monday will be treated as leave of absence, as a special case.

Best wishes

Act according to your leave policy or standing order. In the instant case, the workman remained absent on Saturday, whereas he had to resume his shift duty. He remained absent on Saturday and Sunday but resumed duty on Monday, albeit by half a day.

Understanding HR Practices in Employee Penalization

Human resource practice is not all about penalizing employees, especially when an incident occurs that was beyond the employee's control. We should interpret the rules so that staff understand them better. If the employee is in the habit of behaving in that way, then definitely, he has to be penalized according to your policy. If, on the other hand, he is well-behaved and observes the rules of your company, this one-off lateness might demoralize him if you deal with him severely.

Considering Verbal Caution for First Offense

Do you have something like a 'verbal caution' for the first offense in your rules and regulations? If he was to report on a Monday, why should you count backwards? You have stated that he was to report on Monday, so that's what should matter. Look at the resumption date stated on his leave form. If, for example, one asks for leave for one week to resume work on a Tuesday and then reports for work half a day late on that Tuesday, how would you treat this case?