Balancing Leave Policies: How Can We Ensure Fair Leave Distribution for All Employees?

Leave Policy Adjustment for Equal Leave Distribution

My query is that we have 12 casual leaves (CL) in a year for all employees and a total of 9 festival and national holidays in a year for all employees. Other than these leaves, for Muslim staff, we have two extra leaves in a year besides the 12 CL and 9 festivals. Therefore, a non-Muslim person is getting 12+9=21 leaves, whereas a Muslim employee is getting 12+9+2=23 leaves in a year.

Strategy for Equal Leave Distribution

How can we make a strategy to adjust these 2 extra leaves in a year so that Muslim employees get an equal leave as non-Muslim staff? We cannot increase the leaves beyond 9 festival leaves, nor can we ask Muslim employees to work on their festival days like others.

Hi, you need to incorporate those 2 days as a part of the 9 days which will resolve your problem.

Dear Friend,

Firstly, don't combine holidays and leave. Holidays should be provided as per the various statutes, while leave depends on the company policy. Also, you have not specified the nature of your business—is it a company, firm, or shop?

How many Muslim and non-Muslim employees are there? Perhaps you could consider promoting equality among employees of different religions, not just Muslims.

Thank you.

Hi,

You can keep 12 CL for both Muslim and non-Muslim employees. Since you have 9 holidays every year, you can add 2 more holidays within those 9 holidays. Currently, the company has a holiday calendar containing 11 holidays. Please communicate to employees that out of the 11 holidays, each employee can take a total of 9 holidays (keeping 2 holidays as floating holidays).

Hope this information helps.

Thanks!!

Thank you for your reply. As per our discussion, I would like to inform you that it's a publishing company, and out of 75 employees, we currently have 4 Muslim employees working.

I agree with the point of communicating to employees that out of 11 holidays, the total holidays each employee can take are 9 (keeping 2 holidays as floating holidays).

I am looking forward to a few more suggestions.

Thanks!
HR

First of all, make a distinction between the festivals and national/compulsory holidays, and check how many are left at your discretion to play around with. You may have staff from other communities joining the company in the future. So, keeping in mind all the factors, have a policy of including festivals that may be of importance to different faiths and provide options without exceeding a limit of 9 per year. You can ask employees to indicate their preferences at the beginning of the year for planning purposes. No faith should take precedence over others, and all should be treated equally. While the holiday list may seem lengthy, no employee should exceed the prescribed limit of 9 days off, which HR must ensure.

If the total of national holidays and state holidays amounts to 5, you may include important festivals of the communities currently working and allow them to choose any four from the provided list. This approach may result in your office not being fully closed on days other than national holidays, as some staff will be available for work with the options given.

Thanks and Regards

"Keep 2 holidays as floating holidays. What will the roles be for those 4 employees when all other people are on leave? Out of 11 days, in this case, only 9 days are available for all employees to enjoy."

Thank you for all your valuable views. I presented your suggestions regarding this issue to my director, and he agreed with them. Therefore, we decided that, instead of announcing 9 holidays a year, we can offer 11 holidays for all employees. The condition is that out of the 11 holidays (including 2 for Eid), any 9 can be taken as leave. Employees have the choice. If they choose leave days on non-working days, we can adjust these 2 extra leaves with the 12 casual leaves (CL) available per year (1 per month). This means they will be allowed 11 holidays a year, but with 2 fewer CLs out of the 12.

According to my thoughts, this rule will be more comfortable for Muslim individuals so they can celebrate their festival, while others may prefer to have their regular holiday leaves. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions.

Jurisdiction and Applicability of the Punjab Industrial Establishments Act

I am not sure whether your publishing company falls within Delhi jurisdiction or in Haryana State. Anyway, I am given to understand that the Punjab Industrial Establishments (National and Festival Holidays and Casual and Sick Leave) Act, 1965 is applicable to your establishment. At the outset, you would have had the 5 festival holidays approved under the provisions of the above Act by choosing them from among the festivals mentioned in the schedule in consultation with your entire labor.

Discrepancy in Festival Holidays for Muslim Employees

Since national and festival holidays are applicable to all employees in the same organization at the same scale irrespective of their religion, I am unable to understand how only the Muslim employees came to get 2 more festival holidays. It would be better if you could clarify this.

Service Conditions and Additional Benefits

Furthermore, the standards and scales of service conditions prescribed by any law would be the minimum requirement only. Therefore, there is no statutory bar to granting more benefits.

Customary Rights and Industrial Disputes Act

Another issue that comes to mind is that the 7 festival holidays enjoyed by the Muslim employees of your establishment every year have become a customary right for them. Thus, it cannot be modified or restricted to their disadvantage without following the provisions of section 9-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

Suggestions for Equalizing Festival Holidays

Therefore, my suggestion would be to either increase the total number of festival holidays to 7 for all employees and get them approved by the relevant authority, OR introduce 2 restricted holidays on the occasion of any two festivals of the employees' choice, including the already mentioned Islamic festivals, to all employees, in case the two Islamic festivals were added informally after the subsequent joining of the Muslim employees.