How Does Your Company Handle Weekend Leave When Sick Leave Follows a Long Weekend?

Hi all, I am aware of the fact that when an employee takes a long leave on the weekends, say from Friday to Monday, then the in-between Saturday and Sunday are considered as leave. Again, it depends from one company to another as per their policies if they consider this or not. As far as my company is concerned, we do consider the in-between Saturday and Sunday as days off, and the leave count is deducted.

Scenarios Where Saturday and Sunday May or May Not Be Considered as Leave

1. What if an employee takes a day off on Friday (CL) and then requests sick leave on Monday morning? (Whether the reason is genuine or not)

2. Sick leave taken from Friday to Monday?

I hope to get some clarification on these situations regarding the treatment of Saturday and Sunday in terms of leave. Thank you.

Ideally, after 4 to 5 days of physical work, an employee is entitled to a paid weekly day off. This day off should be considered as time off and not counted as leave in such cases.

Sir, they do have paid weekly offs on Saturdays and Sundays. If they attend work on Friday and take off on Monday and onwards, their weekends aren't considered. Alternatively, if they take off on Friday and report to work on Monday, it still is not considered. Only when they take off from Friday to Monday in a stretch and report to work on Tuesday, their CLs get deducted, including Saturday and Sunday. That's the statutory law, but again, it's independent of the company policies. However, our company follows it and does deduct.

Leave Policy Clarification

My question is, what if a person takes a CL on Friday for a leave and applies SL on Monday? During sick cases, do we consider the weekends? If yes, is SL deducted or CL for Saturday and Sunday? Does the law hold the same rule whether it is CL or SL? Details are described in my question.

Dear Aishwarya,

It is completely dependent on your company policy. If you consider offs between the sandwich leave as leave only, then it should be considered as leave only. Many companies have a policy where they do not allow employees to club CL with SL. However, since your company allows the same, you may make the decision. Ideally, you should count offs as leave.

Thank you.

Manoj Sir,

We do not combine SL with CL. It's not in our policy either. I'm trying to understand your input. My query is if an employee wants to avoid deductions on his number of CL's by planning to apply for a sick leave on Monday after taking CL from Friday to enjoy a long weekend, should we still deduct Saturday and Sunday as CL?

Sandwich Leave Policy in Karnataka

If the local Shops Act in Karnataka does not permit sandwich leave (in Maharashtra, it is permitted), the company policy should discourage it. You will appreciate that the weekly off is earned by the employee by working for six days (in your case, five days) prior, and that is his legal right.

But when it comes to the tendency of employees to enjoy long weekends by clubbing CL and SL, in this case, your policy is right in treating intervening weekly offs/holidays as leave. Since in the instant case the employee availed CL on Friday, in my opinion, it would be proper to treat two days of the weekly off as CL.

Regards,
Vinayak Nagarkar
HR Consultant