If an employee has 8 casual leave pending in the month of November, can the employee avail 3 days in the first week and 3 in the last week of December?

Good evening, friends. I work as an HR Manager for a hospital and have a query. I would like to know if an employee has 8 casual leave days pending in the month of November, can the employee avail 3 days in the first week and 3 days in the last week of December? I kindly request you to answer my query.

Greetings,

It totally depends on your company policy. Going by the information, it is feasible to take leave unless you have any internal cutoff measure regarding the maximum permissible days of CL. I presume that the leave will lapse at the end of the calendar year.

S. Raghu Ram

Hi Sujatha,

This is regarding your leave policy. Perhaps your policy does not permit the carryover of unutilized CL to the next calendar year, i.e., 2021. It's a general practice in most entities that CL is credited in advance in January of a new year and closed by December 31st. There's no uniform rule across all entities regarding CL; some follow 10 days, while others follow 12 days (on average, one day per month). Therefore, any unutilized CL remaining on December 31st either elapses automatically or is not allowed to be encashed. Consequently, employees with spare CL often rush to exhaust all days before December 31st.

There is no hard and fast rule as per statute; practices are followed by the entities concerned or at the discretion of the HoDs. The purpose of CL is for emergencies, sudden illness, etc. It is seldom utilized for only a couple of days. However, if there is no work pressure or official exigencies, and relaxation is permitted, there's no harm in allowing employees to exhaust all balance days before they elapse. In short, if the absence of concerned employees is not expected to cause any hardship or disturbance in their routine or official duties, and the HoD is satisfied, CL for additional days can be permitted.

As a general practice seen in many organizations, CL could be availed for even half a day and also for 2 days at a stretch. If your organization has a leave policy that permits an employee to avail CL for 3 days consecutively, you may permit him/her to avail. However, the unavailed portion of CL shall automatically lapse at the end of the year and cannot be carried forward.

Hello Sujatha Rao,

Please check if your office has a leave policy allowing employees to avail the maximum CL at a time. Many organizations allow 3 days CL at a time. If this is available, the concerned employee may be able to take leave twice in a month, availing 3 days leave on each occasion, subject to the approval of the leave sanctioning authority. When it's year-end and there are no pressing issues, the higher authority is often open to considering such a request. The smooth working of the department must not get disturbed.

In a few organizations, they allow employees to encash unutilized CL in the new year or allow them to accumulate up to a certain number.

I have worked with an organization where the practice was to convert unutilized CL into Privilege leave, and there was also a facility to encash Privilege leave.

Please check the leave policy or practices in your organization, and you may find the way ahead.

Thanks & Regards,

Rajendra

Powai Office.