Can Companies Deny Casual or Unpaid Leaves Around Holidays for Business Needs?

Greetings to all the learned members of the forum! Kindly guide: Can a company prohibit its employees from taking casual leaves/unpaid leaves on certain dates in the business interest? For example, we have holidays on 13th Aug - Second Saturday, 14th Aug - Sunday, 15th Aug - Independence Day. Employees are planning to take leaves on 11th & 12th Aug as well on account of Rakhi. Can the company disapprove these kinds of leaves? We are a service-based organization with our major clientele in the U.S.A.

If there is no client, there is no business. Under any circumstances, services to clients cannot be stopped.

The situation, as mentioned in the post, would be better addressed by discussing between employees/Union and Management. This dialogue may lead to an agreement allowing some employees to take leave on 11th & 12th Aug, 2022, after mutual consent.

S K Bandyopadhyay (WB, Howrah)
CEO - USD HR Solutions
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USD HR Solutions – To strive towards excellence with effort and integrity.

Regards.

You cannot prohibit employees from availing leave if they provide valid reasons. It is to be understood that if the majority of employees seek leave in advance or belatedly after being absent from work, it can be construed as an act of illegal absenteeism or boycott from work, and denial of leave on such occasions will be in order. Further, the employer can initiate disciplinary action against such employees as per the provisions of certified standing orders.

Proactive Measures to Manage Leave
As a proactive measure, you can restrict leave being availed by employees en masse by appealing to employees. It is also open to have an agreement with the union or employees' representatives regarding restrictions on the number of employees to be granted leave in the interest of running operations without significant disruption.

Regards.

I will disagree with Senthilkumar. Employees need to apply for leave, and the leave needs to be specifically granted. Leave on a particular day is not entirely a right.

However, it is possible that people will still be absent and will give a doctor's note stating they were unwell. So it is better to be proactive and discuss the matter with the employees, maybe by offering incentives to some who agree not to take leave and to encourage the team to mutually agree on who will work and who will be able to take leave.

Management must make every effort to grant leaves to employees if their reasons are convincing and pressing. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that leave cannot be availed or taken as a matter of right. Hence, it is suggested to exercise judiciousness in granting leaves.

Managing Mass Leave Requests
If employees are planning to avail leave en masse, it should be curtailed. Management can appeal to employees by putting a notice on the notice board.

Thanks to the learned members for your valuable opinions. We have decided that we will allow the employees to take one leave either on the 11th or 12th of August as a Casual Leave, but not on both days.