Sandwich Leave - if an employee takes sick leave on Saturday and if company has a Public Holiday on Monday

Hello All,

I need to know about the Sandwich Leave policy. If an employee takes sick leave on Saturday and the company has a Public Holiday on Monday, will Sunday be considered as Sandwich Leave? Please suggest.

Hi,

Sandwich will apply only if the employee availed leave on Tuesday. In this case, the employee took leave on Saturday, had their weekly off on Sunday, and Monday was declared a holiday. So, Sunday should be considered as the weekly off only.

Hello All,

I'm an HR consultant in one of the IT consulting firms, and I need to understand the Sandwich leave policy. We work for 6 days a week, and we have this sandwich leave policy in place in our company. As per that policy, if any employee applies for leave on Saturday and extends their leave to Monday as well, then Sunday is considered as leave.

However, I have a case wherein an employee has applied for leave on Saturday, and on Monday, we had a holiday for Ramzan. In this case, will Sunday be calculated as leave or not? Can you please help me understand how this works?

Thank you for the clarification.

If Saturday was a holiday and the employee took a leave on Monday, no way the sandwich policy will apply. This is because he did not take leave on Saturday but it was a holiday for the entire organization. Sandwiching will take place only when there are holidays or weekly off in between two leaves. Here he has taken only one leave, i.e., on Monday. Suppose the employee was on leave on Friday, then the holiday of Saturday and the weekly off of Sunday would be lost for him as a sandwich.

Note: The sandwich policy should not be applied arbitrarily. When the number of leaves 'earned' or credited is based on the number of days' work performed by an employee in the preceding year, you cannot sandwich the leaves.

We work for 6 days in a week, not 5 days. An employee has applied for Sick leave on Saturday, and on Monday, she has applied for an optional holiday for Ramzan. In this case, will Sandwich leave be applicable?

Yes, my answer was based on the same presumption only.

When was your holiday for Ramzan? Saturday or Monday? It should be on Saturday. Was that pre-announced? You are expected to exhibit the holidays of any year in the month of December itself. Now, if the employee, without knowing that Saturday is a holiday, had applied for leave (sick leave), you can reject it by stating that the day is not a working day, and an employee is not supposed to take leave on a holiday. And when she applies for leave on Monday, how does Sunday become a sandwich leave? No.

You may see things in a practical way. HR is not a detective or fault-finding mechanism but should be sympathetic towards the employees. If you had displayed the holiday list well in advance, the employee would not have applied for leave on Saturday. It is up to the management whether compensatory holiday should be allowed or not, and I will not grant any compensatory holiday if an employee was on leave on a day that was declared a holiday. Now, if the employee was on leave on Saturday and was granted a compensatory holiday on Monday, then also the sandwich policy will not apply there because Monday is not a leave day; instead, it was given as a holiday.

Continuing with the same question, was Saturday a working day for the organization? If yes, you cannot mark a leave on that day. Therefore, if the employee takes leave on Monday, Sunday will be the weekly off and cannot be marked as leave.

Thanks for the clarification. Just on a lighter note, I'm not trying to find any fault here. The only reason I brought up this topic in this forum is to learn more and address it fairly rather than making assumptions. However, your response has completely clarified the Sandwich Leave Policy for me.