Employee Holidays and Leave Policy Example

What Are Leaves

Employees across all industries are entitled to a certain number of leaves per year aside from the holidays and days off. The number and type of leave depends on the organization, industry it caters to, and the state from where it runs its business. In India, we generally follow three types of leaves namely annual leave, casual leave, and medical/sick leave which an employee can avail without loss of pay. The other two types of leaves are maternity and paternity leave.

What Are Holidays

Holidays are paid days off. The Indian government announces its holiday schedule every year. The schedule is divided across three classifications: gazetted, restricted, and state and union territory. Most companies in India offer 10 to 14 public holidays depending upon the company’s practices and industry norms, and the discretion of the concerned states.

Holidays And Leave Policy

The policy also outlines the days our company acknowledges as holidays and provides relevant guidelines for holiday pay. This policy applies to all our employees.

Leaves

Annual Leave

Every employee is entitled to take (number of leaves) paid leaves every year. Employees need to notify the approval manager in writing at least 15 days prior to the date of availing annual leave. They can plan to take all or a portion of annual leave provided. A request for annual leave may not be refused unless it contradicts with already approved leaves. If taking in parts, annual leave cannot be taken more than three times a year.

Annual leave may be carried over to the next year. However, no more than 12 days can be carried over. If the employment contract expires before a worker takes annual leave, compensation for leave is made in proportion to the number of months and numbers of hours worked in a week. These leaves can also be encashed if the employees leave the company. A day is considered as unpaid leave and the day’s pay is cut from the salary if the number of annual leave is over.

Part-time workers are also entitled to 14 paid holidays per year. The same applies to staff working irregular hours.

Casual Leave

This is another form of paid leave that is not earned by an employee. Employees can take casual leave with or without prior permission of their manager. If informing the concerned authority before the casual leave is not possible, employees need to get it ratified within 7 days after they get back from the leave. Failure to do so may result in a pay cut from the salary.

Sick/Medical Leave

Employees can opt for sick leave when they are ailing. However, a medical certificate might be needed to get the  sick leave approved. If the sick leaves are exhausted, employees can use their annual leave to cover for additional days of leave. Unused sick leave can be carried forward to the next year.

Employees can self-certificate for the first 2 days of sickness. After 2 days they will need a doctor’s note. If it occurs just before or during annual leave, they can take that time as sick leave instead.

Maternity Leave

To be eligible for maternity benefit, a woman must have been working as an employee in the organization for a period of at least 80 days in the past 12 months. Payment during the leave period is based on the average daily wage for the period of actual absence i.e., full paid absence from work.

• Female employees are entitled to 26 weeks of leave when she is pregnant.
• Maternity leave of 12 weeks is available to mothers adopting a child below the age of three months from the date of adoption.

Paternity Leave

Male employees who are soon to become fathers can avail up to 15 days of leave within 6 months of their wife’s date of delivery. Once this quota gets over, they can go for other paid or unpaid leaves.

Are You Eligible For Leave

Leave cannot be claimed as a matter of right. When the exigencies of the company so require, discretion to refuse or revoke leave of any description is reserved to the sanctioning authority. Employees will need to report back to their manager in such cases. Else, the organization holds the authority to take action against the employee.

Holidays

National Public Holidays

Mandatory holidays for all the employees are the four national holidays – 26th Jan (Republic Day), 1st May (Labour Day), 15th Aug (Independence Day) and 2nd Oct (Gandhi Jayanti) and the public holidays  that are published in the holiday calendar at the start of every year.

Restricted Holidays

In addition to the public holidays, employees are also entitled to paid days-off during festivals of the particular state of which they are a resource. These holidays are termed as Restricted Holidays. From the list of published restricted holidays employees can choose upto three restricted holidays as per their preference.

Holiday Calendar

The Holiday Calendar is published at the start of every year or in December of the previous year. The calendar is also circulated through email for our employees to plan their year.

List the main holiday dates in a year:

So on…

Compensation For Working On Public Holidays

If an employee misses a public  holiday due to a compressed working week, they can take a compensatory day as time off. Employees who want to take their substitute day must inform their manager and HR.

Working On A Holiday

Whenever working on holidays becomes necessary, we will:

• Pay non-exempt employees their regular hourly rate with a premium. If non-exempt employees are required to work overtime, they will be paid the established overtime rate for extra hours worked.
• Offer exempt employees an additional day off to be taken within (number of months) after the holiday.