Your employees are your greatest treasure. They dedicate a massive amount of their day to your organization and contribute to your success. However, sometimes, they might need a day off for personal or medical reasons. Deducting their salary for leave or maybe two is unjust on the employer’s part because the employee works hard to help the organization achieve its goal. However, being too lenient with the employee leaves may result in them abusing the leave policies. Let’s talk about the factors to be considered while formulating leave policy to ensure employee efficiency and maintain their regularity.
Keep the following factors in consideration while making leave policy
Making a leave policy is not an easy task. The policy should benefit the employee by giving him a limited amount of paid leave while the organization benefits from employee loyalty, reduced turnover, employee productivity, and reduced absenteeism. Here are the things to be kept in mind while making a leave policy.
1. Lawful compliance
While making the provisions for the leave policy for your organization, it must be kept in mind that all the laws and regulations about the same are being followed. You must make sure that you are not violating any legislation.
For example, according to The Factories Act, all workers who have lent their skills to the organization for at least 240 days in a year must be provided earned leave for at least 12 business days. The terms for leave differ for adult workers and young workers. An adult worker is qualified for one day of leave for every 20 days of work. However, a worker under the age of 18 qualifies for one leave for every 15 days worked. Therefore, when you formulate the leave policy, you must ensure that the young workers get 20 leaves and the adult workers earn 15 per year. It may get a little handful to keep all the laws in mind while formulating a policy. For this purpose, you can use human resource management software that makes sure that all the rules are complied with.
2. Standard of the industry
The leave expectations vary from industry to industry. What might be considered an unnecessarily long period of leave for one sector might be a completely normal leave period for another.
The organization must make sure it forms its leave policy in accordance with the industrial norms. For example, let’s say your industry provides leave for 20 working days in a year. If you provide leave for less than 20 working days, current and potential employees will prefer the other companies in the industry and migrate towards them. On the other hand, if you provide leave for more than 20 working days, you will attract more employees, but the industry will not be pleased with you, and your industrial relations may suffer.
3. Requirements of the policy
It is essential to give a thought to all the policy requirements before making the policy. Every provision must clearly communicate the message it is trying to convey. You must explain the procedure for applying for leave, the notice period for such an application, etc. in the policy.
Apart from this, the policy must state the documents an employee needs to submit before going to or after coming from leave. You must clarify if the employees can encash their leaves and how, how many employees can take leave simultaneously, etc. Many employees may likely take leave at the same time. In that case, the organization’s everyday workflow will suffer a dent, and you will face reduced productivity. Moreover, if there is no monthly limit set, the employees may take undue advantage of the paid leaves and misuse it to stay away from work. To avoid such unethical activities, it is better to set a leave availability and mention the consequences of such leave abuse.
4. Applicability
Not every employee may have similar leave applicability. In the example mentioned in subpoint one, we saw that the adult and the young worker’s legal leave availability is different. That is just one aspect. Similar to that, there are numerous aspects based on which various groups of employees are eligible for multiple leave types.
The leave policy must mention the applicability of each type of leaves to the employees. Which leaves apply to every employee and which ones are available to some specific employees. Every employee is entitled to get distinctive paid leaves based on their religion and culture to avoid discrimination.
5. Number of leaves allowed and their type
In the policy, you should mention the nature and type of leaves that the employees are getting. Questions about the leaves being paid or unpaid, sabbatical or non-sabbatical, medical or otherwise, etc., must be answered in the policy.
After having categorized the leaves, you must decide on the number of leaves to be allowed. This may depend on many factors, some of which are the employees’ religion, the culture of your state or country, employees’ nationality, etc. you must also make sure that the number of leaves does not breach the law’s provisions.
The takeaway
Having an acceptable leave policy may result in decreased employee absenteeism and loyalty towards your organization. However, it is in your hands to ensure that the policy you create is all-inclusive and lawfully complied with. An unclear and non-inclusive leave policy may give rise to employee turnover, dissatisfaction, and absenteeism. These consequences will further increase unproductivity and deteriorate the quality of work. Your employees give their maximum to your organization. Making a perfect leave policy that benefits them is an effortless way to make them valued and retain their talent in the organization.
Author bio :
Divyang Metaliya is a Business Consultant working with factoHR. Apart from managing and improving business processes, his hobby is to spread his vast area of knowledge to the people out there. He loves to create content that is innovative and engaging for the readers.
