Leave policies in several companies are ignored, due to various reasons such as workload, poor management, etc. This impacts the overall working environment of the organizations and demotivated the employees. However, these leave policies are of utmost importance. Generally, one of the questions that are asked by any candidates who are being recruited by a company is about the organizational policy. Keeping apart the number of leaves, the potential employees also wish to know the number of leaves and the type of leaves they have in the company. In order to stay compliant, an employee should make sure he is well aware of the types of leaves offered by the company.
The importance of a leave policy
A leave policy is a combined set of rules, guidelines, and procedures that provide an idea to govern the process, timeframes, and report the procedures for the time taken off work. This policy helps define the employees the type of leaves they have.
Listed below are some of the types of leaves which are crucial in the companies:
- Sick Leaves: To recover from an illness and take care of the health, the employees are given sick leaves. These leaves are very crucial as they allow the employees to get rest without worrying about losing their pay. Sick Leave is mandatory in several countries to ensure the wellbeing of the employee. Companies must provide 15 days of sick leave in a year to all its employees. Moreover, the company must be flexible with the sick leaves and it should also provide longer sick leaves if the employees have severe health issues. Although, in several companies, the unused sick leaves can be carried forward to the next year.
- Casual Leaves: Casual leaves can be taken by the employees if they want to travel, take a vacation, rest, or attend family events. These leaves are given to allow the employee to take a certain time off for any of the life events or functions. Providing the employees with paid leave will allow them to prioritize their private life as required thus making them feel appreciated in the company. Generally, most of the companies provide a maximum of 8 to 15 days of casual leaves per year.
- Public Holidays: Public Holidays are the ones which are announced by the government and these leaves are mandatory for a company to grant. These government-granted holidays should be followed by every association—schools, banks, government offices as well as the private companies.
- Religious Holidays: Christmas, Eid, Easter, Holi, or Yom Kippur, the employee will want to have a holiday to celebrate the festival with his family and his loved ones. Therefore, the company needs to accommodate these holidays with the option of taking leave on that particular day.
- Maternity Leave: From taking care of the new-born to getting recovered from the delivery, new mothers should have maternity leave. This type of leave should be included in the company’s policy as maternity leave is very crucial. Maternity Leave is provided for a period of 7 to 17 weeks depending on the country in which the company is based out of. Ideally, 14 weeks is a very good amount provided to a mother for taking care of the baby. The company should be flexible in providing extra leave days in case of prenatal complications.
- Paternity Leave: Paternity leave is granted to new fathers—husbands or partners of pregnant women, the surrogate parent, or someone who has recently adopted a kid—in order to look after and take care of the new-born child. But unlike the maternity leaves, paternity leaves are granted for 1-2 weeks only. Although some countries mandate 1-2 weeks of paternity leave for new fathers. Companies rarely provide paternity leave for the birth of their child as these leaves are not granted by the government.
- Bereavement leave: Losing a loved one is an unavoidable and unpredictable situation and hence the employees tend to take sudden leaves. The HR of the company should have a bereavement leave policy so that the employee has some time off to grieve and manage some of the responsibilities. The inclusion of bereavement leave in the policy will allow the employee to ask for a leave without any hindrance. Generally, most of the HRs provide 3 to 7 days off for bereavement leaves.
- Compensatory leave: The employees who have clocked in more hours than they were required to be entitled to the compensatory leaves. It should be ensured that any employee who works on a ‘Saturday’ is liable for compensatory off or ‘comp off’.
- Sabbatical leaves: Leaves of such kind are often granted to the employees who want a ‘break from work’ or to take time off for physical and mental health reasons. Unlike other leaves, the sabbatical leaves last from almost 6 months to a year. Sabbaticals are mostly taken by the professors in order to take a break from teaching and to work on the research of their project. There are some companies which provide sabbatical leaves to their employees to appreciate them for their loyalty if the employees have worked for more than 3 years.
- Unpaid Leave: If at all an employee has used all his leaves and exceeded them, and then the employee can apply for a leave that doesn’t fall under the special leave category. Such types of leaves are unpaid ones. Any leaves taken under this will surely cut the pay of the employee.
- Study Leave: The study leaves are used mostly when the University grants them and are only on the basis of the needs of the University. The duration of the leaves is completely dependent on the University.
We have managed to gather the most common leaves practiced by companies from all over the world. Though, there are few leaves that are personalized depending upon the needs and requirements of the employee and company. The employee should be made aware of the number and type of leaves he will be granted with. The company should mostly be in line with the laws and the regulations that come under the leave policy.
