INNOVATIVE LEAVE POLICIES IN INDIAN IT SECTOR

I intend to cover my topic “Innovative Leave Policies in the Indian IT Sector” under the following heads:

1.    Introduction

2.    Types of leave policies

3.    Leave policies in IT Sector

4.    Recent trend

5.    Overview of Interviews taken

6. Conclusion

 INTRODUCTION

Employment laws set the basis for defining various dimensions of leave, such as categories or forms, eligibility, length, etc. Most firms and companies define leaves in various categories, such as casual leave, sick leave, earned leave, maternity leave, special leaves, loss of pay leave, compensatory leave, etc.

In the case of work contacts, where trade unions are active in the decision-making process for employment contacts, leave rules are drawn up in conjunction with the trade unions. The Industrial Employment Standing Orders Act, which is developed for the implementation of various terms and conditions of services, defines such elaborate consultation.

Three kinds of leaves are usually followed in India, namely earned leave, sick leave, and casual leave. Under various rules, for different types of leaves, different provisions exist.

TYPES OF LEAVE POLICIES

1.  Earned Leave Often called Paid Leave is Earned Leave. This is one year of paid leave for workers. That at any time can be used later. The employer will first subtract your leave from Accrued Leave if you take leave and have Earned Leave in your account, and after that leave, take this leave as unpaid leave and deduct money from your salary. While leaving the firm, you can get this Earned Leave enchased.

2. Casual Leave is another Paid Leave that is not Earned, only entitled to employees if prior permission is given by the Organization. If the employer does not give permission and the employee still takes leave, then his salary is deducted for that day's leave. If an employee has taken CL (Casual Leave), then he is not considered as Absent from Duty. 

 3. Sick / Medical Leave in which employers offer their employees Sick / Medical Leave when they are ill. Some organizations / Companies ask for a Medical Certificate to Sick / Medical Leave Approve when sick. This is not necessary if the employee has used all the medical leave given by his company and uses Earned Leave in his illness. 

4. National Holidays: Under their respective Industrial Establishment Acts, the state government can declare national, festival, and other compulsory holidays for industrial establishments, e.g. The Punjab Industrial Establishment (National And Festival Holidays And Casual And Sick Leave) Act, 1965 was adopted by Delhi, in which every worker is entitled to the following compulsory holidays in each calendar year. Three national holidays of one whole day each on the 26th of January 15th August, and 2nd October; and Four other festival holidays. Similarly, under their respective shops and establishment acts, state governments may declare compulsory national and other holidays for non-factory employees, e.g., the Delhi Shops & Establishment Act, 1954, on 26 January, 15 August, and 2 October, each mandate three national holidays of one full day. If an employee is required to work on national holidays, as per Indian rule, he either receives a compensatory off or is entitled to earn double the pay. It also depends on the State National Holidays Act, where the process for requiring an employee to work on a national holiday is defined and how he will be legally paid.

5.Weekend Holidays: In India, the law prescribes that a worker should not be working beyond a maximum number of hours a week. An adult worker may not be working for more than 48 (forty-eight) hours a week or more than 9 (nine) hours a day. As per the Factories Act, weekly holidays are mandatory. Day 1 of the week, i.e. There will be a weekly holiday on Sunday. The employer must make sure that no worker works more than 10 days without a rest day of 24 hours. Therefore, if the worker is asked to work on a weekly holiday, he should have a full holiday on one of three days immediately or after the normal day of the holiday.

6.Maternity Leave: Maternity leave in India” is a paid leave of absence from work that allows women employees the benefit of taking care of their newly born, and at the same time retain their jobs.

LEAVE POLICIES IN IT SECTOR

Overall, most IT companies follow five types of paid leaves:

1.    Earned Leave/Privilege Leave/Annual Leave.

2.    Casual Leave.

3.    Sick Leave.

4.    National Holidays.

5.    Flexible Holidays on regional festivals.

RECENT TREND

1.    Paytm on Saturday said it has requested all its employees to contribute some of their leaves to ensure that its operations run smoothly as the government eases restrictions through parts of the country under lockdown 4.0. This not only has a positive impact on the balance-sheet but will also help the company ensure that it continues with its growth drive.

2. Common Floor institutionalized “extended weekends” from this financial year — planned around key holidays, where the entire company gets 4-5 days off. Such extended weekends were planned around May Day, Independence Day, Dussehra, Diwali, and New Year. This policy helped people get to take off without guilt or pressure and there is no one else disturbing them simply because no one else is at work. The initiative’s being rated high on the internal satisfaction survey

3. Flipkart has launched a new leave policy under which employees will be able to take one to six months’ unpaid time away from work as a career break which will allow employees the chance to balance their careers with other commitments, responsibilities, and interests, and will be applicable for those who have spent a minimum of two years with the company

4. Home services company, Urban Company (formerly UrbanClap) has launched an industry-first initiative by announcing its Mental Health Leave Policy. Under this employee-centric initiative, employees will be allowed to take unlimited sick leaves in case they are suffering from any form of mental or physical illness, particularly if the patient has contracted COVID 19. In addition to the leave policy, Urban Company is making some of the top psychologists of the country accessible to its employees by partnering with the leading mental wellness platform, iWill. Any employee who wants to avail of the service would have to register on iWill, and thereafter, would relate to a leading psychologist who will address the psychological challenges faced by the employee. The complete consultation would be paid for by the company.

5. On Labour Day, Google gave its workers an extended weekend, expanding its work-from-home model to summer 2021, aimed at promoting the well-being of employees during the coronavirus pandemic. The tech giant added a day to the two-day long weekend to ensure its workers retain their peace of mind and not let work take a toll on them. The organization also urged all administrators to motivate their teams to do the same. "We strongly encourage you to take this day off - and managers should actively support their team to re-prioritize work commitments to do so." and managers should actively support their team to re-prioritize work commitments to do so.

 OVERVIEW ON INTERVIEWS TAKEN

1.  Our group consisted of 12 members, we divided members into 2 groups of 6 each.
2. Our group took 2 interviews, first, we took an interview with Mr. Swapnil Sawant, he has 5.5 years of experience in the IT industry. We talked to Mr. Sawant about the Leave policies of the IT sector, particularly because we learned a lot about how employees are treated about leaves and what the circumstances were during the whole pandemic of the Leave policy.
3. We then had an interesting chat with Ms. Praghti Malhotra, a contractual Analyst at one of the leading IT companies. Ma'am explained in detail how employee-friendly the policies in the IT industry are, which help in the overall goals promotion of both the employer as well as the employees.

 UNIQUE HR LEAVE POLICIES AND WHAT THEY INDICATE ABOUT A COMPANY’S CULTURE

 1.    Core / Mandatory Leave During the core leave, employees need to be away from the workplace and should not engage in any work-related matters including replying to emails on their phone. Organizations like these emphasize the need to unwind for a productive self. It is the work hard, party hard kind. 'Continuous' employees have the liberty to take this leave at any point in the current fiscal year, during their term of employment, by arrangement with their manager.

 2. Unlimited Vacation While we have got the unlimited data packages in India, we need to wait a bit longer for the unlimited paid vacation policy. As we move towards a time where there is an increase in the number of employers these days, there are chances that your workplace may offer a flexible or 'unlimited' vacation policy as an HR Leave Policy. The idea here is that you as an employee are free to take as much time off as you choose if you get the work done. It is a focus on producing great results, rather than just putting in the hours. It still seems a far stretched idea of this being a part of HR Leave policies in India, but the possibilities are surely there. Few international companies like Virgin airlines and Netflix are differentiating themselves with an unlimited leave policy. Organizations like these are placing their bets on their employee’s self-motivation rather than supervision.

 3. Negative Leaves This one is like an overdraft facility on your credit card. To simply put, negative leave policies are basically about taking more leave than your accrued leave entitlement set as per the organization. Negative leave policies can apply to both annual and personal leaves.

 4. Uncapped Sick leave as you might have guessed, this type of leave policy comes with no strings attached, sort of a deal with the employees having the liberty to take as many sick leaves as possible they would require. A leave type on which there is often analysis about abuse and absenteeism, Godrej has distinguished itself by offering an uncapped sick leave. The organization believes that illness does not come with a count of days and most importantly the company illustrates a culture of trust by adopting a policy with no limit.

 5. Family Leave While maternity and paternity leaves seem to be the hot topic of the year, family leave policy is a unique employee benefit offered by one of the Big 4s, Deloitte. The company offers a 16-week paid leave to not just new parents but even to employees who need to care for an ailing family member. Organizations like these are truly empathetic and believe in investing in an employee’s personal life.

 6. Leave Pooling If you have heard that the sharing and pooling economy is on the rise, then it is true. Collaboration is at the core of these organizations that allow employees to share their leaves with those who need it. Accenture calls it the ‘Hours That Help' program.

 CONCLUSION

The topic of our project was innovative leave policies in the Indian IT sector. This experiential project has provided us with a massive learning process over the past 21 days, offering an opportunity to learn about different leave policies in the IT sector in terms of exploring the true impact of social media on multiple networks. By engaging with professionals in the HR industry, I have come to get so many insights and fresh perspectives.

By keeping in touch with different professional groups, this project has really helped me learn how to develop my professional networks. We even had an opportunity to interview 2 HR experts from the IT sector who shared the various leave policies of their companies they follow and even their difficulties they faced due to the pandemic.

 It really pushed me to read more and focus deeper on getting a better understanding of the issue, it is great to learn about how the hr industry is progressively implementing creative leave policies in terms of wellness leaves, paternity leaves, having to post different articles about different happenings about the innovative leave policies in the Indian IT market. I feel fortunate that such an opportunity has been granted as it has helped me expand my understanding of the role of HR play in the IT industry.