Staff Leave Expiry is ill-informed - There is a Better Approach!
Joram Kioko
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Almost every employer in Kenya has a clause somewhere in one of their HR policies stating that employees who do not exhaust their accrued leave days within the year will lose them either at the end of the year or by Q1 the following year. Some may not have this codified in a policy document but they will communicate it to their employees. The Employment Act (Kenya) assigns employees a minimum of 21 days of paid leave among other kinds of leave. The intention of the makers of the law was to ensure employees use these days for rest, family and personal growth and development. Because the makers of the law anticipated a situation where employees do not go on leave, they also provided that employees should not lose their leave days for whatever reason until 18 months after the period of accrual.
The effect of this provision is that any attempt by an employer to take away an employee's leave days simply because the employee did not utilise them within the year is illegal and such a move can get an organization into legal and compliance problems. Far worse, it can demotivate staff.
Why do employers do this? First, unused leave is a liability in the sense that, if an employee who has accrued leave was to leave the organization,? they would need to be paid for the accrued days at the same rate as their salary. Sometimes the amounts can be as high as a whole month's salary. Second,? keeping records of who has utilised how many leave days can be time-consuming and needs resources,? something that's not always available.
Before proposing a solution, it is important to understand how employers and employees find themselves in this situation. There are genuine cases where the 21 statutory leave days cannot be utilised within the year. Sometimes organizations are not well staffed to allow the absence of an employee for an extended period and so, out of an employer and employee's consent,? an employee does not get to utilise the 21 days within the year. However, in most cases, not going on leave boils down to an employer's and/or an employee's poor planning. Some organizations do not invest in supporting their employees' welfare and well-being, which is the point of leave days. To them, this is not an organizational objective and so, little to no attention is paid to proactive leave planning.....until it is a problem. Some employees do not plan for their own leave out of their own poor planning, inability to delegate and, sometimes, a misplaced sense of "no one else can do the job I do and if I leave there will be a crisis".
How can employers navigate this situation while being fair and supportive to their staff?
领英推è
1. Proper planning
As management plans how to conquer new markets, buy new machines and reach more customers, staff rest and wellness should be right at the core of it. Management should embed leave management into the organization’s strategic planning.
2. Make leave a part of performance management
Because leave is not seen as a KPI, many organizations do not see it as a performance item and so it never features in performance management conversations. Employers should make leave management a part of a supervisor's and supervisee's KPIs. A SMART KPI for a manager, for example,? would be "All members of my team have utilised 80% of their accrued leave by the end of every quarter". A teammate's KPI may read something like "Utilise 80% of my leave days by the end of every quarter".
3. Create awareness of the law and benefits of rest
It is unfortunate that some employers take advantage of the ignorance of their staff on their legal entitlements. It is also unfortunate that employers exploit the employer-employee power dynamics and take a "take it or leave it" approach. From a behavioural perspective,? it is better to get people to understand the "why" of compliance as opposed to scaring them into compliance.
The above 3 proposals are a healthier way of dealing with the issue of employees not going on leave. It would build more trust, remain within the law and ensure good rest for employees.
Human Resources MIHRM ,CHRP | Recruitment | Learning & Development | Organisational Culture| Reward|Performance Management
1 å¹´Joram Kioko very well said! Leave liablity can be very costly to the employer however, unwell employees can also be costly when we consider the impact that poor mental health or physical accidents and injuries can cause; affecting not only the employer but also the employee and his/her entire ecosystem/stakeholders (Family, society etc.). Staff rest and wellness will also be heavily influenced by the organisational culture which is largely carried by the leadership team. *Do they take leave and delegate with ease? *Do they feel guilty for resting? *Is there provision amongst the teams for members to stand in the gap while their colleague is away? *Are they willing to? If not,does management intervene? This will also be influenced by the systems in place/ lack of. *Are these clear and doable with the provision of a leave handover plan? Last but certainly not least, there must be trust fostered. *Will a colleague handle the tasks and responsibilities to a high standard or will one feel punished and frustrated because either no work was done in their absence or it was all done shoddily. Nobody wants to risk being ushered ?back to work only for one to be exhausted possibly even more than they were before proceeding on leave!