How many PL or EL and SL can be accumulated and carried to the next year?

Hi all,

Wishing you all a very good morning. I would like to request feedback and information on the following topic:

Our organization is registered as a Pvt. Hospital operating in the state of West Bengal. We offer 10 CL, 14 PL or EL, and 7 SL per month. The leave distribution follows the state labor laws.

I need to know how many PL or EL and SL can be accumulated and carried over to the next year. Additionally, please inform me of the advance notice employees need to give when applying for PL before being granted.

I work here as an Asst. Manager in H.R. and the daily attendance is very low. I am doing my best to implement significant changes. Kindly share your knowledge.

Regards,
Soumajit Chowdhury
Kolkata

1. I am trying my best to make some remarkable changes. What are your best efforts so far to bring about remarkable changes? For leave inquiries, please refer to your State Shop & Establishment Act.

Hello Soumajit,

I can provide you with some guidance regarding industrial experience. Maybe you will have to check with other hospitals in your city to see what their policies are.

Usually, the accumulation limit of SL, PL, or EL in industries is defined by the company. At least, from what we observed, for SL, it will be carried forward with no accumulation limit. However, SL cannot be encashed at the time of leaving or during retirement; they are simply to be utilized.

For PL or EL to be carried forward, the limit is usually 120 days for employees up to 50 years of age and 150 days for employees aged 50 and above (since they are closer to retirement). PL is definitely encashable. Generally, one has to apply 15 days/8 days in advance to avail PL. Again, it depends on the company to specify the criteria.

As rightly suggested above, please refer to the Shop & Establishment Act of your state.

Dear Soumajit,

Absenteeism is a big issue, especially when you are working in a service sector. I can relate to you on that. However, if people have leave balance, they take it as their right to utilize it. Therefore, in many companies' leave policy, they write the first clause as "leave is not a matter of right; leave without prior approval will be considered as absent." However, no one practices it in a literal sense. If you want to amend the leave policy of your company to control absenteeism, put the clause of prior approval in it except in some emergencies. Also, issue warning letters for the same. If the problem persists, you can take disciplinary action too. Believe me, after two or three cases of actual action taken, you will notice the change but for that, management should be on your side.

To improve the daily attendance and punctuality in the office, you can add an Attendance Incentive component in the salary breakup. You can keep this component as a variable component. For example, Attendance Incentive is Rs 2000/month for employee X. Now, if employee X takes 1 day of leave (above his monthly leave balance or any unapproved leave) or comes late 3 times in a month - deduct 50% incentive, eligible for Rs 1000. If he takes 2 days of leave (above his monthly leave balance or any unapproved leave) or comes late 5 times in a month - deduct 75% incentive, eligible for Rs 500. If he takes 3 days of leave (above his monthly leave balance or any unapproved leave) or comes late more than 5 times in a month - deduct 100% incentive, eligible for Rs 0.

I don't know how leaves are allotted in your company. I tried to give you a little idea about how this attendance incentive can work out. And please refer to your state shop and establishment act for leave details as 7 SL/m is not correct.

Thanks & Regards, V.S. Anju

Dear Anju,

Your suggestion is good, but not good enough as it will increase the monetary burden on the company. Why should the company pay extra just for people to do what is actually their job? Instead, the company will simply go for overtime (OT) or compensatory time off (Comp off) for the extra work done by other employees.