How it works
- Mark a holiday as optional when adding it. The category moves from Public Holiday to Optional Holiday, and the day counts only for the people who pick it.
- Set the yearly limit on the Holiday Calendars page: each person may pick up to N optional holidays in a year.
- Employees open their holiday list in My Self-Service or the app and pick optional holidays that apply to their branch and department.
- Picks can be made or dropped for today or later only. Past dates are locked.
- A picked day becomes a holiday for that person in attendance and in leave counting. For everyone else it stays a working day.
- The Optional picks tab lists every pick by holiday or by person, with a CSV download.
What you can set
- Optional holidays a person may pick in a year: 2 by default, from 0 to 50.
- A limit of 0 means optional holidays cannot be picked in the company.
- Branch and department scope, the same as any other holiday.
- Picks allowed for today and future dates only.
- No pick on a date that is already a mandatory holiday for that person.
- Picks report by holiday or by person, with CSV export.
- People above the limit, for example after HR lowers it mid-year, show in red in the report.
Why offer optional holidays
An office in Bengaluru may have people from Kerala, Bengal, Punjab and the North East. Declaring every regional festival a holiday would close the office for weeks, while declaring none tells half the team their festival does not count. Optional holidays solve this: the company lists the festivals it recognises, each person picks the ones they celebrate, and the office runs with enough people every day. Because ZeniaHR tracks each pick, attendance and payroll treat the day correctly for each person without a separate register.
Worked example: two picks from a list of six
A Bengaluru software firm lists six optional holidays for 2026, including Onam, Good Friday and Guru Nanak Jayanti, and keeps the limit at 2. In February, Jose picks Good Friday and Onam. When he tries to add a third, ZeniaHR tells him he has already picked 2 of 2 optional holidays for 2026 and must drop one to pick another.
On Onam, attendance treats the day as a holiday for Jose, while his teammate Ritu, who did not pick it, works as usual and is marked present. In August, HR opens Optional picks by holiday and sees that 14 people picked Onam, all from two teams, so the delivery manager can plan cover a month ahead.
Running optional holidays smoothly
Publish the optional list with the main holiday list so people can pick early. Set a pick deadline in your policy, such as seven days before the date, because ZeniaHR only locks dates that have passed. Review the report by holiday before each festival to catch teams where too many people picked the same day. If you lower the limit mid-year, existing picks stay and the report flags people above the new limit for a conversation rather than a surprise.
See optional holidays in a demo
We show it on a video call with your own shifts, leave types and rules. Free for your first 50 employees.
Book a free demoSee pricingFrequently asked questions
What is an optional holiday?
An optional holiday, or restricted holiday, is a listed festival that an employee may choose to take off, within a yearly limit. It is a holiday only for the people who pick it; everyone else works that day. Companies use it to respect different festivals without closing the office each time.
How many optional holidays can an employee pick?
As many as the company limit allows. ZeniaHR starts at 2 a year and HR can set any whole number from 0 to 50 on the Holiday Calendars page. At 0, optional holidays cannot be picked at all. The limit applies to each person for the calendar year.
Can an employee change an optional holiday pick?
Yes, before the date. An employee can drop a pick and choose another optional holiday from My Self-Service or the app, as long as both dates are today or later and the new pick stays within the limit. Picks for dates that have passed are locked.
Does an optional holiday count in the sandwich rule?
Only for the person who picked it. The leave engine reads each employee's own holidays, so a picked optional holiday is treated like any other holiday for that person, while for colleagues who did not pick it the date is an ordinary working day.