How to manage optional holidays

Build the optional list

List festivals that matter to some of your staff but not all, across communities and regions: Eid al-Adha, Guru Nanak Jayanti, Good Friday, Mahavir Jayanti, Buddha Purnima, Janmashtami, Raksha Bandhan, Parsi New Year, and regional festivals for staff working away from home, such as Pongal outside Tamil Nadu or Chhath outside Bihar. Ask employees what is missing before finalizing. Ten to fifteen options give everyone a real choice without making the list meaningless.

Set the pick limit and rules

The rules for optional holidays should fit in a short paragraph of the holiday policy. Decide each point below before the list is published, so managers give the same answer to every request and nobody feels their festival was treated as less important than someone else's.

• Pick limit: how many optional holidays each employee may take in the year, such as 2.
• Deadline: pick by a date, such as 31 January, or at least two weeks before the holiday.
• Approval: whether the manager can refuse a pick for business reasons, and how early.
• Unused picks: they lapse at year end and are not encashed or carried forward.
• Joiners: whether mid-year joiners get the full limit or a reduced one.
• Weekly offs: a pick that falls on a weekly off is not replaced.

Example: planning cover for popular picks

A Pune IT services company with 200 staff offers 12 optional holidays and allows 2 picks each, so it can expect up to 400 picked days in the year. By the end of January, HR sees that 70 people have picked Raksha Bandhan and 45 have picked Janmashtami. Two client support teams need at least 60 percent of their staff present every day, so HR shares the numbers with the team leads in February. Where a team would fall below its minimum on Raksha Bandhan, the lead agrees a rotation with the people who picked it, months before August, instead of refusing picks on the day.

Tracking use through the year

Keep a record of who picked which holiday and whether they took it. Attendance must treat a picked optional holiday as a paid holiday for that person and a normal working day for everyone else, so the pick has to be recorded before the day, not added afterwards. At year end, check that nobody went over the limit and that people whose picks were refused for business reasons got another date. The same record shows which festivals nearly everyone picks, which are candidates for the fixed list next year.

Step by step

1. Draft the optional list. List festivals that matter to parts of your workforce across communities and regions, and ask employees what is missing.
2. Set the limit and deadlines. Choose the yearly pick limit, the deadline to choose and the rule for joiners, and write them into the holiday policy.
3. Publish the list with the calendar. Share the optional list alongside the fixed holidays. ZeniaHR's Holiday Calendars mark optional holidays with a yearly pick limit and apply each one to chosen branches and departments.
4. Collect picks early. Ask employees to pick by a date early in the year. In ZeniaHR, employees pick optional holidays in self-service or the mobile app, up to the limit.
5. Plan cover for popular days. Count picks per festival and per team, and agree rotations with team leads months ahead where too many people chose the same day.
6. Treat picks as holidays in attendance. Make sure a picked holiday is paid for that person and a working day for everyone else, so nobody is marked absent by mistake.
7. Review the picks at year end. Check who picked which holiday and that nobody went over the limit. ZeniaHR has a report of who picked which optional holiday, which also shows festivals worth moving to the fixed list.

Frequently asked questions