Holiday calendar for construction and real estate companies

Three lists for three kinds of workplace

Start with the holidays everyone shares: Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and the main festivals your offices close for. Then split. Head office and site offices usually close on the same festival days. The sales galleries do not, because Gudi Padwa, Akshaya Tritiya, Dussehra and Dhanteras are days when buyers come to book, and a closed gallery on those days loses deals. Holiday Calendars let each holiday apply to chosen branches and departments, so the sales department at each gallery can be left out of the festival holidays that head office and sites take.

Festival booking days and holiday duty

When sales staff work a festival that is a holiday for everyone else, give them something back. The simplest approach is a comp-off credit for each holiday worked, with an expiry long enough to be usable, since few sales teams can take a day off in the same festive month. Some developers pay for holiday work instead, at the company's holiday rate. Whichever you choose, write it into the sales policy before the festive season starts, not after the first complaint.

Diwali and Holi site slowdowns

On many sites, contractor crews travel home for Diwali, Chhath or Holi, and work slows sharply for a week or more. The company's own engineers and supervisors are still on the rolls, so HR has to decide how those days count. Some builders declare two or three company holidays for site staff only, some ask engineers to use earned leave, and some keep a skeleton team for security, curing and stores. Enter the decision at the start of the year as company holidays applied to the site departments, so nobody learns about it the week before.

Projects in different states

A developer building in Pune, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad has three sets of regional holidays: Maharashtra Day on 1 May, Karnataka Rajyotsava on 1 November and Uttarayan in mid-January. Apply regional holidays by branch rather than company-wide, and check the Shops and Establishments rules for each state where you run an office. Engineers who move between projects take the list of their current location, which is one more reason to update the location on the day of transfer.

• National holidays for every location
• Regional holidays by branch for each state
• Company holidays for site shutdown days
• Two or three optional festivals picked by each employee

How to set it up in ZeniaHR

1. Import the year's holidays from Excel with Data Import, or add them in Holiday Calendars, choosing a category for each: public, national, religious, regional, company or optional.
2. Apply festival holidays to head office and site departments, and leave the sales department at each gallery off the festival booking days it works.
3. Add regional holidays branch by branch for each state where you have projects, and mark fixed-date holidays as recurring yearly.
4. Set the optional holiday pick limit, let staff choose their festivals in the app, and check the optional holiday report before the festive season.
5. Record site shutdown days around Diwali or Holi as company holidays for site departments only, so attendance and payroll treat them as paid days.
6. Decide whether holidays count like weekends in the leave sandwich rule, and grant comp-off to sales staff who work festival holidays.

Read more about holiday calendars in ZeniaHR.

Roles this applies to

Frequently asked questions