A leave mix for engineers and support teams
Keep the types few and the rules clear. Casual leave covers short personal needs, sick leave covers illness with a medical certificate after two consecutive days, and earned or privilege leave covers planned vacations. Add paternity, marriage or bereavement leave if your policy offers them, and LWP for anything beyond the balance. ZeniaHR starts with CL at 1 a month, EL at 1.5 a month and SL at 0.5 a month, all editable, and accrues them monthly with pro rata credit for engineers who join or leave mid-month.
- Maternity leave of up to 26 weeks, or 12 weeks for a woman with two or more surviving children, after 80 days of work in the previous 12 months (maternity benefit)
- Earned leave carried forward to a cap, with the rest lapsing at year end
- Comp-off for deployment weekends and holiday support, with an expiry date
- Optional holidays picked from the company list, kept separate from leave
Planning leave around releases and code freezes
ZeniaHR does not block dates by itself, so the release calendar has to shape the leave rules and the approvals. Require EL to be applied a set number of days in advance and cap the days per application, so a three-week vacation is discussed before tickets are booked. Before approving, the project manager opens the team leave calendar in My Team to see approved and pending leave across the release window. If two of the four QA engineers are already away during UAT, the third request waits for the week after go-live.
Worked example: a long weekend and the sandwich rule
Priya, a developer in Pune, applies for Friday and Monday around her Saturday and Sunday off. If casual leave is set to count sandwiched weekends, the live preview in My Self-Service shows four days charged: Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. With the sandwich mode set to none, it shows two. The preview also shows her balance after the leave and any warning, so Priya sees the cost before she submits and the manager does not have to explain the rule afterwards. The mode is chosen per leave type; one workable split is to count sandwiched weekends for CL and not for EL.
Comp-off for deployment weekends
Production releases often go live on a Saturday night to stay clear of the client's business hours. Engineers who work a weekly off or a company holiday earn comp-off, granted by HR with an expiry date, so it is used within weeks rather than saved up. Comp-off can also come from approved overtime when the overtime policy pays that way: 4 hours of extra work gives half a day and 8 hours a full day. At year end, preview the EL carry forward before running it, so engineers know what will lapse.
How to set it up in ZeniaHR
- Review the default leave types in the Leave Ledger and adjust CL, EL and SL quotas to match your leave policy.
- Set rules per leave type: notice days and a maximum per application for EL, and a medical document after two days for SL.
- Choose a sandwich mode for each leave type and decide whether holidays count like weekends.
- Load opening balances for existing engineers through Data Import before the first monthly accrual runs.
- Set comp-off expiry, and have HR grant comp-off for worked weekly offs and holidays after each deployment weekend.
- Ask project managers to check the team leave calendar in My Team before approving leave in release weeks.
Read more about leave management in ZeniaHR.
Roles this applies to
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How many leaves do IT employees get in India?
There is no single number: it depends on your state's Shops and Establishments rules and company policy. A common structure is casual, sick and earned leave accrued monthly. For covered workers, annual leave with wages is earned at one day for every 20 days worked after 180 days of work in a calendar year, and maternity leave runs up to 26 weeks.
How do IT companies plan leave around project releases?
They publish release and code freeze dates early, ask for long leave to be applied well in advance, and have the project manager check the team leave calendar before approving. In ZeniaHR, notice days and a maximum per application are set per leave type, and managers approve or reject in My Team with the team calendar in view.
What is comp-off in IT companies?
Comp-off is a day off given in return for working on a weekly off or a holiday, such as a Saturday deployment or festival support duty. In ZeniaHR, HR grants comp-off for worked weekly offs and holidays, and approved overtime can also be paid as comp-off: 4 hours for half a day and 8 hours for a full day. Each credit carries an expiry date.