One list per state and field office
Start with the few holidays every office closes for, such as Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and Diwali. Then add each state's holidays to the offices in that state: Chhath for teams in Bihar, Bihu in Assam, Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Nuakhai in Odisha. Block teams in tribal areas may also observe local festivals such as Karma or Sarhul in Jharkhand, which the head office will not know about unless the field coordinator says so. Ask every field office for its list before the year begins.
Observance days and campaign duty
Many programmes hold events on the days they are meant to mark, such as World Health Day, International Women's Day, Children's Day or National Girl Child Day, and run campaigns at melas and festival gatherings where crowds are large. When one of these falls on a holiday, the field team works. Record the day as a holiday with duty and compensate the team with comp-off or holiday pay as a written rule sets out, so the team's goodwill is not taken for granted and the donor's event still happens.
- Children's Day events for education programmes
- Women's Day events for women's empowerment work
- Health camps on World Health Day or at fairs
- Comp-off or holiday pay for everyone on duty
Shelters, helplines and residential care
A children's home, a women's shelter or a helpline runs every day of the year. Caregivers, counsellors and guards work holidays by rotation, planned a month ahead so that no one works every festival. Compensate holiday work the same way for everyone, and give people their own festival where you can: a caregiver who works through Diwali could get first preference for leave at Eid or Christmas, whichever matters to them.
Optional holidays for a diverse team
NGO teams often come from many regions and faiths. Keep an optional list, such as Eid ul-Fitr, Good Friday, Guru Nanak Jayanti, Buddha Purnima, Onam and Makar Sankranti, with a limit of two picks per person each year. Programme managers should check the picks against the project calendar, so that a baseline survey week does not lose half the team to optional holidays taken on the same day.
How to set it up in ZeniaHR
- In Holiday Calendars, add holidays common to every office, then apply state and local festival holidays only to the branches or locations that observe them.
- Ask each field office for its local list before the year begins, and load the combined list from Excel with Data Import.
- Mark optional holidays with a yearly pick limit, and compare the report of who picked which optional holiday with each project calendar.
- For shelters and helplines, keep holidays in the calendar and roster duty on them, so holiday work shows up for comp-off or pay.
- Grant comp-off for holiday campaign duty after checking punches or on duty requests, with an expiry date.
- Set national holidays as recurring yearly holidays once, so they repeat every year without re-entry.
Read more about holiday calendars in ZeniaHR.
Roles this applies to
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How should an NGO with offices in several states manage holidays?
Build it in two layers. The first is the handful of holidays every office observes. The second is each state's list plus local festivals, applied only to offices in that state, with field coordinators adding festivals the head office may not know. Each employee then sees the list for their own office.
Do NGO staff get comp-off for working on holidays?
They should, under a written rule. Field teams often work on observance days, at fairs or on festival campaigns, and shelter staff work holidays by rotation. Record the day as a holiday with duty and give comp-off or holiday pay, so the extra work is visible and fairly compensated.
How do NGO shelters handle festival holidays?
By rotation. Plan holiday duty a month ahead so that no caregiver, counsellor or guard works every festival, and where possible give people time off for the festivals that matter to them. Compensate holiday work the same way for everyone, with comp-off or holiday pay as your policy says.