Every holiday gets a named on-call team
Closing all clusters on a holiday is not an option for a telecom or broadband operator, and calling people in on the morning of the festival breeds resentment. Name the on-call team for each holiday three weeks ahead: typically one splicer and one installation technician per cluster, with a team leader reachable by phone. Everyone else is fully off. Rotate the duty so nobody is on call for both Holi and Diwali in the same year, and keep the list where every technician can see it.
- On-call names fixed three weeks before each holiday
- One splicer and one technician per cluster as a starting point
- Holiday duty paid at the holiday rate or given as comp-off
- No technician on call for two major festivals in one year
A holiday list for each city
A company with hubs in several cities needs a separate list for each. National holidays go everywhere. Then the local ones: Bonalu and Telangana Formation Day for Hyderabad, Kannada Rajyotsava for Bengaluru, Maharashtra Day and Ganesh Chaturthi for Pune and Mumbai, Poila Baisakh for Kolkata. In ZeniaHR each holiday is linked to the branches and departments it covers, so the Bengaluru technician's app shows Kannada Rajyotsava and the Kolkata technician's app shows Poila Baisakh, and neither is marked absent on his own local festival.
The rush comes before the festival
The fortnight before Diwali is often the busiest of the year for installations and appliance servicing, because families want everything working before the festival. Plan Sunday drives for those two weekends, credit comp-off to everyone who works a weekly off, and resist cancelling the holiday itself. When someone does work on a holiday, the overtime policy pays those hours at the holiday multiplier, which should be 2 or more, or HR grants a comp-off, depending on the rule you chose at the start of the year.
How to set it up in ZeniaHR
- Build a holiday list for each city branch in Holiday Calendars, attaching regional festivals only to the branches in that state.
- Mark two or three festivals as optional, cap how many each technician may choose, and look at the choices before naming holiday on-call teams.
- Schedule a Company Wall post for each holiday's on-call team three weeks ahead, addressed to that branch, with acknowledgement required.
- Set the holiday multiplier in the overtime policy at 2 or above, or make comp-off the payout for holiday work.
- Save fixed-date holidays such as Independence Day as recurring entries, so each new year starts with them in place.
Read more about holiday calendars in ZeniaHR.
Roles this applies to
See holiday calendar for telecom and field service companies in a demo
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Book a free demoSee pricingFrequently asked questions
Do field technicians work on public holidays?
Most are off, but telecom and broadband companies keep a small named on-call team in each cluster for outages, and appliance service companies may run limited visits. Name the on-call team weeks ahead, rotate the duty across the year, and reward it with holiday pay or a comp-off.
How should holiday on-call duty be rewarded?
Pay the hours actually worked on the holiday at the holiday overtime rate, set at twice the ordinary rate or more, or give a comp-off, whichever your policy sets. Many companies also pay a small fixed amount for being on call even if no fault comes in, entered as a payroll input.
How do companies with teams in many cities manage holidays?
They keep one list per city or state. National holidays apply everywhere, and each regional festival is attached only to the branches in that state. Each technician's app lists only his branch's holidays, and the same entries drive attendance marking and pay.