Can We Set Time Limits for the Personal Leave?

In Company A, many employees asked for leave frequently. What’s worse, some of those employees had asked for personal leave accumulated to more than 60 days in 1 year. In 2015, Company A amended the “Employee Handbook”, in which it stipulated that the accumulated personal leave should not exceed 10 days in 1 year, otherwise the employee would be deemed as absent. In 2017, Chen had asked for personal leave for 10 days, and he asked for the personal leave again because he wanted to attend his good friend’s wedding, but the company rejected his application. Chen insisted to attend the wedding for 3 days, because he thought the company did not have to pay salary for this period, and the company should not reject such application. Later then, the company terminated the labor contract for the reason that Chen had been absent for 3 days.

Whether the judicial departments would support the employer’s practice on managing the personal leave, such as to set time limits for the personal leave, to reject an employee’s application for the personal leave which exceed the time limits?

In fact, there are no laws or regulations regulating the days of the personal leave. However, from the perspective of business operation, if the employees ask for leave frequently, then the employer’s business might be affected. Although, an employer does not have to pay salary for the personal leave, it still has to undertake the extra expenses for the personal leave, such as the social insurance, public accumulation funds, etc.. Therefore, based on the autonomy of the business, an employer shall be entitled to restrict the personal leave. In addition, the precondition for such restriction shall be the agreement between the employer and employee, such as the internal rules and regulations of the employer have stipulated such agreement.

For the maximum days for the personal leave, there is no mandatary standard, and the general concept the public would be used to determine the reasonableness of the maximum dates. It is recommended to take the normal practice for reference. In practice, it is normal to set 10 days or 20 days as the maximum days for the personal leave; some employers set double limits, such as 5 days as the maximum days in a month, and 10 days as the maximum days in a year.

Then, in the case that an employer has set time limits for the personal leave, whether an employer could say “No” to all excuses for the personal leave which might exceed the time limits?

The answer is negative. In the case in the beginning of this article, normally the employer would be supported, but if an employee’s family member is seriously ill, or an employee encounters an accidental traffic control and cannot go to work on time, for such special occasions, it would be better to approve the application for such personal leave. Otherwise, if an employer still terminates the labor contract for such special occasions, which might not be supported for the rationality reason. In this regard, it is recommended to pay attention to 2 aspects, firstly, in order to be more reasonable, and flexible in the review of such application, an employer could set time limits for the personal leave in the internal rules and regulations, and prescribe the phases as “in principle” or “despite special occasions” as the precondition for such article; secondly, in the implementation of such article, an employer shall carefully review the evidence related to the personal leave, and approve the personal leave for those special occasions.

In order to prevent employees from abusing the personal leave, an employer could link the employee’s attendance rate with the performance assessment, and use award instead of punish to encourage employees to work hard.