Why does leave get unfair across offices?
When an organization grows beyond one office, leave rules multiply. Each country has its own law, public holidays and customs. Each manager has their own habits. One person gets leave approved in a day, another waits two weeks. Balances live in a spreadsheet in one office and in an email thread in another. Staff notice, and trust drops.
Fairness here does not mean identical numbers. It means the same logic, applied the same way.
What should the policy define?
Write these down once, for the whole organization:
- Leave types. Annual, sick, parental, compassionate, study and unpaid are common. Add rest and recuperation (R&R) if you run hardship posts.
- Limits. How many days each person gets, and how balances carry over.
- Notice. How early a request must be made, and how to handle an emergency.
- Evidence. When you need a medical note, and who may see it.
- Approval path. Usually the line manager, with a backup when they are away.
- Rules for part-time and short contracts. Describe how days are pro-rated.
Employment law on leave differs by country, and sometimes by region. Check each, set your policy at or above the legal minimum, and note where it differs.
How do you treat different countries?
Use a simple layered rule:
| Layer | What it covers |
|---|---|
| National law | The legal minimum for staff based in that country |
| Organization policy | Your standard, which can add to the law but not go below it |
| Contract | The terms agreed with each person |
Hold a public holiday list for each duty station. Apply it to people based there. A person who moves to another station follows that station’s calendar from the day they move.
Our article on national and international staff records covers how to keep these distinctions fair.
How should requests and approvals work?
Keep one path for all offices:
- The staff member submits dates and type.
- The system or manager checks the balance and overlaps.
- The line manager approves or rejects, with a note when rejecting.
- The balance updates and the team calendar shows the absence.
Reject overlapping requests from the same person automatically. Name a delegate for every manager so that approvals do not stall during their own leave.
How do you plan team coverage?
Coverage is the manager’s real question: “who is here that week?” A team calendar answers it. Show who is away and when. Do not show the reason. A colleague who sees “sick leave” or “family emergency” learns something private that they do not need to know.
Before busy periods, such as donor reporting or a distribution, ask teams to plan leave early, and stagger it so that critical roles are covered.
What records should you keep?
For each person, keep the balance, every request with its dates, the decision, who decided and when. Keep medical notes in a restricted place. At year end, close the balances, apply carry-over rules and archive the records for the period your law requires.
Common problems and simple fixes
| Problem | Simple fix |
|---|---|
| Staff do not take leave and balances pile up | Ask managers to plan leave with each person every quarter, and cap carry-over in policy |
| Approvals stall when the manager is away | Name a delegate for every approver, in writing |
| Sick leave is treated differently by each office | Write one rule on notice and medical notes, and apply it everywhere, within local law |
| Two people in a critical role are away together | Check coverage before approving, and ask the team to agree who covers whom |
| A transferred person loses their balance | Record the balance in the central record and carry it across, following the law of both countries |
Rest matters most in hard postings. Staff in tough field locations often work long stretches without a break. Set a minimum rest rule, and check that people take it, since the ones who need it most are often the last to ask.
Review the policy once a year with managers from several offices. Ask where the rules caused confusion, where staff felt treated unfairly and where local law changed. Publish the new version with a date, and tell staff what changed. Small, regular updates keep the policy alive and trusted.
Where EMPOBase fits
EMPOBase has Leave & Compensation in the People & HR module. You define leave types and policy limits, and requests follow the reporting-line workflow for review. Overlapping pending or approved requests for the same employee are rejected, and team coverage shows availability without displaying the reason for leave. EMPOBase does not hold your national leave law, so you set the limits yourself. See the platform page.