Leave Attendance Policy:

Pinnacle Infotech values the well-being and work-life balance of its employees. Leave is granted to employees with the good intention of providing rest, recuperation of health and fulfilling social obligations.

OBJECTIVE:

The Leave and Attendance policy outlines the guidelines for employee attendance, punctuality, various types of leave available to employees, the procedures for requesting leave and the guidelines for leave approval and usage. This ensures that the organization maintains operational efficiency while respecting employees' needs for time off.

SCOPE & APPLICABILITY:

All the Employees on regular rolls of the Company

1. LEAVE ADMINISTRATION - POLICY & PROCEDURE:

1.1. LEAVE YEAR

The leave entitlement will be based on Calendar Year - 1st January to 31st December of a year.

1.2. LEAVE TYPES:

The following types of leaves are provided every year:

1.3. OPERATIVE GUIDELINES:

• All leave applications are required to be sanctioned by the Reporting Manager. Concerned employees need to apply for leave through the HRONE portal (HROne V5) only (mandatory). No Leave will be applied or approved through email.

• Grant of leave will be at the sole approval of the sanctioning authority and will depend on the exigencies of work of the employee. In case of exigencies of work, it will be open to the competent authority, to refuse, postpone, revoke/ cancel or reduce leave of any description.

• Absence without any communication for more than 3 days will be treated as absenteeism’ and will be treated accordingly.

1.3.1. PRIVILEGE LEAVE (PL)

a) Probationers, Trainees, Apprentices and Consultants are not entitled for PL.

b) The number of PL entitlement for an employee would be 15 days i.e., 1.25 days per month, which is accrued only when attendance is > 20 days and is credited post-attendance process.

c) Computation of accrued leave starts from 1st January every year.

d) All 15 PL earned in one calendar year can be carried forward to the next year.

e) PL can be prefixed or suffixed to any other kind of leave except CL or holiday and any intervening holiday / weekly off will not be treated as PL.

· Leave Requests, Notifications, Applications:

f) Employees must submit a leave application through the HROne system WITHIN 48hrs.

g) Advance intimation of 1 day to be provided to Reporting Manager (RM)/PDH for 1(one) day PL.

-> Min 10 days advance intimation for planned leave upto 3 days.

-> If (>=3) days or more, it will be allowed for a maximum of two times in a calendar year. Leave planning every 6(six) is required to be shared with the PDH/FH twice at the beginning of the 1st & 7th month of the year.

· Accumulation, Carry Forward and Encashment:

h) The maximum accumulation of PL balance is 30.

i) As the number of PL is 15, the leaves given to an employee would always be an integer value for simplified calculation; the decimal will remain in the account. For example, if an employee has 6.25 leaves with him, he can avail only 6 and the rest 0.25 will be saved in his account.

j) PL cannot be availed during the probation period. However, the PL accrued would be considered from his/her date of joining as per the appointment letter.

k) Encashment of PL upto 15 days will be done at the beginning of the next calendar year.

l) The encashment request should be made in HROne by the employee 1st week of January for a timely payout in February.

m) PL over 30 will only get lapsed if anyone fails to avail or encash them by 1st week of January.

n) At the end of the service, all unavailed PL credited to the employee can be encashed as a part of final settlement.

· Advance PL

o) In case of any emergency and all leaves are exhausted, the employee can request for Advance PL(APL). This is applicable only for confirmed employees.

p) Employee should request for Advance PLs (over mail) mentioning valid reasons and the dates for which leaves are required.

q) Advance PLs can be requested based on half-yearly leave counts. (i.e from Jan to June & July to December)

r) Grant of leave will be at the sole approval of the sanctioning authority (Functional Head & HR Head) and will depend on the exigencies of work of the employee.

1.3.2. CASUAL LEAVE (CL)

a) All employees including Probationers are entitled to 6(six) of CL for the calendar year.

b) CL is neither encashable nor can be carried forward to the next year.

c) Un-utilized CL as of 31st December each year will automatically lapse.

d) 3 CLs are credited to the employees in January for the 1st 6 months and in July for the next 6 months, however, it cannot be availed in advance.

e) CL can be prefixed or suffixed to any other kind of leave except PL or holiday and any intervening holiday / weekly off will not be treated as CL.

f) 0.5 days CL needs to be applied through the HROne portal.

g) For a CL, the reporting manager is to be kept informed either a day before or the same day by 10 am in case of any emergency.

h) After reporting to duty, they have to apply for leave in HRONE within 48 hours.

1.3.3. ANNUAL LEAVE

a) Trainees (including those on apprenticeship) are entitled to 15 (fifteen) days of paid annual leave for the 12-month trainee period which will be accrued during their one-year of training period and will be credited at the time of joining.

b) For Management trainees for 6 (six) months of training, are entitled to 10 (ten) days of paid annual leave.

c) Advance intimation of at least a day has to be provided to RM/PDH for more than 1 day AL.

d) These leaves are neither encashable nor can they be carried forward after the completion of the training period.

e) The Leave regularization (application + approval) must happen within 3 days from the date of resuming duty, otherwise, it will be considered an unauthorized absence.

1.3.4. COMPENSATORY TIME OFF (COMP TIME)

a) Compensatory Off/CO is granted when an employee works on a holiday or for an extra working hour over and above their normal working shift.

b) Deputy Managers and above will be eligible for Compensatory Off (Comp. Off) against the Extra Work by Reporting Manager/CEO’s approval whichever is applicable, but no Extra Pay will be allotted for them.

c) Trainees and BOPT apprentices, being non-permanent employees, will not be eligible for extra payment for additional work. However, they will be only eligible for compensatory off for that extra hours they work.

d) Extra work for 4hrs & 8hrs will be considered for overtime benefit, for 4hr 0.5 days comp-off & for 8hr 1.0 Comp-off will be generated.

e) These leaves can be availed within 105 days from the date for which the Comp-Off is generated in HROne system.

f) CO will not be encashed and one needs to avail within the stipulated time.

1.3.5. TRAVEL LEAVE

a) All regular confirmed employees are entitled to Travel Leave.

b) Travel Leave applies to all regular full-time employees of Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, who are stationed in India and whose home town is beyond the radius of 1200 km from Office locations in India.

c) Employee can avail of Travel Leave for 2 days annually to travel to home town from base office location for an annual holiday or any emergency.

d)Employee emails to their reporting manager notifying the travel leave period, approved cases will be directed to HRD ( hrhhelpdesk@pinnacleinfotech.com) to authorize the travel leave (2 days max.)

e)HR SPOC adds the approved travel leave to the HRONE portal.

f)Travel Leave can be clubbed with Weekly Offs, Holidays, PL, CL & Paternity Leave.

g) Employees availing the Travel Leave are required to submit travel supporting documents (Tickets) to HRD before starting for leave.

h) Employees deputed to onsite will not be eligible for travel leave.

1.3.6. MATERNITY LEAVE

a) A female employee who is expecting for delivery and has worked for the company for not less than 80 days in the 12 months preceding the date of her expected delivery will be entitled to a paid maternity leave of 180 days.

b) Under the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act, this benefit could be availed by women for a period extending up to a maximum of 8 weeks before the expected delivery date and the remaining time can be availed post-childbirth. Proper medical documents need to be submitted.

c)A doctor’s certificate of fitness should be submitted to HRD if expecting mothers want to work beyond 8 months of pregnancy.

d)In an employee’s tenure with Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, ML can be availed for two (2) children.

e)If the employee wants to extend the duration of leave beyond the stipulated duration, the employee may extend the leave by utilizing her entitled privilege leave with prior permission on discretion.

f) In lieu of unpaid Maternity Leave, no claim for payment can be made.

1.3.7.PATERNITY LEAVE

a) A male employee, after confirmation, shall be eligible for 2 days of Paternity leave if he is an expecting father during his tenure with Pinnacle.

b)On receiving the application for Paternity Leave from the concerned employee, the Reporting Manager of the applicant will inform the HR Dept. through email on hrhelpdesk@pinnacleinfotech.com to authorize the leave. The employee needs to submit the supporting documents while applying for the leave.

c)Paternity Leave may be availed within 15 days prior to the expected date of delivery or within 6 months from the date of childbirth, subject to prior approval from the Reporting Manager and HR Department.

d)HR SPOC adds the approved paternity leave to the HRONE portal.

e) In an employee’s tenure with Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, Paternity Leave can be availed up to two (2) children, and it can be clubbed with PL.

1.3.8.NOTIFIED NATIONAL HOLIDAYS/ FESTIVALS

a) The list of Annual Holidays for the Calendar Year will be notified by the HRD during the month of December.

b)The number of holidays in a year shall not exceed 12 days which includes 9 festival holidays and 3 national holidays.

1.1.1. LEAVE WITHOUT PAY (LWP):

a) If an employee exhausts all his leaves due to some medical emergency or family emergency, he may request for LWP to a maximum limit of 30 days.

b) In case of availing LWP for a medical emergency, the employee must submit all the relevant medical documents to support his LWP request.

c) Grant of leave will be at the sole approval of the sanctioning authority (Functional Head & HR Head) and will depend on the exigencies of work of the employee.

d) Before completion of the leave period, the employee should submit the medical fitness certificate to resume duty.

e) If an employee does not report back after LWP days, a leave of absence shall be marked.

f) LWP is eligible for regular confirmed employees only and trainees, probation period employees are excluded.

g) BOPT or Trainees if they apply LWP with proper documentation, for medical or family emergency cases, then their confirmation as period will exceed.

1.1.2. LEAVES DURING NOTICE PERIOD:

a) No leaves are allowed during the time of serving the notice period.

b) Employees can avail of CL in medical emergency cases only. The employee has to inform the Project Manager & FH in writing & submit the documents to HR.

c) Notice period may extend instead of leaves taken depending on the requirement (in case CL is exhausted)

d) Employee serving notice period is not entitled to any LWP.

1.1.3. GENERAL GUIDELINES:

a) CL and PL cannot be clubbed together for the purpose of longer breaks from the organization.

b) Employee can prefix his/ her Weekly Offs and Holidays with CL and PL. 

For e.g. a PL or CL can be availed before Weekly Offs like Saturdays / Sundays/ Holidays

c) Employee cannot prefix his/ her Weekly Offs and Holidays with LWP or/ and Absenteeism.

-> For e.g. Absenteeism/LWP starting Friday and continuing till the following week on Monday will note 4 days leave of absence from work.

d) If an employee joins on or before 10th date of a month then only he/she will be entitled for the CL/PL of that month.

e) All applications for leave must be approved by the employee’s Reporting Managers on the HRONE portal.

f) Employees who are unable to come to work are expected to call the office between 9 am to 10 am and notify their Reporting Manager or the next authorized senior person in the department through (Mail / SMS / WhatsApp ) at the same time.

g) Salary will be deducted and marked as Absent if an employee is absent without approval.

h) Any kind of leave approval is at the discretion of the immediate Reporting Managers. If the Manager is unavailable, the employee must notify the next authorized senior person in the department.

i) Timely updation of leave requests and its approvals are mandatory

j) In case an employee attends the office, but the attendance is not marked/ not punched, the employee needs to regularize within 48hrs, or the action will be taken by the HR team to regularize before the payroll of the respective month.

2. TIMEOFFICE & ATTENDANCE- POLICY & PROCEDURE:

The PIS employee attendance policy outlines our expectations about our employees coming to work. Being punctual when coming to work helps maintain efficiency in our workplace.

The attendance management guidelines include

• definitions of absenteeism, tardiness, and presenteeism.

• procedures for reporting unforeseen absences and the consequences of unreported absences.

• guidelines for managers to monitor attendance and address issues.

2.1. WORKING HOURS:

2.1.1. Standard Working Time:

a) Office Timings are recorded in HROne through the biometric integration:

• Monday to Thursday: 9:00 AM- 6:45 PM (For General Shift)

• Friday: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (For General Shift)

b) Employees shall punch-in their access cards & mark their attendance in the biometric during Entry to the Office.

c) Failure to punch in and out of the access card/biometric shall be considered as absence from duty.

d) Total time between the first punch-in and last punch-out will be considered as the total working hours for the day.

e) Leaving the Office before 6:45 P.M. (Monday to Thursday) and before 6:00 P.M. (Friday) needs approval from the respective HOD and get gate pass permission signed by their reporting manager whenever they intend to go out of the office premises during working hours. The Gate Pass is to be submitted to the Security Personnel at the Main Gate.

f) All employees leaving for the day shall punch out to exit. The last punch shall be counted as Exit Time.

g) Out of the total 9-hour shift, a 45-minute lunch break is excluded.

h) Half-day attendance in any one half of a full working day is permitted subject to the approval of the manager. The scheduled hours for any half-day leave will be 5 hours from Monday to Thursday & 4 hours 30 minutes for Friday. No late coming / early leaving will be permissible on an approved half-day leave.

i) Employees while on OSD must check in with the enabled web-attendance, missing which the OSD allowance calculations will not be able to verify the present days.

2.1.2. Flexible Time Office:

a) A flexible entry time of 15/30/60 minutes later than the scheduled time in the morning from 09:00 hrs or separately notified as per the defined shift, is permitted with corresponding flexibility on the time of exit.

b) Grace time allowance:

• 15 mins: allowed 4 times in a month

• 30 mins: allowed 3 times in a month

• 60 mins: allowed 1 time in a month.

c) No leaves or salary will get impacted for “Late” upto 9:15 am / 9:30 am / 10 am. Out-Punch will stretch to the equivalent time to meet complete 9 hrs for the day. Same-day late entry and early leaving are not permissible.

d) The flexible timing schedule will not be applicable for employees on OSD / business travels.

2.1.3. Penalties for deviation from punctuality:

a) “LATE ENTRY” will be considered from the 9th late attendance.

b) AR should be regularized timely in HROne for the availing week and a 35-day window will be permissible to regularize the attendance for late entry / early leaving (for 8-10 late entry / early leaving).

• Beyond 9 combined late entries & and early leaving for the month, 1st warning will be initiated to improve attendance with a 5 punctuality marks deduction.

• Beyond 15 combined late entries & and early leaving for the month, a 50% deduction on production incentive for the month will be deducted.

c)If a habitual defaulter/latecomer does not improve even after all measures outlined in the preceding provisions, he will be issued with a final warning letter about the initiation of termination from service proceedings. At least three months' attendance record will be checked to verify whether that defaulter has improved his punctuality record.

2.1.4. Excused and Unexcused Absences from duty:

a) If an employee is not able to punch in/punch-out due to any technical glitch such as system failure / biometric dysfunction, he/she should inform the Front Office/Admin team and should raise a HR Ticket in HROne or write to hrhelpdesk@pinnacleinfotech.com

b) In case of attending official events/tours for office purpose, web-attendance will be enabled by HR on being notified by raising a ticket / writing to hrhelpdesk@pinnacleinfotech.com on the OD.

c) Employees on approved WFH will not be considered for flexible timing schedule and will work in general shifts only.

d) All leave applications and regularisations should be approved by the Manager on every 15 days for the fortnight. HR should be able to view the approval on HRONE portal between 20th-25th of that particular month. Late approvals beyond 25th will be paid as Arrears for next month.

2.1.5. Absenteeism:

a) When an employee takes off from duty without prior leave approval or without proper intimation under certain unavoidable circumstances, then those day/days will be treated as absence from duty.

b) If the absent days are not regularized by the individual or approved by the manager within the week, CL will be automatically deducted for the absence days. In case of no CL available, the days will be deducted from salary.

c) If an employee is absent from duty continuously for more than 3 days (including any National / Festival / Declared / weekly off days which may fall in-between), an official correspondence from the HR department will be sent to him asking to report to duty immediately and to provide an explanation for his absence. Proceedings to severe services of such employee should begin at this juncture if the employee has repeated unauthorized absence more than once.

d) In case of no response, on the 5th day of absence, the absenting employees will be declared ‘absconding’ from duty and the absconding letter shall be dispatched as per the HR records.

e) After 2 such notifications spanning over 10 days, the employee will be communicated on grounds of Voluntary Abandonment of Services from the date of commencement of such unauthorized absence.

f) Legal proceedings might also be initiated against the said employee to claim the Company’s property, recoverable notice period amounts, data, contact list, and Project details.

2.2.WORK SHIFTS:

General Work Shifts:

Other Functional Work Shifts:

*0600 – 1500 hrs. (S1) shift can only be availed after discussion with HR Head.

a) Reporting Managers after discussion with the PDH/FH are authorized to change the shift in HROne as per the business requirement.

b) Early leaving and late coming provisions will apply in the same principle for the respective shift start or end time.

c) In the event of any unforeseen holiday declared by the state or center or otherwise death of a political leader etc. on a weekday, the company may compensate any other day and deem it as a working day.

d) To enhance operational efficiency, the 11:00 am (S3) shift will not be applicable every Monday to production teams. In case of any exception to change shift on Monday to S3, the employee must seek approval from Head HR.

2.3. EXTRA WORK / OVERTIME:

General Guidelines on Over Time and Weekend working:

a) Overtime and Weekend working should be avoided as far as possible.

b) It is to be exercised only in exceptional cases to mitigate urgent project delivery.

c) Reporting Manager must approve extra work entries (4hrs/6hrs/8hrs and Weekend work) in HR-One and Timesheet (BPMS) within 48 hours of completion while clearly mentioning project name and other related details.

d) BOPT Trainees and Deputy Manager & above are not eligible for OT pay, Weekend Working Pay- instead they will be compensated with Compensatory off.

e) Employee shall not be entitled to compensatory off or extra payment for training-related activities.

Over-Time:

a) Women employees shall not be permitted to work beyond 8:00 PM.

b) In unavoidable situations requiring their presence, prior written approval from the FH/PCH must be obtained, and company-arranged cab drop will be mandatory for safety compliance, and that need to be mentioned 24 hr. earlier.

c) Overtime shall be capped at a maximum of 20 hours per employee per month.

d) Extra work rendered for less than four (4) hours in a day shall be deemed part of the employee’s regular work commitment and shall not be eligible for overtime compensation or compensatory off.

e) If not eligible by compensatory off or OT-Pay the OT hours worked will be adjusted through reduced working hours within the same week ensuring that total weekly working hours remain within prescribed limits. Immediate reporting shall maintain the data of overtime for their team member and send the data to HR before 23rd of every month.

Weekend Working:

a) In case of urgent project delivery requirements or unforeseen exigencies some employees may be required to perform Full Day extra work on holidays / weekly offs- only then it will qualify for weekend work.

b) Such extra work must be pre-approved by the Functional Head (FH) or Project/Cluster Head (PCH).

c) Weekend working shall be managed through alternate week deployment to ensure work-life balance.

d) Employees on weekend working shall be provided Lunch Company sponsored & maximum Rs60 will be reimbursed.

2.1.  ATTENDANCE INPUT FOR PAYROLL:

a) The Attendance cycle will be considered from 1st to 25th of the current month & 26th to 30/31st of the last month.

b) The remaining days (5/6 days) after the 25th will be adjusted in the next payroll.

c) The Cut-off date for attendance shall be the 25th, the window for leave approval or any other attendance regularization will be closed between 26th to 1st of the month.

2.2. ABSENCE FROM DUTY:

a) When an employee takes off from duty without prior leave approval or without proper intimation under certain unavoidable circumstances, then those days/days will be treated as absence from duty.

b) The days of absence will be treated under Loss of Pay.

c) If an employee is absent from duty continuously for more than 3 days (including any National / Festival / Declared / weekly off days which may fall in-between), an official correspondence from the HR department will be sent to him asking to report to duty immediately and to provide an explanation for his absence. Proceedings to severe services of such employee should begin at this juncture if the employee has repeated unauthorized absence more than once.

d) In case of no response, on the 5th day of absence, the absenting employee will be declared absconding from duty and an Absconding Letter to his address as per official records will be sent.

e) After 2 such notifications spanning over 10 days, the Employee will be communicated with Termination from services of the Company.

f) Legal proceedings might also be initiated against the said employee to claim the Company’s property, recoverable notice period amounts, data, contact list and Project details.

2.3. WEB-ACCESS ATTENDANCE:

All employees, whether on OSD or Official Duty (OD), are required to mark their attendance through the designated web access system. Employees must clock in their attendance through the web access system, indicating their status and location at the beginning and end of their workday

2.4. CONSEQUENCES OF NON-COMPLIANCE

· Unapproved Absences and Leaves: Unapproved absences may result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

· Pattern of Absenteeism: A pattern of frequent absenteeism may result in corrective action, including counseling and formal disciplinary measures.