Granted leave versus policy leave

Policy leave is the entitlement framework: which types exist, who is eligible, how quotas credit, what approvals apply, and what happens at cycle end. Granted leave is a specific credit or approval issued on a person — including ad-hoc and special grants that the framework did not already put on their ledger that morning. Policy is the rulebook. A grant is an entry with a name on it. Mixing them — treating a one-off as if everyone now has a new type, or “fixing” a balance without a grant record — is how two employees in the same band show different truths and nobody can audit why.

This is not a second primer on casual, sick, and earned leave. For those type names and typical Indian-office usage, use casual, sick, and earned leave in India. For how the annual number arrives (lump versus monthly slices), use allotment versus accrual. This page is the difference between the framework and a person-level issue.

Policy leave: the framework everyone in a band should share

A leave policy answers questions that should not depend on who asked HR nicely:

• Which types exist (casual, sick, earned, maternity-related types you actually offer, unpaid, and others you named).
• Who is assigned which policy (entity, employee type, location, grade).
• Credit method and quotas for each type.
• Apply, approve, cancel, half-day, and sandwich switches if you use them.
• Carry-forward, lapse, and in-service encashment if you defined them.

When you change a quota from 12 to 15 casual days, that is a policy change. It should hit everyone on that policy from a named effective date, with a conversion note if mid-cycle. It should not be implemented as twenty manual +3 edits on favourite employees. Leave management is useful here as configurable policies and quotas — one assignment per person, not a private spreadsheet of exceptions pretending to be the handbook.

Policy leave also includes “no entitlement”: interns or contractors assigned a policy with zero paid types. That is still policy. It is not a grant of zero; it is an assignment.

Granted leave: a named issue on a named person

A grant is an extra (or sometimes a replacement) credit that the default job would not have posted. Examples Indian SMEs actually run:

• Special casual days for a bereavement, a civic duty, or a company-announced extra day that is not a holiday calendar entry.
• A one-time earned-leave top-up because a transfer delayed joining the correct policy.
• Correction of a missed accrual after a status error, issued as a grant rather than a silent database edit.
• A probation exception: three days allowed before the type would normally open.
• Compensatory situations that are not comp-off from extra work — for example, “take 1 day, we will credit it” after an office closure that was not on the holiday list.

Dayzen leave management supports granted (ad-hoc) leave credits. Use that path so the balance change has a type, quantity, date, and (if you fill it) a reason. A WhatsApp “I have added it” with no ledger event is not a grant. It is a rumour that will fail at year-end.

A grant can also be an approval pattern: HR allows unpaid leave that policy would have blocked, or allows a type in probation. If the ledger does not change and only the approval exception exists, record the exception in the application trail. If the ledger does change, it is a credit grant. Do not confuse “manager approved an out-of-policy application” with “days were added.” One is a workflow override. The other is stock.

Why mixing them breaks balances

Three failure modes show up every quarter in growing teams:

1. Policy drift through grants. Ten people got +2 EL “because last year was hard.” Next year the handbook still says 18, the tool allots 18, and those ten still carry a ghost expectation of 20. Either change the policy or time-box the grant (“valid this cycle only, lapses 31 December”).
2. Invisible grants. Someone edits available balance to make an application go through. Month-end EL total no longer equals opening + accruals − usage ± documented grants. Audit fails. The next HR manager inherits magic numbers.
3. Double credit. Accrual job runs, then HR grants the same month “because the joiner did not see it,” then the job is re-run after a status fix. The person now has two slices. Without a grant register, you will not see the duplicate until they take a long holiday.

Move	Use this	Do not use this
Everyone in a policy gets a new quota	Policy change with effective date	Mass “grants” with no policy version
One person missed a credit because of a bug or status error	Grant (or a controlled reverse-and-replay of the job) with reason	Telling them to apply LWP and “we will adjust salary”
Compassion or one-off extra days	Grant with owner, reason, and lapse/carry rule	Renaming it as earned leave policy for the whole company
Extra work on a rest day	Comp-off rules, if you run them	An ad-hoc EL grant unless you deliberately refused a comp-off scheme

Reason and owner, or it did not happen

Every grant needs four fields you can report:

1. Who: employee ID, not a nickname.
2. What: leave type and quantity (including 0.5 if you grant a half).
3. Why: a short reason code plus a sentence (bereavement, correction, transfer, management special, other).
4. Who authorised: named role — HR lead, function head — not “team.”

Optional fifth: expiry. “Use by 31 March” or “follows EL carry-forward cap” or “lapses with casual at year end.” If you omit expiry, the grant becomes eternal stock and will hit the cap conversation in carry-forward, lapse, and encashment.

Owner matters because grants are the main way policy is quietly repealed. If only one person can grant, you get a bottleneck. If everyone can grant, you get no policy. A practical split: managers recommend, HR posts, a monthly list of grants goes to the HR lead. Volume is a governance signal. A quiet month of zero grants is healthy. A month with forty “specials” means the policy is wrong or approvals are being used as currency.

Comp-off is related and distinct

Compensatory off is earned from extra work against a rule: you worked a holiday or a weekly off, you get a rest credit that usually expires on its own clock. An ad-hoc grant is not earned from a punch; it is issued by authority. If you credit EL because someone worked Sunday, you have skipped the comp-off object and mixed overtime-like rest into annual leave. That may be a conscious simplification in a tiny team. It is still not the same concept. For the earn-and-expire logic, use compensatory off explained. Do not treat this page as a second comp-off guide.

Holiday calendar extra days are also not grants. If the office is closed on a declared holiday, that is calendar rest — see holidays versus weekly offs versus leave on the sibling article — not +1 casual on each ledger. Granting casual because you forgot to add a holiday is a cleanup grant; adding the holiday and reversing the grant is cleaner if you caught it early.

Applications versus credits

Employees apply against available policy (and granted) stock. Approvers approve applications. Granters add stock. If the same person does all three without a trail, you cannot answer “why was this allowed?” in a dispute. Separate the buttons even if, in a five-person company, one human clicks all three.

When an application is out of policy (insufficient balance, type blocked in probation), the honest paths are: reject; ask the employee to apply unpaid; or post a grant first, then let the application consume it. Approving an application that drives the balance negative without a grant policy is a fourth path you should name (advance / negative) rather than hiding it as a grant after the fact. After-the-fact grants to erase a negative are still grants — record them as corrections, not as new entitlements.

Assignments: which policy, then which grants

A person should carry one current leave policy assignment (or a dated version). Grants sit on top. When they transfer entity or type, you change assignment; you do not invent a new type called “old office days.” Decide whether unused stock moves, lapses, or is granted onto the new types. That conversion is a documented grant or a documented lapse, not a silent map.

Joiners should get policy assignment on day one, then the allotment or first accrual the policy promises. A “welcome 5 days” on top is a grant. Say whether it is extra to quota or an advance of the first accruals. Extra plus full accrual is how you accidentally double-pay in time.

What to put in the SOP

Short is enough:

• Policy changes go through a dated policy version, not through grants.
• Grants require reason, owner, type, quantity, and expiry or cycle rule.
• Monthly export of grants is reviewed; unexplained grants are reversed or explained.
• Comp-off and holiday calendar are not grant substitutes.
• Ledger edits without a grant or application ID are forbidden.

If you maintain a written handbook, keep the framework in the policy chapter and the grant procedure in an ops appendix so employees do not read special credits as a new statutory type.

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Policy leave is the shared framework. Granted leave is a person-level credit or exception with a reason and an owner. Use grants to correct and to handle true one-offs, not to rewrite the handbook in the ledger. Keep comp-off on its own earn path. If the number moved, the grant record should already say why.