Leaves

All leaves are auto-approved. However, with great power comes great responsibility. Coordinate carefully with your team to ensure leaves don't conflict with important activities or deadlines.

Actively manage expectations and remind your team continuously about planned leaves. Communicating once is never enough.

Types of Leaves 🗓️

1️⃣ Regular Leaves

Symph provides 7 days of paid leave per year (Philippine law mandates 5).

For new hires, leaves are pro-rated:

1 leave per 2 months of work

Maximum of 6 leaves in your first calendar year

Avoid taking leave in December as it extends client wait times. The entire team is given a 2-week Christmas break at the end of December (annually) which means that we are not doing work for clients at that time, and the clients have to wait for us to resume office (in January) so we can resume with our projects. Going on leaves in the same month will extend the time that our clients will have to wait for us.

When you file a leave, leave credits will be used from your Quarterly Holiday Leave Credits first, then from your regular Annual Leave allowance.

DEFAULT: 4 of the remaining leave credits will rollover to the next year. Any remaining leave credits after the rollover will be converted to cash and paid during Q1 of the next year.

OPTION: A maximum of 7 remaining leave credits can be rolled over as leaves to the next year (with Chiefs Pre-Approval) .

2️⃣ Sick Leaves

Sick leaves are unplanned absences due to illness.

There is no limit on sick leaves. Take the time you need to recover.

Sick leaves do not count against your regular leave balance.

3️⃣ Mental Health Leave

Mental health leaves works like a sick leave. They are not deducted from your leave credits. There is no limit as long as you book a consultation.

To use a mental health leave, schedule an

Empath consultation⁠

on or before your leave date.

Without a consultation, mental health days count as regular leave.

Inform your team and mark "sick - mental health leave" on the attendance channel.

For external clients, treat it like a regular leave and provide advance notice.

4️⃣ Calamity Leave

⛑ Symph's Natural Calamity Protocol

Your safety is our priority. Here's what you need to know:

✅ Absences during calamities will NOT be deducted from your leave credits

✅ No need to mark "absent" or "leave" in SymphOS or #attendance channel

✅ No impact on year-end bonus computation for absent attendance

What You Need to Do

📞 Communicate directly with your team:

Your PM / Chiefs - Admin Team

Let them know your situation and what support you need. That's it.

✋ Stay safe, stay prepared, and keep your loved ones close.

⁠

✋ Communicating Leaves

At Symph, we believe in overcommunication, especially when it comes to taking time off. Keeping your team informed early and often ensures that everyone can plan accordingly and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

When you can't come in, whether it's planned or last-minute, here's how to overcommunicate proactively:

File a leave as soon as you’re considering it—even if it's tentative, and even if it’s still 9 months from now. This allows everyone to plan ahead. You can cancel it later if your plans gets canceled.

Regularly remind your team about upcoming leaves. Don't assume a single message is enough - overcommunicate to avoid surprises especially when date is closer.

If you need a last-minute leave for any emergencies, take a moment to inform your team through multiple channels (e.g., text, call, email).

Follow the

How to file a Leave

⁠

guide.

Proactively communicate the status of your tasks and projects before taking leave. Delegate or reschedule if needed.

Remember, your team and clients rely on you, so overcommunicating about leave is a sign of respect and professionalism.

When in doubt, err on the side of sharing more rather than less.

It's always better to keep everyone in the loop than to catch them off guard.

⁠

❓ FAQs

If I was on sick leave on a holiday, do I get leave credits?

No, you only get extra leave credit every time you work on a Cebu Holiday.

What if my leaves are already negative by end of the year?

By default - it will be counted as days that you did not work, and follows a no-work, no-pay policy.

What happens if I still have emergencies to take care of and I have used up all my leaves? or can I compensate for it by working on a weekend?

For any edge cases, you can reach out to any of the Chiefs to discuss & communicate.

Like all the other policies in Symph, these are defaults. We will always prioritize communication over processes & tools; we prioritize collaboration over negotiations.