Today almost all businesses and government offices in the United States are taking the day off in observance of Memorial Day. This is day (along with some other days in the calendar connected to national observances like Labor Day and Independence Day, and religious observances like Christmas) are almost universally given as “company holidays” to full-time employees (working in non-essential areas). If your office is in New York City and you are telecommuting to work from Idaho, there is nothing strange about taking off Memorial Day along with the rest of the company. But what if you are telecommuting from a country where the reason behind the given company holiday has no meaning?

To give a personal example, I live in the Middle East and telecommute to my company in Boston. Although today is Memorial Day in the US, where I live it is just like any other work day. Likewise with nearly every other day that is a standard company holiday for a company located in the United States. Although I enjoy having a day off from work as much as anyone else, if I am going to receive extra days off as company holidays, I would rather take them on days that have meaning to me, where I live.

The manager or employer of those telecommuting from international locations are (or should) want to make things as easy for their employees as possible. This means letting them take days off when it is best for the employee (this will benefit the bottom-line as well). On the other hand though, the employer wants the remote worker to feel as if they are part of the company. If every single person in the company is taking off on Memorial Day and the one employee working overseas is working on this day and taking off a different day instead, this has the potential (depending to a large degree on the people involved, precedent and inter-office politics) to make the remote worker feel farther away from everyone else in the company.

In my case, when I have the need for an extra day off  (normally for religious holidays) that fall around a company holiday that I would otherwise not feel the need to observe, we arrange for me to work on the company holiday and for me to take an extra day off at my discretion. As with many issues surrounding telecommuting, open communication and sensitivity to the needs of the remote worker (while keeping company-issues under consideration) are key in handling situations like this so that both the company and the telecommuting employee are able to use company holidays in the best way.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2007 by Yaakov Ellis and is filed under International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: company holidays, holidays, memorial day, overseas, time off, vacation
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