As an HR Admin, you can add any number of Public Holidays to CiviHR. 


By default public holidays are non-working days, and therefore not deducted from a staff member’s leave balance when they submit a leave request. If some of your staff are required to work on public holidays, you can configure CiviHR such that public holiday dates appear like normal working days in their calendar. These staff will be able to book an equivalent amount of time off other dates.

To modify the list of Public Holidays, go to Configure -> Leave -> Public holidays. From here, you can edit, disable or add new dates.  


Configure public holidays


Staff who must take Public Holidays on the given dates 


If you have staff members that must take Public Holidays on the given dates, you can apply a list of Public Holidays automatically to their leave record. When such members of staff apply for leave spanning any Public Holidays, no further time off is deducted from their leave balance.


To apply Public Holidays automatically to a staff profile:

  • Configure a Leave Type, eg. "Annual Leave for Office Staff", with "Must staff take public holiday as leave?" marked as Yes. 
  • Make sure all staff who should have Public Holidays applied to their leave record have an entitlement for this Leave Type
  • Save the entitlement. 
  • You should be able to see the applied Public Holidays by searching for Staff Profiles, going to their Leave tab and looking at their Leave Report. 
  • You can delete any Public Holidays if they do not apply to that staff member. Caution: Public Holidays once deleted cannot be added back into a Staff Profile.  


Staff who work on Public Holidays and take time off on other days


If you have staff members that work on Public Holidays and take equivalent time off on other days, you can configure CiviHR so that no Public Holidays get applied to their leave record automatically. Whenever they need time off on Public Holidays or any other day, they will send in leave requests for approval. 


To set up leave for a staff who works on Public Holidays:

  • Configure a Leave Type, eg. "Annual Leave for Hospice Staff", with "Must staff take public holiday as leave?" marked as No. 
  • Make sure all staff who should not have Public Holidays applied to their leave record have an entitlement for this Leave Type.
  • Save the entitlement. 
  • You should be able to verify that no Public Holidays got added by searching for Staff Profiles, going to their Leave tab and looking at their Leave Report.