Long weekend: Some UAE companies offer up to 2-day break for Christmas
With Christmas approaching, a few offices in the UAE are giving internal off for the day and may be Boxing Day, making it a full-fledged break for their staff. The practice, established by internal company policy rather than official public holidays, is a sign of changing workplace culture and an attempt to adapt the corporate calendar to the global one — with extra dispensation for workers in need of more rest.
For Ellia Mark, who has just joined a new company in Dubai, the policy was an unexpected bonus as he had been in two minds over his end of year break. He had planned on taking an entire week off to fly home over the holidays. When reviewing the leave calendar for his company, he found that December 25th-26th were already marked out as days off for all employees.
With the two dates in the middle of the week, it virtually gives employees a long weekend. “Instead of taking a full week off my annual leave, I now only need to take four days,” he said, noting that it made travel planning easier during one of the most busy times of year.
Public holidays in the UAE are referred to as official public holidays, where all public and private sector organizations grant it to their employees according to the occasion celebrated by such as date or event and there are also some of them. Christmas Day is not a federal public holiday, however businesses are free to create their own leave schedules.
These internal days off are not days of annual leave and they differ depending on the sector or employer. But employees say such policies can offer some relief during a busy travel period while also reflecting a broader trend toward structured, predictable time off at the end of the year.
The company where Yasmin Yasir, then a Sudanese British expat in Dubai, works has a similar policy. Staff are automatically off on the 25th and Boxing Day but again, they can plan ahead rather than book them off as usual. She said the approach is an example of how workplaces are becoming more considerate to the realities of being a female in the UAE.
“I think it’s a nice cause a lot of people celebrating, they settle down here and have family here, this way they can celebrate without being able to take the leave,” she said.
Other companies are providing looser deals. Sahar Taha of a Dubai-based company headquartered in UAE, said December 25 is an official leave, and there was also one day off employees may take any time between December 15 and January 7. The chosen date is synchronised with the line manager to ensure production doesn’t suffer.
“The idea is to give people flexibility during a busy time,” she said. “You can take the extra day when you decide and it’s on your workload, but we have to talk about it and agree in advance.”
For HR, end of year internal leave management policies are typically seen as a sensible logistics planning instrument more than anything else. A Dubai based HR consultancy said that for companies, handing out fixed days off can be a far simpler process than dealing with an influx of overlapping leave requests in December.
“When you have a large number of employees who are competing for time off at similar times, it is more effective to designate shutdown days rather than review all of those requests,” the consultant said.
They said predictable leave dates make it easier for teammates and managers to plan workloads. "Knowing in advance which days the office will be closed allows departments to plan deadlines, client communications and coverage," he says. It diminishes those last minute approvals processes and it makes coordination easier, especially for teams that are working across regions.”
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