There is a wrong concept that taking leave means one has to travel. Leaves can be taken even while being at home to relax the mind and body from our daily official routines and spend some quality time with near and dear ones.
Many companies follow a process of providing mandatory leaves to its employees and depending on criticality of the role or responsibility, the number of leave days to be taken is also decided.
Apart from statutory leave carry forward rules, each company will have their own leave policy which dictates how many leaves can be carried forward each year. Several public organisations such as banks have no such limit or restrictions or have very liberal rules on leave carry forward policy. Employees approaching their retirement age would prefer to encash their unavailed leaves, as a lumpsum amount would help them financially.
Companies should seriously look at the current situation pragmatically and allow for accumulation of such unavailed leaves and perhaps stagger it over one or two years, thereby giving a great morale boost to its employees rather than lapsing it mercilessly.
After all, we say that employees are our assets, right?