Annual leave help

heretolearn_2

Hi

I have a new staff member and it's the first time I've had to work out for someone on irregular hours, so any help please? (I normally just use the businesslink's calculator, but it doesn't work for this).

Works 20 hours per week over Tues - Friday. (not the same number of hours each day), so I need to work out on a hourly basis presumably? Or on a 4 days a week basis? And does it make any difference that they don't work Mondays (bank hols?)

We offer statutory holiday of 28 days including bank hols. All our other part timers work every day Mon-Fri and same hours each day, so theirs is still 28 of 'their days', so simple enough. But that doesn't work here?

HappyMJ

There are a few methods and the easiest I find is 12.07% of hours worked accrues in an annual leave account.

i.e someone would normally work 46.4 weeks of the year and 12.07% of that is 5.6 weeks. If they work 5 days that's 28 days. If they work 20 hours a week but various days and hours then they would accrue 112 hours over 46.4 weeks which they can take over 5.6 weeks.

Savvy_Sue

Or you could multiply 20 hours by 5.6, and tell this person to book their leave by the hour. You could agree that they won't book single hours, only full or half days, but that way you would just pay the same each week / month, regardless of how much leave they've taken. You could also agree that there's a limit to how many single days they book, see below.

Suppose this person works 5 hours Tu, 6 hours Wed, 7 hours Th and 2 hours Friday. If they booked lots of Fridays, they'd be able to eke out their leave and work a 3 day week. So you might want to say that they must take at least 3 blocks of leave of at least one week long, rather than taking lots of single days.

Also note that they do have a pro rata entitlement to bank holidays, even though they wouldn't normally work many of them. As I explained it to someone who wondered why 2 people working half-time had different entitlements once I'd 'booked' the bank holidays, they get the same number of hours' leave, but the one who normally works Mondays has less choice about when to take it.

heretolearn_2

Thank you.

I'm still a bit lost though.

SO if I work out their annual leave in hours, how many hours would I take off for bank hols - just the Friday ones?

We always work out people's total amount of leave, deduct the bank hols and a few days shut down compulsory holiday we have over Christmas (non bank hols days), and tell them how much they have left to allocate wherever they want. I just need her total remaining after I take off bank hols and the Xmas shutdown (which I would just work out how many hours it will be in 2012 according to whether she normally works those days or not).

We were trying to be nice and flexible as she has kids but in future I think I'll just stick to regular times!

And now I've got another question. She's had a day sick. We only pay SSP, so it's a day unpaid. Do I just deduct the average per day amount for her salary or do I have to do it by the exact hours she missed? She is salaried not hourly paid.

Savvy_Sue

heretolearn wrote: »

SO if I work out their annual leave in hours, how many hours would I take off for bank hols - just the Friday ones?

I could answer that question if you told me how long this person's Fridays were ...

If she works 4 hours on a Friday, you'd take off 4 hours for every Friday BH.

heretolearn wrote: »

We always work out people's total amount of leave, deduct the bank hols and a few days shut down compulsory holiday we have over Christmas (non bank hols days), and tell them how much they have left to allocate wherever they want. I just need her total remaining after I take off bank hols and the Xmas shutdown (which I would just work out how many hours it will be in 2012 according to whether she normally works those days or not).

You've got the hang of it in principle. Because she doesn't work Mondays, she does have more flexibility about when to take leave than if she worked, eg Monday to Thursday!

heretolearn wrote: »

We were trying to be nice and flexible as she has kids but in future I think I'll just stick to regular times!

Could be wise. But bear in mind that even if she's the only one with kids atm, there may be others in future (male or female), and if you've let one person have hours to suit you need to have a sound business reason for not letting others have hours to suit ...

Presumably you have this person on probation, and towards the end of that period you might want to see if you can mutually agree to tidy the hours up!

heretolearn wrote: »

And now I've got another question. She's had a day sick. We only pay SSP, so it's a day unpaid. Do I just deduct the average per day amount for her salary or do I have to do it by the exact hours she missed? She is salaried not hourly paid.

I don't know. I think that I would do it by the exact hours she missed. If you look on the HMRC website though there is information on SSP and how to work it out, so that might help you.

I gather you do your own payroll - if you don't, I'd ask whoever does it for advice, btw.

heretolearn_2

Thanks for the help. So basically it's dead fiddly. Won't be doing this again! No she isn't the only one with kids but the others job share on reception so their hours have to be regular, so no probs with setting any precedents.

DCodd

heretolearn wrote: »

Thanks for the help. So basically it's dead fiddly. Won't be doing this again! No she isn't the only one with kids but the others job share on reception so their hours have to be regular, so no probs with setting any precedents.

It's not that fiddly really. You work out their holiday entitlement in hours and then just pay them as though they had worked for the days that they have off, same as any other employee. You are just deducting hours from their entitlement of hours instead of deducting days from the other employees entitlement of days..