Should I be getting my full holiday entitlement as I do not work on Bank Holidays?

Savvy_Sue

At the risk of attempting some mind-reading ...

jobbingmusician wrote: »

In BH weeks, you seem to be expecting something special to happen. Why? You don't take, or get, holiday pay.

No, I don't think that's really what she's saying.

jobbingmusician wrote: »

What you seem to be suggesting is that you are being deducted holiday for days when the company is closed but you wouldn't be contracted to work anyway - which is clearly wrong. But you are also suggesting that you expect something special to happen to your pay packet in a BH week, which suggests to me that you are thoroughly confused!

No, I think OP has been confirming that in a bank holiday week, she is paid for the five days she works. She does not receive extra pay for the bank holiday, BUT they appear to have deducted the bank holidays from her leave allowance.

jobbingmusician wrote: »

I agree that your statutory holiday is 179.2 hours per year. There is a VERY simple way of working this out - from gov.uk site 'Almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid holiday per year' 5.6 x 32 = 179.2 This includes BH. Your employer should agree this. Now it is up to you to calculate how many BH DO fall on days you work, what the length of these days is in hours, and so how many hours' holiday you have remaining for your own use - and how much of this you have booked.

And that's the point: her leave entitlement SHOULD BE 179.2 hours. Her employer says that it is 128 hours.

From the first post:

crazysunshine54 wrote: »

So, I went through the government website to check how much holiday entitlement I should be getting for the 32 hours I work per week. It is calculated as being 179 hours and 12 minutes, but at the moment in my contract it says that I have 128 hours per annum.

And I think we're back to the situation where you, plus hopefully others in the same situation, approach your employer, show them the statutory calculation, and politely ask why it has been reduced to 128 hours.

It looks very much to me as if the employer has taken the bank holidays off: 32 hours / 5 x 8 is very close to the discrepancy.

crazysunshine54

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

At the risk of attempting some mind-reading ...
No, I don't think that's really what she's saying.

No, I think OP has been confirming that in a bank holiday week, she is paid for the five days she works. She does not receive extra pay for the bank holiday, BUT they appear to have deducted the bank holidays from her leave allowance.

And that's the point: her leave entitlement SHOULD BE 179.2 hours. Her employer says that it is 128 hours.

From the first post:

And I think we're back to the situation where you, plus hopefully others in the same situation, approach your employer, show them the statutory calculation, and politely ask why it has been reduced to 128 hours.

It looks very much to me as if the employer has taken the bank holidays off: 32 hours / 5 x 8 is very close to the discrepancy.

Thanks very much for your help. I contacted my employer for a clear breakdown of how holiday entitlement has been calculated by them... I'm intrigued to hear what they'll have to say.

t0rt0ise

You are right OP and your employer is wrong. I had something similar done to me and in the end I got paid for the holiday I had missed out on. Keep going with it because you are right.

getmore4less

I think you need to break it down,

Get them to agree the total paid holiday allowance pro rata.

Then get them to explain when the hours they are allocating/deducting or the BH are getting paid.

General_Grant

crazysunshine54 wrote: »

Well, if that's the case... 3.8624 hours of holiday earned per week x 52 weeks of the year = 200.8448 hours of holiday entitlement...

You can't multiply by 52 as there are only 52 weeks in a year and 5.6 of them are holidays without work.

CoastHopper

Do they pay you extra money that week there is a bank holiday,

Can't really see how a company can tell someone to take a holiday when they aren't due in,

Lesley_RG

Hi,
I've not done this calculation for 6 years but it was a regular when I was at work. I had staff that worked every pattern conceivable in the 'good old days' of 'family friendly' policies -
Full time; Nearly full time, Part time, Job share; Full time and for part of the year (mostly mums who had the school holidays off work with their children and were contracted to work 35 weeks of the year and the mostly students who worked the 17 weeks that the that the 'mums' didn't) ; Part time and for part of the year (again mostly mums who could only work part time because of family/child care commitments who also also were contracted to not work in school holidays.
No matter what the work pattern each person is ENTITLED to take the equivalent of 28days paid holiday leave per year. So the simple answer is to work out what is an equivalent day of work for each person and then multiply that by 28 to get the correct number of hours that a person is entitled to have as leave.
Full time 40 hours per week over 5 days = 8 hours per day x 28 = 224hours per year so each day off at 8 hours per day is 28 days of leave.
Everyone not working full time has his or her leave calculated in hours.
Part time 32 hours (8 per day) over 5 days = 6.4 hours per day (or 6 hours and 24 mins in actual time) x 28 = 179.20 hours for the year (179 hours and 12 mins actual time). Any contracted time taken as leave is at 8 hours for each day so the person taking a week off work takes 32 hours from the total, If they are contracted to work on a bank holiday but have the day off then 8 hours needs to be deducted from the annual total of hours leave for that day. If the person is not contracted to work on the bank holiday then there is no deduction from the annual holiday entitlement
Even the part year contracted person is ENTITLED to receive paid holidays pro rata at 28days per year.
The student contracted to work 17 weeks of the year at 40 hours per week works 680 hours in the year / 2080 (the equivalent full time hours for a year) = .0.326923 days per week x 28 + 9.15 days per year, In rough and ready terms they work for about a third of the year so they are ENTITLED to about a third of a year's worth of paid holiday to be taken during the part of the year that they are contracted to work.
When I was working we worked a 37-hour week so you can imagine the fun of working out leave in the equivalent of 7.4 hour per day or 7 hours and 24 mins in actual time1
The employer can only deduct hours from you holiday entitlement of 179.2 hours if he is paying you for the day that you are taking as holiday. If he deducts 8 hours for a Monday bank holiday then you only have to work 3 further days that week to receive 32 hours of pay (8 hours holiday + 24hours of work ). Similarly the person who works part of the year is still ENTITLED to have 28 days pro rata of paid holiday to be taken during the period that they are contracted to work.
The government website is correct you are ENTITLED to at least 179.2 hours of paid holiday each year. Your employer can take it up with any employment lawyer and will be told to get his holiday pay sorted. Or you can join a union and get them involved. This is just the sort of thing they get sorted to protect workers from rogue /inept employers.
Best of luck

Mr.Generous

In a nutshell, say you just worked Saturdays. You get 5 weeks paid holiday per year. Do you really think they are going to say "Oh hang on, there are also 8 bank holidays, you'd better remember to take them to even although none of them fall on your working day, so that's 13 days off, more than 1 per month. So no, I don't for 1 second think you will get them added as extras.

Lesley_RG

Hi Mr Generous
If she did only work one day on a Saturday and did 8 hours she should get 44.hours and 48 minutes of paid leave for the year. She could have a two week holiday Saturday to Saturday and use 24 of her hours as leave so she would be paid for the three days she had off. She could have a shorter break and use a further 16 hours and on the day she was having a evening out she could leave after working just before lunch and take the other 4 hours and 48 minutes off and be paid for the day. So she's having 5.6 weeks of her working week off as holiday - the same as everyone else!
If she worked one day a week on a Monday then she'd have to do some extra days work to make up for the extra Mondays that she was having off and being paid for over and above the 44.8 hours that she was due for the year.
Not generous just fair.
Happy Days

crazysunshine54

I completely forgot to respond to this. In the end, I was indeed correct. I was eventually paid for the missing Bank Holiday hours I was owed, as well as getting my full holiday entitlement from now on. Thanks for everyone's help!