Calculating holiday entitlement?

JustAnotherSaver

I was asked today but didn't have an answer so said i would look into it.
As i work full time Monday-Friday/Saturday i get a full 20 days holiday per year (28 but we're not getting picky over bank holidays).

The person who asked me is contracted to only work a Thursday & Friday however throughout the year
- they are often asked to cover on any or all of Monday-Thursday
- they often ask for more time (& are given it)
- they have covered maternity leave on a number of occasions.

Yet their holiday allowance never increases. I think they get 8 days per year and this never increases.


On a little side note they also said that while they are closed for all bank holiday days, people at their workplace get paid for some bank holidays but not others. The only one that will affect them is Good Friday but that's not the point. I did ask do these people get that day to use elsewhere in the year (as is what happened at my place with the royal wedding & Queens jubilee) but i was told no.

Still, is it correct that their holiday entitlement doesn't increase? And if it should then how do you calculate since their days vary from week to week. When they were doing maternity cover they were often doing full weeks for example.

KiKi

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

The person who asked me is contracted to only work a Thursday & Friday however throughout the year
- they are often asked to cover on any or all of Monday-Thursday
- they often ask for more time (& are given it)
- they have covered maternity leave on a number of occasions.

Yet their holiday allowance never increases. I think they get 8 days per year and this never increases.

You need to look at the company policy on this one, as it probably depends what the 'additional' time (additional to contracted hours) is considered to be. If it's 'overtime', you may find that working additional overtime does not impact annual leave, as it's optional to work it.

However, it may be worth taking a pragmatic view that if someone works so much more time at the company's request, that you DO give them the additional AL that comes with it as a gesture of goodwill and to be fair to the number of hours they are doing. That's what I've done in the past.

Look at the company policy and what it says about this. I'd argue that a small number of additional hours is simply overtime, but if done in great number at the company's request (like mat leave) then I'd offer additional AL as a gesture of goodwill.

On a little side note they also said that while they are closed for all bank holiday days, people at their workplace get paid for some bank holidays but not others. The only one that will affect them is Good Friday but that's not the point. I did ask do these people get that day to use elsewhere in the year (as is what happened at my place with the royal wedding & Queens jubilee) but i was told no.

Still, is it correct that their holiday entitlement doesn't increase? And if it should then how do you calculate since their days vary from week to week. When they were doing maternity cover they were often doing full weeks for example.

It seems they are getting the correct AL calculation, but NOT the correct BH calculation. And the legal minimum holidays is 20+8 combined (well, 5.6 weeks to be precise) - the company can't only give the AL and then ignore the BH days because they don't fall on the right days.

Quite simply, if you work part time then your leave (which includes AL and BHs) should be calculated as a total, not treated separately. So if a FT person on 5 days a week gets 28 days a year (20 AL and 8 BH), then someone working 2 days a week (assume same day hours as a FTer) gets 11.2 days. That is the legal minimum requirement.

If they are scheduled to work on a BH (and get the day off because it's a BH) then a day comes out of their 11.2 leave allowance, and they are paid for it. If there's a BH that they are not scheduled to work, then nothing happens with their leave allowance.

This means they are getting the right number of days, but depending what days they work they may have less flexibility as to when they can take all those days because some of them will be forced due to the days BH fall. A company can round up the 11.2 days to 11.5 or 12, but they can't take it down to 11, FYI.

The mat leave cover is a different scenario. Really, I'd argue that they were taking on a FT role temporarily, and therefore should get all the pay and AL that goes with it - and their total leave should have been recalculated over the year on this basis. I think the company would find it tricky to argue that working FT for months would constitute overtime and therefore the individual wouldn't be afforded the AL benefits that go with that. However, I'm not sure of the legalities of that - I just think that would be the right thing to do.

HTH
KiKi

getmore4less

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I was asked today but didn't have an answer so said i would look into it.
As i work full time Monday-Friday/Saturday i get a full 20 days holiday per year (28 but we're not getting picky over bank holidays).

..............................

You need get more than picky as they are critical to any holiday calculations.


Kiki has covered kind of what I was going to say, but will add any decent employer would have a policy that includes holiday for these types of situations rather than a blanket only contracted hours.

JustAnotherSaver

The key thing here though is do they have to by law or is it only what 'nice' employers do, because if they don't have to by law then simply they don't have to and the staff can do all the feet stomping that they wish but it wont get them anywhere.

Also depends what is classified as a few hours. I know for the past few months (3-5) the person who asked me has been doing 4-5 days per week with the odd one that might be 3 days. To me and i would assume to most others that's more than just a few hours - it's doubling up your time at least.

I'll tell them to take a look at the company policy. Thank you for the advice.

getmore4less

Start with the holiday allowance that needs to be a min of 5.6weeks or 11.2 days(more if full timers get more)

Then there is the overtime, a few test cases on that the company should be looking at their obligations that are or will be law at some point.
just google overtime holiday pay

The fall back is to negotiate new terms for the extra work, eg maternity cover should be done as a temp change in contractual hours consider a change to variable contract or annualised hours