Holiday Entitlement Help Please!

Ceh29

Hello All,

I'm currently disputing my holiday entitlement with my employer who is adamant that they are correct but I am equally adamant that they are not! Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I have worked there for 18 months and work the following hours:

Monday 9-3
Tuesday 9-6
Wednesday 9-3
Thursday 9-6
Friday 9-3

I also work one Saturday a month for which I do not receive a day off in lieu. Therefore, evened out over the year, I work 34 hours a week (they deduct an hour every day for lunch). Last year I received my 25 days plus bank holidays but they've now changed this (even though I now work more hours!)

My understanding is that if you work five days a week you are entitled to the statutory minimum of 28 days a year. Whether these are full days or not does not apply. I understand that this would change if I worked say three or four days a week instead.

I also think that if you work irregular hours it can be best to work out holiday entitlement on an hourly basis, so 34 x 5.6 which equals 190 hours.

I have advised my employer of the latter and he has informed me that they do not calculate holiday entitlement on an hourly basis for permanent staff. However he has worked my holiday entitlement out as 34 hours a week as a proportion of full time hours multiplied by 25 days. That, to my mind, is working things out on an hourly basis?!?!

Before I go any further with this I want to check my facts. I have spoken with ACAS who have advised that five days a week is five days and week and if that is what you work then the statutory minimum kicks in. It's just that my days are less hours than a full time workers. So it's either 28 days OR an hourly figure but either way my employer is wrong.

Anybody able to explain the above better would be much appreciated it and I could then go to my employer with a less jumbled explanation!

tacpot12

If you can persuade your employer to use this calculator,

https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement

and you can agree on how to enter the data representing your working pattern, the calculator will tell you both what your holiday entitlement should be.

I tried a few different options, all came out with more than 190 hrs; I think you would be best using annualised hours. It's not clear from your initial post how many hours you work each day as you don't say what time you take off for lunch, and you don't say how long you work on Saturday.

However, I think your problem will be that your employer has a process for calculating holiday entitlement and they want to be able to continue to use that process. If the process is wrong, they will be reluctant to correct it because of the impact on their staff costs.

I would suggest that you calculate your holiday entitlement using annualised houses, and see if the answer matches what your employer has calculated. If not, raise a grievance, to the effect that that are not meeting their statutory obligations regarding annual leave entitlement.

Ceh29

Hi,

Saturday is 9-4. Every day has one hour deducted for lunch although we never actually take it (I know this doesn't matter).

Undervalued

The statutory minimum holiday is 5.6 weeks (28 days) which may include the 8 bank holidays. So if you get 25 days plus the 8 bank holidays that is 5 days above statutory.

This is important as the company can apply whatever rules it likes to the additional 5 days holiday. The statutory rules of calculation do not have to apply to those days.

TELLIT01

Many places calculate the number of hours entitlement for people either working part time or when daily hours differ. To simply give x days holiday could mean taking too many, or too few hours.

Ceh29

They've given me 21.5 days holiday. We don't have bank holidays included other than Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day as we are expected to work the others.

p00hsticks

Ceh29 wrote: »

Hello All,
I have worked there for 18 months and work the following hours:

Monday 9-3
Tuesday 9-6
Wednesday 9-3
Thursday 9-6
Friday 9-3

I also work one Saturday a month for which I do not receive a day off in lieu. Therefore, evened out over the year, I work 34 hours a week (they deduct an hour every day for lunch).

Ceh29 wrote: »

Saturday is 9-4. Every day has one hour deducted for lunch although we never actually take it (I know this doesn't matter).

I can't see how you can get to 34 hours a week - taking away the hour for lunch each day you are doing 5 hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and 8 hours Tuesday and Friday - that's a total of 31 hours.

If you do another six hours every four weeks on a Saturday that still makes only 32.5 hours a week on average ?


I agree that as you work different length days your holiday enttitlement should be expressed in hours not days

Ceh29

They have me as 34 hours a week and we worked it out as 34......

But it's the five days a week that's more important than the actual number of hours 😁

p00hsticks

Ceh29 wrote: »

They've given me 21.5 days holiday.

you need to get them to define what they regard a 'day' as.

When you come to take holidays, it should be expressed in hours because you work different hours each day and (e.g) taking two nine hour days off should use the same holiday entitlement as taking three six hour days off.

Incidentally, could the 34 hour weeks total be due to them NOT includung an unpaid lunch hour in the six hour days ? You legally have to have a break if you work longer than six hours but as far as I'm aware there's no problem with you working (and getting paid) for six hours with no break.

jobbingmusician

p00hsticks wrote: »

you need to get them to define what they regard a 'day' as.

When you come to take holidays, it should be expressed in hours because you work different hours each day and (e.g) taking two nine hour days off should use the same holiday entitlement as taking three six hour days off.

Incidentally, could the 34 hour weeks total be due to them NOT includung an unpaid lunch hour in the six hour days ? You legally have to have a break if you work longer than six hours but as far as I'm aware there's no problem with you working (and getting paid) for six hours with no break.

I agree - good theory and I believe the last paragraph is correct.

Another, simpler calculation - everyone is entitled to 5.6 weeks' leave, so just multiply whatever your eventual weekly hours are agreed to be by 5.6 for an annualised hourly leave entitlement.

Undervalued

jobbingmusician wrote: »

I agree - good theory and I believe the last paragraph is correct.

Another, simpler calculation - everyone is entitled to 5.6 weeks' leave, so just multiply whatever your eventual weekly hours are agreed to be by 5.6 for an annualised hourly leave entitlement.

I agree as far as the statutory element of the holiday is concerned. However the OP gets 5 days over and above the statutory minimum. As I said earlier, different rules could apply to that part and only the employer can answer that.