Part-time Worker Holidays...

Nemo

I posted this on a more general forum on another site, but then remembered this one so thought I'd give it a go here.

I officially started a new job at the beginning of November, although I'd worked a couple of weeks previously without a contract while the CRB check came through. It's 18.5 hrs which is exactly half the normal 37hr week. The days & hours are Mon-6.5, Tue-4, Wed-4, Thurs-4, and I don't work Fridays.

My supervisor said at the time that she'd have to confirm my entitlement, but she thought I'd get 5 days holiday. I thought this seemed about right, up to the end of the year. I think full entitlement is 25 days+bank hols., although I'm still awaiting HR to produce a contract.

I asked her yesterday if she'd had confirmation of the number of days. She said yes, it's 5. On asking her to confirm that I needed to take them before the end of the year, she said no, that's to the end of March.

My rough calculation says that I should get 5/12s of a years holiday. ie. about 10 of my 'half' days, although I guess this is less 20% because of working a 4 day week thus 8x 4.625 hrs (4.625 = 18.5/4). If someone started full-time at the same time as me, they'd get 10 full days, where I'd get 8 of my 'half' days. ie. I'd get half the number of hours off in total for working half the time.

I presume I'll lose about a day(?) for bank holidays due to me working Mondays, but not Fridays.

I wondered if she'd worked out the proportion of the year left, to get 10 days, then thought she needed to half it as I'm part-time.

Obviously I need to speak to her again, but would like some back-up info rather than get all confused again, so can anyone tell me what they think my entitlement should be based on the above.

I've only had one job before (for 20 years) which was full-time, and this is clearly confusing me and is made more complicated by working a 4-day week with different hours per day. The only sensible way of keeping track of what I take is to work out the total number of holidays in hours, then if I have a Monday off, subtract 6.5 hrs, and if I have any other day off, subtract 4 hrs. My head hurts.

Cheers.

Jarvisma

First of all you have said the holiday entitlement is 25 days PLUS Bank Holidays, so the Bank Holidays aren't relevant to this calculation.

Your calculation should be in two parts:

First part - A full year's entitlement.

If a full time person, working 37 hours per week gets 25 days holiday in a full year - You are working 18.5 hours so you would be entitled to 12.5 days in a full holiday year.

25 days / 37 hours = 0.675 days per hour worked.

0.675 x 18.5 hours you work = 12.4999 (Rounded up to 12.5)

Second part - This year's entitlement a you have joined part way through

As you have correctly said, if you joined in November you are due 5/12's of a full year's entitlement, if your holiday year runs to the end of March.

12.5 days full entitlement / 12 months = 1.041 days for each month worked.

1.041 days x 5 months worked = 5.208 (Rounded down to 5 days)

Total holiday due - 5 days

Seems like her calculations are spot on to me!

Conor_3

Just to add...

I think there's some confusion with the OP as what is regarded as a days holiday pay.

IT IS NOT the normal hours you work in the day. IT IS a full working day excluding overtime. So if you work 3hrs a day in a company with an 8hr normal working day, it's not the equivalent of 5x3hrs but is 5x8hrs.

Nemo

Thanks for the replies.

There does seem to be some confusion over what a holiday day is. Leaving aside for a second my weekly working pattern, you can look at a full years holiday for working part-time as either 25 days of 4(ish) hours or 12.5 days of 8(ish) hours. If it's the latter (as I think you're saying), then if I took, say, next Wednesday & Thursday off, I'd actually book 1 day's holiday rather than the 2 I would using the first method. ie. each 0.5 of the 12.5 days is one of my working days...I think.

Ok, having thought about it a bit more, here is my revised maths using the first method where a holiday is one of my 'half-days' rather than a full day...

Full-time is a 37 hr/week, which equals 7.4 hr/day (37/5).
25 days holidays = 185 hrs of holidays/yr.

Part-time:- as I do exactly half the full-time hours, I should get 185 hrs / 2 ie. 92.5 hrs of holiday.

This equates to 25 days of half the full-time hours (3.7 hrs) or 12.5 days of the full-time hours (7.4).

As I work only 4 days, as described in my OP, I reduce the 25 days holiday by 20% to get to 20 days holiday.

I divide my no. of hours per week (18.5) by the no. of days I actually work (4) to get an average no. of hours per day of 4.625 . Multiplying 4.625 by 20 days holiday gets back to the total of 92.5 hrs.

To calculate the no. of hours from November to the end of March, multiply 20 days holiday by 5/12s = 8.333 days.

This 8.333 is quite a bit away from the 5 quoted, unless the 5 is full days ie. 5x 7.4hrs as opposed to my 8.333x 4.625hrs. In fact rounding 8.333 to 8 and multiplying gives 37hrs in both cases. Coincidence?

Please feel free to comment on the above, otherwise I think it's time now to have my supervisor explain.

Thanks again.

Alexandria

My head hurts from reading all that!! But as a part time worker I know my holiday entitlement is based on the number of days I work not he hours I do. Our entitlement (fulltime) is 25 days also and I work 5 days a week (but only 4 hrs each day) and so receive the full amount of holidays. If I worked 4 days I would receive 20 days hols a year.

PasturesNew

As there are 5 days in a week and it is 5 days we are talking about, it would just be either one solid week off... or the same number of hours.

So if you work Mon/Tue full time and Wed half day, then you could take 10 Wednesdays, or a combination of any 5 Mondays or Tuesdays.
Or a combination of those.

For a part timer, 5 days' holiday needs to be equated down to hours (37) and then taken appropriately depending on the actual hours/days they work.

Debt_Free_Chick

The entitlement for a part timer is exactly how Jarvisma explained it.

It's your PT contractual weekly hours compared with the FT contractual weekly hours.

Someone working full time works 37 hours and gets 25 days annual leave.

Someone working half hours gets half the annual leave. Someone working a quarter of the hours get a quarter of the annual leave etc.

The same pro-rata principle applies to your entitlement for part of the year.

Someone working the same hours as you would get 12.5 days holiday spread over the whole year, which is roughly 1 day for each month worked. So if you work 5 months in this year, you get 5 days holiday. 4 months worked, would give you 4 days holiday etc etc.

Savvy_Sue

Just a thought, which I would check before getting your head in a spin ...

Where I work, our leave year runs from January to December.

BUT we can carry forward up to 5 days each year until the end of March, if we haven't had time to take them.

So, check whether YOUR leave year runs from Jan to December.

And if it does, do you also have discretion to carry leave forward ...

If you do, your line manager may have just been saying that you don't HAVE to take the 5 days to which you are entitled by the end of December, but can keep some of them to next year!

Nemo

Just to draw a line under this for anyone interested (No one?:D), I sorted this out yesterday.

Holiday year is March thru March. The 5 days quoted was full days ie. 7.4 hrs. Therefore I just need to start with the number of holiday hours I have, 37, and knock of the hours I take, rather than mess about with days and half days.

Cheers!

Savvy_Sue

Thanks for coming back about this, glad you sorted it out, I lost myself in the maths several posts back! :rotfl: