Pro rata Bank holiday for part timer?

Kirri1997

Hi guys,

Can you please help me understand my holiday entitlement?

We are 4 employees at my work.

2 full timers working Monday-Friday 

1 part timer working Tuesday-Friday (30h)

1 part timer working Monday-Thursday(30h. Me)

Our contracts say 28 days holiday plus bank holidays. 

The full time girls are allocated 28 days holiday to use when they want throughout the year.

My part time colleague (who is off on Mondays) is allocated 23 days and I (I’m off on Fridays) only have 20 despite working the same amount of hours.

The full timers get all bank holidays off of course. 

My part time colleague normally gets 3 bank holidays per year (good Friday, Friday 1st Jan 2021 and Tuesday 27th 2021 Boxing Day )

I get about 6 bank holidays per year (all bank holiday Mondays, Tuesday 27th of December etc) 

I don’t understand why my part time colleague and I don’t have the same amount of holiday to take when we want (she has 23, I have 20)

I always thought part timers get their holiday pro rata. As me and my colleague work 80% we assumed we’d get 80% of 28 days holiday + 8 bank holidays = 36 days. 

80% of 36 = 28.8 days inc bank holidays.

Ive been told my 2021 holiday will be 26 days including bank holidays, and my part time colleague also gets 26 days inc bank holidays. 

Would really appreciate some thoughts!

KatrinaWaves

Don’t you currently both get 26 days. What am I missing? 

There is no ‘we should get the same amount of free choice’ holiday otherwise you’d have more holidays days than her for the same amount of working hours. 

The only issue I can see is that 26 days isn’t 4/5 of 36 days. How many hours do full timers work?

Kirri1997

KatrinaWaves said:

Don’t you currently both get 26 days. What am I missing? 

There is no ‘we should get the same amount of free choice’ holiday otherwise you’d have more holidays days than her for the same amount of working hours. 

Yes We currently get 26 days each. My question is shouldn’t we get 28.8 as that is 80% of 36? I am not sure what brings my manager to 26 days.

How did you calculate to get our entitlement to 26 days?

Kirri1997

KatrinaWaves said:

The only issue I can see is that 26 days isn’t 4/5 of 36 days. How many hours do full timers work?

Full timers work 38h, and me and my part time colleague both work 30

KatrinaWaves

Kirri1997 said:

KatrinaWaves said:

The only issue I can see is that 26 days isn’t 4/5 of 36 days. How many hours do full timers work?

Full timers work 38h, and me and my part time colleague both work 30

I didn’t calculate anything to get you to 26. You seemed to be saying you and your PT colleague had different holidays but you both have 26.

As your holiday allowance is over the legal statutory of 5.6 weeks you would need to discuss with your manager how they have come to allocate your holidays. You don’t quite work 80% of FT hours as it comes out just shy of 79%, but that won’t make a huge difference. 

Undervalued

Kirri1997 said:

Hi guys,

Can you please help me understand my holiday entitlement?

We are 4 employees at my work.

2 full timers working Monday-Friday 

1 part timer working Tuesday-Friday (30h)

1 part timer working Monday-Thursday(30h. Me)

Our contracts say 28 days holiday plus bank holidays. 

The full time girls are allocated 28 days holiday to use when they want throughout the year.

My part time colleague (who is off on Mondays) is allocated 23 days and I (I’m off on Fridays) only have 20 despite working the same amount of hours.

The full timers get all bank holidays off of course. 

My part time colleague normally gets 3 bank holidays per year (good Friday, Friday 1st Jan 2021 and Tuesday 27th 2021 Boxing Day )

I get about 6 bank holidays per year (all bank holiday Mondays, Tuesday 27th of December etc) 

I don’t understand why my part time colleague and I don’t have the same amount of holiday to take when we want (she has 23, I have 20)

I always thought part timers get their holiday pro rata. As me and my colleague work 80% we assumed we’d get 80% of 28 days holiday + 8 bank holidays = 36 days. 

80% of 36 = 28.8 days inc bank holidays.

Ive been told my 2021 holiday will be 26 days including bank holidays, and my part time colleague also gets 26 days inc bank holidays. 

Would really appreciate some thoughts!

28 days is the statutory minimum. As you get more than that the company can have more or less whatever rules it likes regarding the additional days over and above the statutory 28.

There is no legal requirement to treat everybody the same as long as they are not discriminating on one of the few grounds prohibited by law (race, gender etc). Plus you cannot treat a part time employee less favourably than a full time employee purely because they are part time - but you can for most other reasons.

Kirri1997

KatrinaWaves said:

Kirri1997 said:

KatrinaWaves said:

The only issue I can see is that 26 days isn’t 4/5 of 36 days. How many hours do full timers work?

Full timers work 38h, and me and my part time colleague both work 30

I didn’t calculate anything to get you to 26. You seemed to be saying you and your PT colleague had different holidays but you both have 26.

As your holiday allowance is over the legal statutory of 5.6 weeks you would need to discuss with your manager how they have come to allocate your holidays. You don’t quite work 80% of FT hours as it comes out just shy of 79%, but that won’t make a huge difference. 

Thank you for your replies. We do work 80% if a full timer, I checked properly and they actually work 37.5h/week.

I always thought we get 80% pro rata on whatever entitlement a full timer has.
26 days as he says, may very well be correct, I just don’t understand how it’s meant to be calculated. 

We have tried to speak with him but he just said it should be 26. I’m here because I wanted to have some more information before bringing It up with him again so I don’t make a complete fool of myself in real life. Online is better that way ya.

Kirri1997

28 days is the statutory minimum. As you get more than that the company can have more or less whatever rules it likes regarding the additional days over and above the statutory 28.

There is no legal requirement to treat everybody the same as long as they are not discriminating on one of the few grounds prohibited by law (race, gender etc). Plus you cannot treat a part time employee less favourably than a full time employee purely because they are part time - but you can for most other reasons.

But if we work 80% of the full time  hours, shouldn’t we have 80% of the full time holiday entitlement? Otherwise we are being treated differently. Or am I going mad here?

Undervalued

Kirri1997 said:

28 days is the statutory minimum. As you get more than that the company can have more or less whatever rules it likes regarding the additional days over and above the statutory 28.

There is no legal requirement to treat everybody the same as long as they are not discriminating on one of the few grounds prohibited by law (race, gender etc). Plus you cannot treat a part time employee less favourably than a full time employee purely because they are part time - but you can for most other reasons.

But if we work 80% of the full time  hours, shouldn’t we have 80% of the full time holiday entitlement? Otherwise we are being treated differently. Or am I going mad here?

Yes, providing you can show that is the only reason for the difference.

If however you are less experienced, say, or there is some other reason apart from being part time then the employer may be allowed to treat you less favourably.

Kirri1997

Undervalued said:

Yes, providing you can show that is the only reason for the difference.

If however you are less experienced, say, or there is some other reason apart from being part time then the employer may be allowed to treat you less favourably.

I am on the same “level” as the full timers and my part time colleague is actually our head of department. It’s a small company, I highly doubt he’d ever say any reasons for us to have less holiday due to experience/work performance etc. I think he doesn’t agree with us having the bank holidays as we are off Monday’s/Fridays . he hasn’t said that but it’s just my impression and if that’s the case he needs to change our contract I guess, and also be able to motivate why we don’t get the same entitlement as the others. 

Mrs_Soup

where I where I work we also get pro rated for the bank holidays. Ie if we work 50% of full time we only “earn” 50% of each bank holiday. So if a bank holiday falls on a day we would normally work we have only earned half that day and the other half comes out of holiday allowance. Conversely bank holidays on days we don’t work get you credit for 50% of the day Because you are off already. Hence a lot of part timers don’t work Mondays as there are more bank holidays on Mondays and it leaves you with fewer days of leave to take when you choose, it’s the same amount of time off overall but more if it is dictated to you.  So if your full time colleagues get 8 days of bank holidays you would only get 80% of 8 days