Holiday entitlement and hours of work

jw7a28

Hiya, I was just after some general advice please. 
I work for a, top university in accomadation maintenance the service we provide runs 24 hours a day every day all year. It's a new, service started in November 2020. Our contracted hours are 37.5 but as we run 24.7 we work shifts  one week we work 3 x 12 hour shifts next week we work 4 x 9.5 hour shifts. One month we work 8 days in a row to change from week days to weekends and the next month we get the 8 days off this shift system runs over a 17 week period and equates in the end to 37.5 hours a, week.
Holiday entitlement is 44 days a year including Bank hols and university extra days off. My contract of work states, 44 days holiday the uni holiday policy states full time staff working 37.5 hours a week Monday to Friday holiday entitlement is in hours, if you work irregular hours entitlement is in days. Ours has always been in hours. We were told to book 7.5 hours for a days holiday but are now being told if we work a 12 hour shift or a 9 hour shift we have to book those hours. 
My question is has anyone come across this before the uni don't seem to have a clue as they have never employed for shift work before  I've never worked any shift work before, my feeling and my Co workers think if the holiday policy states 7.5 hours or one day then that's what we should be taking.  This is a, monthly salary based on a 37.5 hr week. 
Thanks in advance for any advice 

General_Grant

jw7a28 said:

Hiya, I was just after some general advice please. 
I work for a, top university in accomadation maintenance the service we provide runs 24 hours a day every day all year. It's a new, service started in November 2020. Our contracted hours are 37.5 but as we run 24.7 we work shifts  one week we work 3 x 12 hour shifts next week we work 4 x 9.5 hour shifts. One month we work 8 days in a row to change from week days to weekends and the next month we get the 8 days off this shift system runs over a 17 week period and equates in the end to 37.5 hours a, week.
Holiday entitlement is 44 days a year including Bank hols and university extra days off. My contract of work states, 44 days holiday the uni holiday policy states full time staff working 37.5 hours a week Monday to Friday holiday entitlement is in hours, if you work irregular hours entitlement is in days. Ours has always been in hours. We were told to book 7.5 hours for a days holiday but are now being told if we work a 12 hour shift or a 9 hour shift we have to book those hours. 
My question is has anyone come across this before the uni don't seem to have a clue as they have never employed for shift work before  I've never worked any shift work before, my feeling and my Co workers think if the holiday policy states 7.5 hours or one day then that's what we should be taking.  This is a, monthly salary based on a 37.5 hr week. 
Thanks in advance for any advice 

I can't believe that any organisation would have people working regular hours having holiday entitlement in hours but those with irregular hours having it in days!!!!  Surely it must be the other way round.

When working shifts of different lengths it certainly makes sense to have those 44 days converted to hours.  Normally a 37.5-hour week would be made up of 5 days of 7.5 each.  So your annual entitlement would be 330 hours.

The number of hours to be deducted for any time taken as paid leave should be in accordance with the length of the shift which is not being worked.

getmore4less

Holiday pay is now based on average of the previous 52 weeks to take account of some of the variables.

jw7a28

Hi General grant thanks for the reply. That is exactly what our uni policy states about full time workers being in hours. So you think they are now correct on the hours? It's a, bit annoying really this mean the holiday entitlement up until the new holiday period for me is now, 25 days, I've used or allocated where as somebody on a, normal day would be on 35 days, for the same hours, I was made unemployed from my last job due to covid and thought this was a, good job we were sold the line the uni wants you to have a lot of time off for work life balance but to be honest it's not the first porky they have told us I think it's time to move on. Thanks, again 

General_Grant

I think it is fine for them to use hours rather than days for any employee.  I was surprised that people working irregular hours would have holiday entitlement in days.  It doesn't make sense to me. ( If the hours are irregular (by which I'm assuming, for example, some shifts are 7 hours and others 8 hours) then looking at hours makes more sense.  In the latter case, someone working either 7 or 8 hours could always take holidays on those days when they would normally work 8 hours and therefore get more holiday.)

As you are contracted to work 37.5 hours/week on average, and if your contract says you are entitled to 44 days holiday, then that suggests to me that you would get annual holiday of 330 hours (44 days x 7.5 hours).