Part time workers and bank holidays

faulkner242

Can someone please help me get this straight in my head.  I have two employees who both do 21 hours per week.  One employee's contracted day is a Monday.  Both employees are entitled to 117.6 hours holiday per annum.  Why does it feel like the employee who is contracted to work on a Monday is losing out?  

Employee A gets 117.6 hours paid and can take all her bank holidays
Employee B gets 117.6 hours paid but either has to work her bank holiday or take it as leave

Thanks in advance

Undervalued

faulkner242 said:

Can someone please help me get this straight in my head.  I have two employees who both do 21 hours per week.  One employee's contracted day is a Monday.  Both employees are entitled to 117.6 hours holiday per annum.  Why does it feel like the employee who is contracted to work on a Monday is losing out?  

Employee A gets 117.6 hours paid and can take all her bank holidays
Employee B gets 117.6 hours paid but either has to work her bank holiday or take it as leave

Thanks in advance

Because there is no legal entitlement to bank holidays. There may be a contractual entitlement depending on their terms of employment.

The legal entitlement for a full time employee is to 5.6 weeks paid holiday (28 days) and pro rata for a part time person. This equates to 12.07% of their working hours.

What happens on bank holidays is totally up to the employer. Some close so are in effect insisting that their employees take the BH as part of their annual leave. Some are open and very busy so may insist that their employees work BHs. An employer can totally dictate when holiday can and cannot be taken, just by giving fairly minimal notice.

If however your contracts specify X days holiday PLUS bank holidays then there is a contractual entitlement for the employee to take the BH off.

You cannot lawfully treat an employee less favourably (pro rata obviously) just because they are part time. Perversely you can lawfully treat them more favourably if you so choose!

74jax

faulkner242 said:

Employee A gets 117.6 hours paid and can take all her bank holidays
Employee B gets 117.6 hours paid but either has to work her bank holiday or take it as leave

Thanks in advance

Forget it as a bank holiday. Its a working week day. Just as a Tuesday or any other day.

If employee A wants a day off they would usually work, they use holiday. If employee B wants a day off they would usually work, they use holiday. It's the same. You say they can work the Bank Holiday and a lot of my friends prefer this, at least they have the choice to take it when they want - a lot of employers dictate the day must be off. 

TBagpuss

What do their contracts say?Do they  say they get 'x days + bank holidays', 'x days including bank holidays' or 'x days'?
For employees who are full time or normally work Mondays, do they have to use part of their holiday entitlement for bank holidays?

If your contracts say 'x days including bank holidyas' or 'x days' (And you count the bank holidays as part of that entitlement) then neither is worse off. The person who works Mondays has less choice about when they use their holiday but could ask you if they can work that day, or could ask to take it unpaid, if they want to use time on other dates.

Whst you can't do is treat someone less favourably becasue they are part time - so if you give full time workers bank holidays off without them having to use their holiday allowance, you need to do the same for part timers, and tay may include giveng the peron who dosn't work mondays the appropriae number of hours off in lieu (eg if they work 2.5 days a week you  might have to give them 1/2 day off in liau of the bank holiday, so they still get the same amount (pro ratated) of paid time off asthe full time workers.

If your business is open on bank holidays then it's puely a matter of preference - some people will prefer to work the bank holiday and take time off on a differnet date, others will want the bank holiday off. IF it is feasible, try ot be flexible with granting lave requests so that no one is forced to work on a day they want off, whether it is a bank holiyda or not. 

superbigal

Am I missing something ?
21 hours per week = 1092 Hours per annum.
Surely Min holiday entitlement is at least 131 hours

74jax

superbigal said:

Am I missing something ?
21 hours per week = 1092 Hours per annum.
Surely Min holiday entitlement is at least 131 hours

If they work 3 days, it's 117.6.

pinkshoes

The minimum holiday is 28 days (196 hours based on a 7 hour day) for a full time worker, which is the 8 bank holidays plus 20 days.

So for a person working 3 days (21 hours) a week, then they'd get 60% of this, so 117.6 hours.

If a person does not work Monday and do not get paid for Monday, then they should not have their holiday deducted for this day, and the holiday balance should remain the same. Otherwise they would get less than the minimum holiday.

The person who DOES work Monday should get 7 hours of their holiday allowance deducted if they take the day off.