Annual leave confusion

veryconfused20

I'm employed full time, 37.5 hours a week equivalent. I work 12 hour (11.25 hours paid) shifts on a five week repeating rota. Within these five weeks, I work 14 shifts and have 4 days of annual leave planned in. These 4 days of annual leave "cost" me 7.5 hours of annual leave per day, rather than 11.25.

I'm due to return from maternity leave and have 320 hours of annual leave accrued. I've been informed that this will mean I can take an additional 10 weeks off on full time hours, or 14 weeks on 2 days part time... in other words, costing me 11.25 hours per shift.

Whilst this in itself makes perfect sense, in context of only ordinarily being "charged" 7.5 hours, I can't understand the difference [between taking annual leave planned into a rota vs 'extra' annual leave].

Hoping someone has a logical explanation as I'm stumped. 

theoretica

It is probably easier to think all in hours and forget the leave you are automatically scheduled is ever called 'days'.

At 37.5 hours a week, 5 weeks work comes to 37.5 x 5 = 187.5 hours paid for

14 shifts of 11.25 hours comes to 14 x 11.25 = 157.5 hours actually worked.

The difference - 30 hours is paid to you as holiday and for some reason they decide to call this 30 hours 4 days - but they aren't real days you were scheduled to work for 7.5 hours, they are imaginary short days which might have been put on the rota just so you could take them off...

veryconfused20

theoretica said:

It is probably easier to think all in hours and forget the leave you are automatically scheduled is ever called 'days'.

At 37.5 hours a week, 5 weeks work comes to 37.5 x 5 = 187.5 hours paid for

14 shifts of 11.25 hours comes to 14 x 11.25 = 157.5 hours actually worked.

The difference - 30 hours is paid to you as holiday and for some reason they decide to call this 30 hours 4 days - but they aren't real days you were scheduled to work for 7.5 hours, they are imaginary short days which might have been put on the rota just so you could take them off...

But surely if you're taking a full day of annual leave, there should be a standardised number of hours that is deducted from your total annual leave to cover this is what I'm trying to understand?

theoretica

veryconfused20 said:

theoretica said:

It is probably easier to think all in hours and forget the leave you are automatically scheduled is ever called 'days'.

At 37.5 hours a week, 5 weeks work comes to 37.5 x 5 = 187.5 hours paid for

14 shifts of 11.25 hours comes to 14 x 11.25 = 157.5 hours actually worked.

The difference - 30 hours is paid to you as holiday and for some reason they decide to call this 30 hours 4 days - but they aren't real days you were scheduled to work for 7.5 hours, they are imaginary short days which might have been put on the rota just so you could take them off...

But surely if you're taking a full day of annual leave, there should be a standardised number of hours that is deducted from your total annual leave to cover this is what I'm trying to understand?

Not if days are of different lengths. Some people have working patterns where some days they work 10 hours, other days 5 - and would (rightfully) complain if more than 5 hours were taken off their leave for taking a short day off...  If you take a day you were otherwise rostered to work 11.25 hours then 11.25 hours are deducted.  Just think in hours and it all works out fairly to both you and the employer. 

veryconfused20

theoretica said:

veryconfused20 said:

theoretica said:

It is probably easier to think all in hours and forget the leave you are automatically scheduled is ever called 'days'.

At 37.5 hours a week, 5 weeks work comes to 37.5 x 5 = 187.5 hours paid for

14 shifts of 11.25 hours comes to 14 x 11.25 = 157.5 hours actually worked.

The difference - 30 hours is paid to you as holiday and for some reason they decide to call this 30 hours 4 days - but they aren't real days you were scheduled to work for 7.5 hours, they are imaginary short days which might have been put on the rota just so you could take them off...

But surely if you're taking a full day of annual leave, there should be a standardised number of hours that is deducted from your total annual leave to cover this is what I'm trying to understand?

Not if days are of different lengths. Some people have working patterns where some days they work 10 hours, other days 5 - and would (rightfully) complain if more than 5 hours were taken off their leave for taking a short day off...  If you take a day you were otherwise rostered to work 11.25 hours then 11.25 hours are deducted.  Just think in hours and it all works out fairly to both you and the employer. 

They're not different lengths though, all shifts are 12 hours (not just for me, for all staff).

I agree that if I'm due to work 11.25 hours then I should be deducted 11.25 hours, but for the last 10 years I haven't been. So I'm struggling to get my head around why on 4 out of 5 weeks, I'm required to use 11.25 hours of leave per shift, but only 7.5 hours during the remaining week.

If my annual leave was floating and not scheduled in, I'd end up getting less days off for the same amount of hours than someone on a rota. That's what I can't make sense of.

theoretica

Yes - for some strange reason your work has decided to call 30 hours of scheduled leave '4 days', - probably because they are 4/5 of your nominal 37.5 hour weeks.  They are saying, for that purpose only, that you work 5 day weeks 7.5 hour 'days' - office hours!  Your normal shift is 1.5 times this standard day.  If all your leave was floating you would get the same number of complete weeks off as someone working more but shorter days but it would be fewer shifts as you work fewer than 5 shifts a week.