Return to work - Holiday Entitlement

[Lotsofqueries]

Returning to work 3 days instead of 5.
My holiday entitlement was 25 days full time (5 days a week) plus 8 bank holidays.
My work are saying on 3 days I’m entitled to 20 days including bank holiday.
Shouldn’t it be 15 days plus 8 days bank holiday? I’m confused.

[namechangedtoday15]

No lots of companies do it this way - you get 3/5 of 8 bank holidays added to your annual leave, so 5 extra days. Then, if a bank holiday falls on one of your normal working days, you have to take a days annual leave.

Just be careful which days you work if you have any flexibility over the says. 4 of those 8 bank holidays will always be Mondays, 1 is a Friday, then 3 change. If you work a Monday, you could use those 5 'bank holidays' days, plus some of your 15 annual leave days just to cover the bank hols. If you dont work Mondays, you'll only ever have to use a max of 4 days to cover bank hols so you "gain" an extra day (you'll only use 4 of the 5 extra bank hol days if that make sense).

[Lotsofqueries]

Ahh I get it... I think. Yes so I’m best off not working a Monday or I’m basically using my allowance for bank holidays. That’s not fair is it!! Thank you for your help.

[namechangedtoday15]

Yes when i first went back i did Tues-Thurs and only had to use a max of 3 days - so i "gained" 2 days at least each year. Really useful when you're desperately trying to cover school hols!

[Lotsofqueries]

That is what I’m trying to do. Unfortunately i will have to work a Friday because that’s my mums only day off but the others are flexible on my part. I better ring work tomorrow and see if they’ll let me change the Monday

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

Well yes it is fair. Full timers have to use their eight bank holidays to cover those specific days. 33 days x .6 is 19.8.

[Lotsofqueries]

Well no it’s not fair. Full timers get 8 extra days on top of annual leave entitlement. Those days are for bank holidays. They are not extra holiday entitlement. But a part timer could have to use their bank holiday entitlement PLUS some annual leave entitlement to cover all bank holidays.

[nerdsville]

It's the fairest way to do it - this way everyone gets exactly the same amount of paid time off every year, regardless of their working pattern. You have to just look at it all as total leave entitlement rather than two different types of leave. Full timers get 33 days off, you get 60% of that. The only reason no one bothers saying 'Full timers get 33 days each year and they have to use leave for bank hols' is simply because every single year they will use 8 days leave for bank hols and have 25 left to book so there's just no point bringing the bank hols into it in the first place.

Say you work wed, thu, fri and your friend works mon, tues, wed. Under this system you both get 20 paid days leave each year because you both work the same number of hours/days each week. You might not get to choose when to take every single one of your days off, but the important thing is that you are getting an equal number of days off.

If you propose that it should be 15 days holiday plus whatever bank hols happen to fall on a working day, then in my scenario above you will get 17 paid days off this year and your friend will get 22 paid days off because of how the bank holidays fall.

How is that fairer??

[namechangedtoday15]

Nerdsville I agree whichever way you do it there are always winners and losers but it's fundamentally unfair for part timers. You kind of brush the critical point off - full timers get to choose when they take their annual leave (ignoring bank holidays). Part timers don't always get that luxury.