Part time workers and bank holidays. Fair or unfair?

But is your employer open a standard Monday to Friday? As if so, when are you all expecting to be able to swap the day to? You can’t work a Saturday or a Sunday, and your full time hours are Monday to Friday. It isn’t hard to see that there isn’t another day. The part time worker could swap other days, it’s one of the benefits of working part time. If I’ve had the kids school events on one of my working days I’ve made up my hours on my non-working day. Full time staff can’t do that, because there isn’t another day in the week for them where they don’t work and the business is open. It’s…just common sense really.

The more you post the more this sounds like the normal confected whinging about part timers (who are disproportionately women).

The part timer is getting exactly the same holiday entitlement as everyone else on a pro rata basis.
Your business (based on your posts) is a Monday to Friday operation at least for your team and is shut or largely shut on weekends and the BH Mondays.

It doesn’t take a genius IQ to work out there are business advantages to having the part timer be flexible and offer a normal days work on the Thursday rather than wfh with limited scope on Monday just for the sake of a BH. It makes business sense to get the full three days of normal working.
That is very different from an entire team randomly electing to work on BHs in a business which is normally closed, just as when it suits them (not to mention a lot more holiday to accommodate at other times of year). Do they think people should randomly elect to WFH on Saturdays to rack up extra hols? Its a logical extension.

Your colleagues are whining because she doesn’t have to take a disproportionate chunk of her leave as BHs which would disadvantage her compared to the rest of the team.

Your team need more to do if they have time for this kind of nonsense.

She’s worse off because she doesn’t get that day in lieu if all you guys are having to work a bank holiday, so she’s actually short changing herself. But can I say that being a part timer amongst full time workers who are bitter is horrible. We had a workplace survey to fill out and found it on my desk when as I worked Wednesday - Friday. I picked it up and asked what it was about and someone said office re-furb where we can have input on what we’d like it to look like and seating arrangements. To have a colleague saying I shouldn’t get a say & she’d also say I should have last dibs on booking annual leave. I was only allowed part time because I had a baby and they had to accommodate my request. However, they didn’t reduce my work load. My customers would be told to ring me when I was in & whilst people had time to chat and giggle I had to put my head down and catch up. I never complained. When someone was on annual leave we would have to cover those people’s work load between us and that was also ready and waiting for me on my days, yet my annual leave never got covered unless it was urgent.

when it came to my appraisal my manager actually apologised to me saying the way I’m treated by the others was horrendous and she would vouch for me if I wanted to take it up with HR. I understood why my workload wasn’t lessened because that would have been unfair to make others busier to make my life easier, but what I didn’t appreciate was the assumption I was doing less and getting more

This. Thank you, eloquently put.

Your team members are arseholes quite frankly. People that work part time take less money in return for potential flexibility. How pathetic for full timers to think this is an actual issue. It’s literally 4/5 times a year. 🙄

You are getting a full time wage, full annual leave whenever you wish and all those Bank Holidays

The OP gets 20 days annual leave at the time of her choice and 8 mandatory days off. The partimer potentially gets 17 days off all at her choice. She should get 12 to choose and 5 mandatory.

If the part timer normally worked Tue to Thur she would have 16.8 bookable days. Would that be unfair?

But why does it matter? If they are working their hours and don't get any extra leave. It's just taken at a different time.

It works both ways. I work part time and I am always willing to swap my days if I am required at work on my NWD for something in particular.

But then I can swap my working days for BHs or if I have something else on.

It can be really helpful for both parties to be flexible. As a manager myself, I don't mind if people move things around as long as the job gets done and service provision isn't effected.

Yes I now don't follow the reasoning of the poster I quoted.

But the partimer is getting 16.8 (17) bookable days when she should only have 12 bookable days. It isn't fair.

Fucking hell, I’ve just remembered that this woman caused a policy change across our whole business! Like 800 people because of her. Well, our because of our boss.
She manipulated her working days/bank holidays SO HARD that when she left the business she had FORTY (40) unused holiday days that they had to pay her for.

The business has now put in place a use-em or lose-em policy so you can no longer “save up” holidays if you’ve got big trips planned.

I'm not suggesting your 3-day-a-week colleague will do this.

Well, unless she thinks it’s legit to move her three days around so that she can effectively have a weeks holiday at the “cost” of only one holiday day.

If she takes the Bank Holiday she is losing a proportion of her Annual Leave, as she only get pro-rata bank holidays, yet most fall on a Monday. That's even less fair!!!

Given that the most productive days of the office working week are Mon-Thurs and on Friday it has been known for work to at least always finish on time (whereas the part-timer can be slogging their guts out to finish up on a Wednesday to justify their existence and leave the decks clear until Monday and reduced likelyhood of progression for their efforts... I'd say the rest of your team are super hypocritically. You are getting a full time wage, full annual leave whenever you wish and all those Bank Holidays. To top it off that part-time worker is probably trying to squeeze a near full time work role and a near full time caring/cooking/cleaning role into their home life, struggling on both counts and being resented definitely at work and potentially at home for the privilege.

She gets 0.6 of the bank hol allowance so would have to take an extra 0.4 holiday for each bank holiday if made to take each Monday bank hol as leave. So if she was made to work mondays she'd have less of a say over 1.6 holiday days (just based on bank hols always on a Monday) compared to what you currently get and as a part time worker that's a bigger share of her total holiday allowance too. That's not fair either is it?

This is not a case of the part timer getting a ‘benefit’ you are not. They are working on a different working day to save them using their annual leave entitlement. The ‘equivalent’ you’re suggesting is to work on a non working day and to bank it as holiday and lieu. It would be the same as suggesting you work on a Sunday and taking a day off in the week. It is absolutely not comparable to what the P/T worker is doing.

Stop bitching about such a non issue. She works P/T which means there are other days she can work instead of the Monday. Working full time simply means you already work those days, so can’t ‘swap’ them. Simples. You can either get over it, or change to part time contract.

I get it. It’s like she’s decided it’s flexitime. A woman I used to work with did the same (though the problem was compounded by our spineless boss). She worked 4 days a week and like your colleague if a bank holiday fell on her working day, she just worked a different day. Then announced that she had something like 6 unused bank holiday days and gave herself an “extra” week off work. This was on top of other irritating chopping and changing her days whenever she felt like it. The boss was the problem though, for allowing it.

I honestly, hand on heart, do not understand the issue. Whoever commented is a jealous arsehole who probably would love to work part time but has been denied or doesn't even have the balls to ask for it.

Not sure it's definitely not the norm. I've worked part time for years over multiple workplaces and have seen some of both. The one thing I'd have said definitely wasn't the norm is people not being allowed to work Tues-Wed-Thurs as a matter of principle. Never heard of that before now, anecdotally on here it always seemed to be the commonest office job part time pattern and I'm sure I read somewhere pre-covid that the traffic was worst those days for that reason.

Yabu

The part timer only gets probably about 12 days paid holiday if ft gets 20 and about 4 bank holidays.

If your so worried about it being fair (which is mad tbh) then ask employer that they use 4 days bank holiday days for bank holidays

Though im eye rolling at the pettiness

The part timer won't get 20 bookable days as her holiday entitlement is 16.8 days for a 3 day week

Hi OP I work 3 days with Mon and Fri off which means I miss every bank holiday. I get an appropriate % of them back which normally works out at just over 2 days. This is added to my holiday entitlement.

But that's clearly not fair. Why should she get 20 bookable days? Also the full-timers are likely to have fit itheir bookable days in with her 20 days, when pro rata there should only be 12 for her.

And imagine if the poor cow takes the Monday, gets behind and they have to pick up the slack. Poor woman wouldn’t be able to win!

I couldn’t work in such a miserable place where every little thing is computed into fair/unfair boxes. It would be like working with bratty kids.

It's definitely not the norm though. Is standard if your working pattern is say Mon, Tues, Weds that any bank hols come straight out. It is why at our work they wouldn't allow Tues, Weds, Thurs as you are getting the bank holiday entitlement and then using it where you like as bank hols are generally Monday and Friday.

Sounds more unfair on her as you

Im part time Tue Wed Thu and get a few extra days of leave, to compensate for the bank holidays my full time colleagues get off, that I don't because of my working days.