How to ensure your A/l entitlement is calculated correctly

[Sassy31]

So here’s my question, can’t seem to get a straight answer from my employer, so I’m wondering if someone could sign post me or advise on , how I know I’m getting my correct entitlement ? . After my first maternity leave I went back to work 25 hrs a Wk spread over four days, but not working on a Monday. Before maternity my a/l entitlement was 31 day & all B hold so I had 39 days paid in all. So now I don’t work on a Monday , so my a/l entitlement is 22 days a year. So what I need to know is, does that sound right as I’ve lost 17 days in all, if that makes sense. Apologies for the long post, but I’m trying to get my head round it but I just can’t seem too get any clarity on it. 🙄

How many hours did you work before? I would have thought your annual leave isn’t calculated on the number of days you work but the % of your original hours.

The total will depend on what your company does about bank Holidays - if you don't work Mondays, do they give you extra leave to compensate for missing all of the Bank Holidays? You will be getting some bank holidays though, they aren't all Mondays eg at Christmas and good Friday.

I calculate my annual leave every year and check it matches what hr have allocated me.

A/L you should calculate in hours as a percentage of ft week. if the ft employees get all BHs you should be given additional A/L pro rata too usually. I get it added to A/L and have to book them off when they fall on a working day.

e.g. 25/37.5 hour week is roughly 66%. doesn't look like they're giving you pro rata bank holidays, just the couple that don't fall on a Mon. I'd check with acas, I thought it had to be the same for everyone.

It depends if your company calculate in hours or days. If days you are entitled to 4/5 of full time entitlement so around 31 days if FTE is 39. It doesn't matter if you work less hours per day than a FTE because you'll only be paid your hours for holiday days

Used to work 35 hrs a Wk so only dropped 10 hrs to 25hrs. So how would I go about working it out? I’ve only been gettting 22 days and the odd bank holidays that don’t fall on a Monday. Soo confusing..

It’s in original contract I get paid for B Hols

Is part time holiday calculated in days or hours? It would usually be hours if you don't work the same hours every day

They calculate in hrs now i’m P/t but it was originally days when I was f/t
When I went on mat leave I had the maximum holiday entitlement of 31 days due to the amount of years I had worked.

Contact ACAS, you should have the bank holiday entitlement pro rated as well. So 22 days annual leave and 5.7 days of bank holidays and if you don’t use all the bank holidays then it gets added to your annual leave.

If 35 hours is the accepted full-time, this is how I'd calculate it:

25/35 = 0.7
Full-time annual leave is 31 days plus 8 bank hols, or 273 hours (39 days x 7hrs)
Pro-rated annual leave is 39 days x 0.7 = 27.3 days or 191 hours (again using 7hrs as a standard work day)

Where people routinely don't work on Mondays, we tend to roll the public holidays into the annual leave entitlement BUT that means you need to remember to book leave for public holidays that do fall within your usual working pattern, such as Good Friday and Christmas/New Year.

I would say you are entitled to 31.2 days annual leave (4/5 * 39) inc bank hols but if a bank holiday falls on one of your working days eg Good Friday you would need to take that out of your annual leave entitlement.
Another way of confirming that would be that a full time person (presumably working 7 hours a day) gets 397 hours annual leave inc bank hols so 273 hours. If you pro rata the hours you are entitled to 25/35 273 hours then you are only entitled to 195 hours. As you work an average of 6.25 hours a day (presumably 25hrs over 4 days) then 195hrs/6.25hrs is 31.2 days entitlement per yr inc bank hols.

www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement

That government calculator gives the statutory minimum entitlement only, you were clearly getting more than the statutory minimum before you went on maternity leave.

Thanks everyone. I’ve been back over 2 years so it looks like I’ve been getting under my entitlement. Now to see if I can get any of my leave back🙄

My work finds it easier to calculate p/t workers leave in hours rather than days. Both calculations by PPs above are helpful but we don't know what your working day is (I do 2 long and 2 short for example) so best to go with an hours calculation rather than days. I don't work Mondays so take the time off elsewhere such as one of my short days which equates to about the same hours as I get in lieu

Just because you don't work on a Monday doesn't mean you straight lose the 6 or so that fall on a Monday. That's shocking if they've been doing that!

There are two ways employers do this, both are legitimate but one is more fair.

As above, the fair way is to give you a pro rata entitlement to bank hold and then you'd book off any bank holidays that fell on working days as AL.

However depending on their policy/contract wording, it is possible they are calculating it correctly by just pro rata'ing the AL days and giving you back holidays off that fall on working days.

It's not definite you are owed leave so don't go in all guns blazing I'd say.

If your work does say that you don't get extra hours in lieu of bank holidays then is there any way that you can swap your working days so that you don't lose out.

Bank hol entitlement is why you should never work Mondays if you go PT

OP, it may well have been an oversight re bank hols so if I were you, I’d email HR ( fgs never, ever do any of this not in writing ) and say you’re unsure of how your BH entitlement has been calculated since you went PT as it’s in your contract they should be paid and you’re not sure how they’ve been pro-rata’d.

If no joy there, speak to ACAS. If you didn’t get an entirely new contract on going PT, so the original terms apply (you should have had a letter confirming the exact variation of terms on going PT, ie probably just that your hours changed), they need to be making some provision for pro rata BHs. As PPs say, this is usually done by increasing AL and booking off any BHs normally worked.

Good luck - this is seemingly never as clear as it should be.

Thanks for all the replies. Never got a new contract just a letter confirming new part - time hours, which I assumed meant I still would have the same contractual benefits as per my original contract , all B/hols paid.
It probably is an oversight, or lack of knowledge because I never got the b/hols added to my maternity leave. So I only just recently got them added, after finding out they should be added.
It’s just such a complicated process, but thinking about it, if a colleague has the maximum a/l entitlement of 31 days per year + bank holidays this means I’m now potentially losing 17 days or less depending on how it’s worked out. I now get 22 days based on 25 hr per wk contract & no Monday bank holidays , full time is 35. Oh so confusing . 😱

If your days are the same hours each day, you should get 4/5 of the full time allowance, including bank holidays.

Agree with most of the others. You should get 4/5 (or whatever) of your annual leave days, and 4/5 of the amount of bank holidays.

If a bank holiday falls on one of your working days, then you need to book it as annual leave.

(I am a finance director, and this is what I have always done).

Mind you, I have always worked in the private sector, and I know the public sector can do all manner of weird shxxt.

Agree with most of the others. You should get 4/5 (or whatever) of your annual leave days, and 4/5 of the amount of bank holidays.

If a bank holiday falls on one of your working days, then you need to book it as annual leave.

(I am a finance director, and this is what I have always done).

Mind you, I have always worked in the private sector, and I know the public sector can do all manner of weird shxxt.

Bank Holidays aren't always on a Monday though. 3 out of the 8 are usually on other days and if you have these days off when you should have worked then that's 3 days additional leave, isnt it. If you have additional time added to you entitlement for BHs then you'd have to book AL on the days that's you didn't work but otherwise would have.

Also, to allll the previous posters saying you should get additional leave, this isn't true. It is perfectly legitimate for a business to do it the other way - it isn't as fair - but it's not against the law.