How does annual leave work if you have flexible hours?

[Sammysquiz]

I’m applying for a job which is part-time flexible hours. It’s 10 hours a week working from home, and these hours can be worked any way I want within the week. Says the annual leave is 28 days pro rata, so guess that works out as around 7 days. But how would that work in real-life? Because unless I was going away for an entire week (which is rare!) I wouldn’t need to book leave as I’d just work it on other days, eg if I couldn’t work Mon-Thurs I wouldn’t book time off, I’d just do all the hours on Fri. Do any of you know how this type of thing works?

Usually you can work the hours as you please during the week but depending upon your contract you will either have to take the holiday before the end of your leave year or else you will forfeit it altogether.

When you pro rata annual leave, you can't just do x% of the total AL days, what you have to do is add the AL days to the bank holidays and then do the % of that. So you may have less AL than you think. Also some of those days will fall on days you aren't working (BH can't be moved). It's surprisingly complex.

Your resulting AL allocation should be converted into hours, and then it makes it easier to see.

Obviously you would need to ask the employer how they work it in their organization, please don't assume that what one employer does is the same for all.

You will accrue based on the hours you actually work.

You would do it in hours. Minimum entitlement is 5.6 weeks. Each of your weeks is 10 hours so 5.6x10 = 56 hours holiday

You just take the time regardless of your availability to actually do 10 hours in total in a particular week - so decide you are having certain time off and don't make that time up in the rest of the week.
e.g. you'd take 5 hours holiday and only work 5 hours that week.

I'm part time and do find that I organise appointments in my non-working time, I can also flex my hours which makes it alot easier to do this. In bank holiday weeks I often still do my full hours because I work the Friday instead of Monday. I do take full weeks though, and especially when my children were younger it made covering school holidays easier.

I know you say it is flexible, but usually that just means the hours are agreed with manager beforehand and you still do those same hours each week? I.e. 2 hours a day or whatever. Then if you wanted to take mon to thur off and do all on friday you would have to ask manager or take as leave 8 hours.

Thanks everyone, you’ve helped me get my head round it!

Work it out in hours. If you take a day off ,or say a BH, but can still work 10 hours that week you don't need to take al. If you take a full week you reduce by 10 hours.

I manage our annual leave.

In your case, we'd start with the annual leave allowance that you would have if you worked full time (a). Now add your annual public holidays (b) to that, to get the total (c). Now convert 'c' to hours, by multiplying by the number of hours in a standard day (d). Finally, reduce that to reflect the % of time that you work (e).

Example: full-time staff work 5 days of 8 hours, making 40 hours a week. They get 28 days holiday (a). There are also 7 public holidays (b). That's 35 days in total (c), or 280 hours (d). If you work 10 hours instead of 40 hours, you are working 25% of the time, so you get 25% of the leave. In this case, that's 70 hours (e). That equates to just under 9 working days, so if I was working this out for you I'd round up to 72 hours so that you can take 9 full days off, as we have to book either a half or a whole day off, but the rules where you are may be different.

Hope that helps.

OP said its 28 days pro rata which is statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks. 10hrs x 5.6weeks = 56 hours

Demented pixie has it. It’s not that complicated

As an alternative you could calculate the number of hours you're expected to work over one year - so 10 x 52 (520) less AL/BH (56), which is 464.

ICouldHaveBeenAContender that’s so helpful, thank you!! Hadn’t considered the bank holidays.