please help me work out my bank holiday entitlement. I think work are pulling a fast one

[Cheeseandlobster]

I work for an LA with a computerised employee self service system. My working hours are 18.5 per week spread over 2 weeks so I work Wednesday Thursday Friday one week and Thursday Friday the next.

We have to book in annual leave and bank holiday leave in a separate calendar. So I have had to enter a full day on the bank holiday calendar for next Friday. I asked my manager what happens to bank holidays that fall on my non working day such as Mondays. She said the bank holiday leave will take this into account and I will get an extra day for these.

But the bank holiday calendar shows for the year an entitlement of 33 hours. Surely this isn't right?

Can anyone please help me work this out so I can challenge it if necessary. I have had problems with HR and management getting things wrong from start to finish and I feel a bit exasperated now.

That sounds about right to me. What are you expecting it to be?

Disclaimer - I'm not an HR person at all - but it sounds right to me.

If your working week is 50% of a standard working week then you would be entitled to 50% of the bank holidays. That would usually be 8 days but this year is 9. 8 days at 7.5 hours per day would be 60 hours and 9 days would be 67.5 hours. 50% of those hours would be 30 or 33.75 hours respectively.

So it looks like it's about right to me - possibly 45 minutes short but that may be dependent on breaks, lunchtimes etc...

Either way you would be entitled to approximately 4 paid days off.

There are x6 BH in 2022 that fall on your non working days.

Not sure how that translates into hours though? 33 hours is 5.5 hours per BH if you just do an equal split.

Ah OK thank you. I have only been there a few months and in that time they have got my name, start date, working days working patterns and tax code wrong. I spent more time calling and emailing various people to get things rectified than I did on my actual job. Thank goodness I am not facing yet another battle

I think the hours are right but you shouldn't have to book a full day off for the bank holiday, the leave is in proportion to your working week. They can't say you accrue BHs as 50% but you take them as 100%.

I'm not explaining it very well, it is clear in my head.

I think it looks right to me as well, I have a very similar issue with one of my team. What is it you thought it should be?

Do you work exactly half a FT contract? So everyone does 37 hours a week, and you average 18.5?
In that case, you should be entitled to half a bank holiday allowance. This year there are 9 bank holidays.
9x7.5=67.5 hours for a FT person, so 33.75 hours for you working half time. I think they heed to round that up to 34, but it's pretty much there.
What were you expecting?

@ancientgran

I think the hours are right but you shouldn't have to book a full day off for the bank holiday, the leave is in proportion to your working week. They can't say you accrue BHs as 50% but you take them as 100%.

I'm not explaining it very well, it is clear in my head.

Yes. This is kind of what I was referring to. So should I have booked Friday as half the hours?

Yes, assuming 37 hours pw is the full time hours you should get half the full time leave allowance including BHs and it's easiest to look at this in terms of hours per year.

You need to use a day's worth of leave to take a day off for AL or when a BH falls on one of your working days. If a BH falls on a non working day, you don't need to use any leave and you don't specifically get the day to use at another time, just like you wouldn't get an extra day on a normal BH Monday, it's all rolled up into your annual allowance.

It's probably affected you more this year, because there's two BH Fridays, instead of one.

You need to use the leave they’ve given you for bank holidays to book any that land on a working day in your work pattern.

You only book leave for BHs that fall on your working days, so this year good Friday and, the two in June so 21.5 hours depending on your standard working day length. That means you use the remaining hours of leave wherever you like. Does that make sense? It’s normally advantageous not to work Mondays for maximising BH leave.

@JurasicPerks

Do you work exactly half a FT contract? So everyone does 37 hours a week, and you average 18.5? In that case, you should be entitled to half a bank holiday allowance. This year there are 9 bank holidays. 9x7.5=67.5 hours for a FT person, so 33.75 hours for you working half time. I think they heed to round that up to 34, but it's pretty much there. What were you expecting?

I work exactly half a full contract yes. I think @ancientgran has got what I meant to say in my own clumsy way. I booked a full day for next Friday when perhaps I shouldn't have done this? Should I have booked half a day?

You should book Friday as a full working day. You only get half BHs because you only work half the time so the ones that fall on your work days them have to come out of your total leave allowance.

Oh, forgot that there's the Thursday BH too. So that's probably the issue OP, you've got 3 BHs on your working days this year, when most days it will be as little as one (although obviously if Christmas Day was a Thursday, you could have 3 days in one year then too.

@Hollyhead

You only book leave for BHs that fall on your working days, so this year good Friday and, the two in June so 21.5 hours depending on your standard working day length. That means you use the remaining hours of leave wherever you like. Does that make sense? It’s normally advantageous not to work Mondays for maximising BH leave.

It does. I think I am getting confused over how many hours to enter for the working days that fall on a bank holiday. I have always worked full time and for an organisation that doesn't make you book bank holiday like this so am a bit bamboozled

Sorry, I've got covid brain and I was thinking you worked half days not half week. So if you were doing half days what I said is right but as you actually work fulldays they are right.

Sorry for the confusion, I don't know why I decided you worked half days but I think that is probably what has confused you as well, but if you think about it you work half time and will get half of BHs.

You book a full day bank holiday if it falls on your normal working day.
You book zero bank holiday days if it falls on a day you don't normally work.

The combination of full days, and zero days, together makes the total up to your allotted bank holiday allowance for your part-time work pattern I.e. about 50%

@BarbaraofSeville

Oh, forgot that there's the Thursday BH too. So that's probably the issue OP, you've got 3 BHs on your working days this year, when most days it will be as little as one (although obviously if Christmas Day was a Thursday, you could have 3 days in one year then too.

Yes the Thursday is an extra day too so that doesn't seem to leave me with 50 percent of the other bank holidays does it?

@bigdecisionstomake is correct.

If the full-time working week is 37.5, then 18.5 hours per week is 0.493333 fte. You take the total bank holiday hours for the year (67.5 for 2022) times it by your fte and you get 33.29975.

33 hours is right.

They will usually be added to your annual leave allowance. You have to book the hours off for any bank holidays that fall on your working days. If there is any allowance left over (that depends on how many bank holidays fall on your normal working days in each year) you use that as you wish.

I'm in HR and have worked in public and private sector. Part-time annual leave and bank hols often creates questions and a general feeling of the employer 'pulling a fast one'. It's contentious because the part-timer gets a pro-rata'd amount of allowance but no say in when the bank hols fall so you can end up using some of your annual leave allowance in some years. Generally, not working Mondays helps with that. This year the jubilee week skews it a bit as more fall at the end of a week.

[quote Madamswearsalot]@bigdecisionstomake is correct.

If the full-time working week is 37.5, then 18.5 hours per week is 0.493333 fte. You take the total bank holiday hours for the year (67.5 for 2022) times it by your fte and you get 33.29975.

33 hours is right.

They will usually be added to your annual leave allowance. You have to book the hours off for any bank holidays that fall on your working days. If there is any allowance left over (that depends on how many bank holidays fall on your normal working days in each year) you use that as you wish.

I'm in HR and have worked in public and private sector. Part-time annual leave and bank hols often creates questions and a general feeling of the employer 'pulling a fast one'. It's contentious because the part-timer gets a pro-rata'd amount of allowance but no say in when the bank hols fall so you can end up using some of your annual leave allowance in some years. Generally, not working Mondays helps with that. This year the jubilee week skews it a bit as more fall at the end of a week.[/quote]
Thank you. I knew there would be some knowledgeable HR bods on here and generally knowledgeable bods too. I always like seeing @BarbaraofSeville on travel threads too as she is usually spot on with her advice there too. Thanks everyone

If your working pattern means you're off more bank holidays than you are entitled to then the extra should come from your holiday allowance.

Conversely if your working pattern meant you never worked on a bank holiday they should be added to your holiday.

This year 3 BH fall on one of your working days, the other 6 don't, so you are fortunate as you have 1.5 days of BH leave that you are free to take whenever you want - whereas a full timer would have to take that leave on the actual BH.

Overall you get exactly half the holiday+BH of a full timer, regardless of how they fall.

Yes the Thursday is an extra day too so that doesn't seem to leave me with 50 percent of the other bank holidays does it?

It won't do, will it? You are entitled to 4.5 days and you are having 3 off, so you get 1.5 days to compensate. Noody is stealing youd other days off. You are still getting your half of bank holidays.

Ancientgran is wrong, you do need to book the full day as the bank holiday.

This is why the general advice to people working part time is not to work Mondays if you can choose - because the majority of Mondays fall on a bank holiday.

Example
Full timer (works full days Mon-Fri) gets 20 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays (in a normal year). Let’s say full time is 35 hours per week (7 hours per day). Their holiday entitlement is 28 days or 196 hours. Each bank holiday they use 1 day or 7 hours of their entitlement. This means they have 20 days/140 hours that they can choose when to take, and 8 days/56 hours which are taken on bank holidays.

You work 50% of the time so are entitled to 50% of the hours. You therefore get 10 days/ 70 hours as 50% of the standard holiday, and 4 days/28 hours for the bank holidays. Each day of holiday taken, including bank holidays, uses up 7 hours as that’s the normal working day.

It then depends which bank holidays fall on your working days. In any year there will be at least 4 that fall on a Monday, 1 on a Friday then the Xmas, Boxing Day and NYD ones vary.

So people who work Mondays may find they have up to 6 bank holidays that fall on Mondays depending when Xmas falls. These people then have to eat in to their standard holiday entitlement to cover the bank holidays. They still get 50% of the days off of the full timer, but slightly less choice when to take some of the days.

Those who work Tue-We’d are much better off because at the most they will have 3 bank holidays that fall on their days, so my part timer example with 4 days bank holiday entitlement has an extra day that they can choose when to take. Same amount of days/hours off as the Monday worker, just more choice when to use it.

This year is a bit different because as pp have said there’s an extra bank holiday and one of the Monday bank hold has been moved to a Thursday, but the method of calculating it still stands.

Hope that makes sense!

Took so long to type that I have cross posted with lots of people!

@ChessieFL

Ancientgran is wrong, you do need to book the full day as the bank holiday.

This is why the general advice to people working part time is not to work Mondays if you can choose - because the majority of Mondays fall on a bank holiday.

Example
Full timer (works full days Mon-Fri) gets 20 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays (in a normal year). Let’s say full time is 35 hours per week (7 hours per day). Their holiday entitlement is 28 days or 196 hours. Each bank holiday they use 1 day or 7 hours of their entitlement. This means they have 20 days/140 hours that they can choose when to take, and 8 days/56 hours which are taken on bank holidays.

You work 50% of the time so are entitled to 50% of the hours. You therefore get 10 days/ 70 hours as 50% of the standard holiday, and 4 days/28 hours for the bank holidays. Each day of holiday taken, including bank holidays, uses up 7 hours as that’s the normal working day.

It then depends which bank holidays fall on your working days. In any year there will be at least 4 that fall on a Monday, 1 on a Friday then the Xmas, Boxing Day and NYD ones vary.

So people who work Mondays may find they have up to 6 bank holidays that fall on Mondays depending when Xmas falls. These people then have to eat in to their standard holiday entitlement to cover the bank holidays. They still get 50% of the days off of the full timer, but slightly less choice when to take some of the days.

Those who work Tue-We’d are much better off because at the most they will have 3 bank holidays that fall on their days, so my part timer example with 4 days bank holiday entitlement has an extra day that they can choose when to take. Same amount of days/hours off as the Monday worker, just more choice when to use it.

This year is a bit different because as pp have said there’s an extra bank holiday and one of the Monday bank hold has been moved to a Thursday, but the method of calculating it still stands.

Hope that makes sense!

It does thank you. I have never had to do this before so I appreciate all those who have taken the time to clarify this for me