New employer making me take bank holidays out of my holiday

[Bunnyflop7]

As a result I only have 14 days to take for the entire year. I have kids and it’s going to be ridiculously hard to cover holidays. Never ever had this at another employer.

is this commonplace?

My contract gives me Tuesdays off and they don’t want me to swap to Mondays off because there is a staff meeting! I don’t feel it’s fair that I am stuck with working mondays though, considering it eats a third of my holiday through bank holidays.

To be honest, this is pretty standard as it's the fairest way of doing it as it means everyone gets the same amount of annual leave.
14 days is still 3.5 weeks if your job and, if you took your leave in a week where there's a bank holiday (which you may well do at Christmas, Easter and May half term as you have school aged children) quickly builds up to looking more like 5 weeks (as you only need to use three days holiday for a full week off).
Is your employer open to you buying a week's holiday? Mine didn't operate a scheme when I started by agreed to reduce my salary my 1/52 over the course of the year. This suited me more than taking parental leave as I could take odd days rather than a solid week and, as it was my annual salary that was adjusted, I didn't notice as much.

Difficult one but don't think they're breaking any rules. Maybe time for a new job?

But wouldn't you need to be off on bank holidays for the kids anyway?

You wouldn't be asking to permanently swap though, just the weeks of the bank holiday, have you asked that?

If you are part time, unfortunately Bank Holidays accrue at the percentage you work- eg 4 days is 0.8. They also accrue in this way if you don't work Mondays.

Is your holiday done in hours?

Using days, and assuming you work on Mondays, and get the full holiday entitlement for the year (you haven't) joined part way through) you should get 22.4 days, which is 14.4 days without bank hols. There are some other assumptions here, like the length of each day you work is equal etc- that is why these are normally done in hours.

Are there are any other jobs you are interested in?

I took a job once where I ended up in this situation (yes, I should have read a contract first). I’d always worked in organisations where I had at least 28 days plus bank holidays (when working part time and not on Mondays I got given extra days in my holiday allowance instead).

I was horrified to realise I’d lost all that time off and that I was also being ordered to take extra time off at Christmas and when it suited them, not me.

So, I contacted one of the roles where I’d previously turned down an interview (as I took that job) and they still had a vacancy. Then handed my notice in and got out within a month.

It gave me a very bad impression of the company and how they are staff.

This is normal for part time, but you are given extra hours for it. So in my place you get all the BH’s if you’re full time, if you’re 4 days you’ll get 80% of the full time equivalent. As leave is in hours for part time staff you then book off the BH’s that fall on your working days. If you’ve not been given any extra hours then that’s not correct. You might not have enough to cover them all if you work Mondays, so some of our part time staff have to use AL for some. But it’s all fair and they get their FTE share

@Bunnyflop7 your leave should be in hours.

25 hours over 4 days your legal entitlement is to
5.6 weeks x 25 hours = 140 hours gross leave
BH falling on working days (2022) 8 x 6.25 hours = 50 hours (
140 - 50 = 90 hours net leave

Notes:

• 2022 had 2 extra BH so for the year 7 BH fell on a Monday, 1 BH on a Thursday and 2 BH on a Friday.
• Unless your contract states otherwise the additional,BH can be taken from your gross leave entitlement
• It will be slightly better in 2023 as it is likely to be 6 BH on a Monday so your net leave would go up by 12.5 hours.

I understand your frustration but your employer appears to be applying statutory leave correctly.

It is legal, sadly.

They should at least pro rata the bank holidays.

So if you work 0.5 of the time, take out 4 days from your leave.

What is the holiday allowance? Statutory?

You can take unpaid parental leave in the holidays.

Surely you’ve been given the extra hours though towards the bank holidays? They won’t just expect you to take them out of your normal say 25 days holiday. You’ll get a set amount of hours towards them. Contact HR dept if you’ve not been given the hours. Sure no dept expects people to take them out of leave without giving the FTE in hours for their percentage

I get 140 hours total annual leave. All the bank holidays come out of that. What I’ve got left amounts to 14 of my working days.

Surely your answer is to go in on the Tuesday after the Bank Holiday Monday.

When is the weekly meeting held on bank holiday weeks? Presumably the day back, i.e. Tuesday?

Have you asked them to "swap" your day off on bank holiday weeks?

They have given you the correct number of hours holiday. 5.6 weeks x 25 hours per week = 140 hours.

Your holidays include a pro rata amount of bank holidays but unfortunately you need to use some of your annual leave hours for any bank holidays that fall on your working days.

But at 6.5 hours per day that gives you 22.5 days leave, knock out 7 bank holidays that happen on Monday or Tuesday leaves you with 15.5 day, ie just under 4 weeks at 4 days pw.
Additiinally it might be worth asking if you can work a few Fridays and take these as leave in the school holidays rather than be paid for them.

This is totally standard practice. I work for government and that's what they do.

As soon as I get my holiday hours for the year, I go through and book the bank holidays off so I then know what I have left to work with.

I would object to you being told what day is your day off though. You should be able to choose that.

14 days at 4 days a week - or 3 if you're doing a bank holiday week - is still 3-4 weeks.

I would explore unpaid parental leave if you can afford to. But your employer is not doing anything wrong here.

Can you avoid Monday as a working day- if it’s over 4 days, work Tues-Fri?

You work 25/40 hours so getting 14 days leave instead of 20 that full time workers are entitled to seems reasonable to me. How many days leave were you expecting?
I think your main problem is that you're working 25 hours spread over 4 days, leaving you with only 1 day off a week.

We have hourly leave for part-time or condensed hours staff. Yours sounds right. That said, few of our staff actually book leave for bank holidays as the offices are closed anyway. They end up with additional leave.

That’s a good idea- if they have the weekly meeting Tuesday you would hopefully be able to say I have to work Tuesday then. And if they say no you say oh if it doesn’t matter if I miss a bunch of the weekly meetings I will work Tuesdays and take Monday as my day off that’s awesome thanks, I’ll contact hr.

Omg this is awful. I have the complete opposite, I get 27 days plus bank holidays, but then I do compressed hours tues-fri so when a bank holiday falls on a Monday I get the day off as I don't work Monday anyway but then I also get the day in lieu so there were 6 or 7 Monday bank hols on a monday this year so I got about 43 days holiday plus I rolled over another 9 days from last year as I was on maternity leave. I honestly couldn't cope with 12 days holiday a year just our summer hol is 3 weeks, I'd look for a new job. Could you switch your days so you avoid the day with the most bank hols (i mean if you started a new job, Im sure the current job would say no as they'd realise the reason)?

That feels a bit low though but only because your company is stingy with annual leave in general. 20 days as a the minimum is pretty rubbish.

“because I’m part time it works out I have 20 days holiday, but the BHs come out of that. Leaving me with bugger all.”

Is your company 20 days plus bank holidays = 28 days or 5.6 weeks * 25 hours = 140 hours so it sounds right.

mondays suck working part time. As someone who does 0.8 not working a Monday, I get the same allowance but more freedom. So I would get 6.4 bank hols and may only need to take 2 of them to cover bank holidays. Depending on how the bank holls you might need to use some annual leave to cover them if you work a Monday.

I have the same issue. The only thing you can do is swap your working day i.e to Tuesdays. Then the BHs wont come out of yoir allowance as you dont work then anyway.

If you don't work Tuesday's would your employer allow you to flexi the bank holidays so instead of using it as a holiday just offer to work the Tuesday instead.

Surprising they get away with that. Our staff - large public sector employer - have to adjust for bank holidays to ensure that everyone gets the same amount. ANd it is checked.