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?

I started a new PT job a year ago and was surprised by this, but in the end it's worked out fine over the last year. As PP have said, for childcare, you tend to take off weeks with BHs in them anyway - they usually coincide with half term, Christmas and Easter hols. I thought I'd feel cheated of holiday, but I haven't noticed.

Were you not aware of this before you started the new job ?

I work 28 hours over 4 days and get zero days paid holiday ,

Mine is more extreme. Say 35 days holiday (27 holiday and 8 bank holidays)

I work 1 day a week now. So I get 7 days pro rata holiday.

If Monday was my day working day I'd lose 4 days holiday immediately.

But in practice i move my days working day around to avoid that. Same as I can for things like hospital appointments-I don't need to use holiday up as I can work another day.
Therefore in practice I have more flexibility in holidays (and due to covid and no actual away trips, still have most of last years holiday and this years still to use)

I argued this year that I was owed .2 of a day extra for queens funeral plus the jubilee (so 0.4 total). I didn't care but was more arguing for the other part timers doing half a week who were equally entitled to that extra days off (pro rata of course).

Of course if I wanted to just not work on queens funeral (and not make it up later in the week) I'd have been given .2 of a day extra but used up 1 whole day. (So "down" 0.8 of a day)

Very annoying if you work 4 out of 5 days you should get 4/5 holiday entitlement so 16 days to play with as you see fit which would hove you 4 full weeks off like full timers. They should let you swap 2 of your bank holiday Mondays for Tuesdays those weeks (as there won't be meetings on a bh Monday) and let you use that as annual leave as you see fit!

I’m part time. My holiday allowance includes bank holidays.
Some years I have to use 4 for Christmas and new year, sometimes none depending if they fall on days I wouldn’t be working.
It amounts to the same total time away from work each year and it’s the statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks including bank holidays, which is pro rata’d for being part time.
It’s legal. You just need to be organised with how you book them. 🤷‍♀️

Forgot to add- our workplace doesn’t observe any bank holidays other than Christmas and new year. All other days are normal working days for us.

The issue is that they don’t want me to swap to having Mondays off cos of the meeting. I’d rather do that but computer says no.

What about the suggestion above of swapping your working day to Tuesday on BH weeks? Would that be doable? I don't think my work would mind that probably but it would be v workplace dependent.

Must of the bank holidays fall in school holidays so you would need the annual leave anyway surely.

It is normal and correct, otherwise it would be discriminating against full time workers. I have had this system in all my part time jobs.

Im my current job I work Mon-Wed so on the face of it don't feel as though I get much annual leave (ours is on a portal where HR pre-book bank hols for us), but on the other hand this Christmas / NY I only need to take one day of annual leave (Weds 28th) to be off from 22nd Dec to 3rd Jan because of the way the bank holidays fall. So it can work really well. Someone needs to be off for childcare on bank holidays anyway.

Yes but as suggested already on the weeks where there is a bank holiday you could ask to work your 25 hours from Tuesday to Friday which would mean you wouldn’t need to take the bank holiday as annual leave.

I'd be annoyed too, having only 14 days left to choose myself.
Could you ask to work condensed hours in the school holidays? You could squeeze 25 hours into 3 days? Or ask to work 10 extra hours the week before a half term and take those hours back the following week?
I'd be looking for another job to be honest, there are so many better employers out there.

Yeah it happens, sorry.

I once worked for a small start-up. More then halfway (September I think) through my third year they decided to change policy, said they were closing the office between Christmas and NY and it was coming out of our holidays. Then the boss pointed at me and said "you don't have enough holidays left so I don't know how we will handle that. We might need to deduct your salary or holidays from next year." I was momentarily speechless and then told him if that was the case he could consider this my resignation.

Yeah this is also a good idea

@Bunnyflop7 @Mumoftwoinprimary explains why this year it is particularly painful for you because of Christmas BH falling on a working day. Plus The Queens funeral BH was a Monday.

No, it's 5.6 weeks, which is 28 days. Bank holidays actually have no legal standing.

The 5.6 weeks will be pro rated for part time.

If the employer closes on bank holidays then yes, the time off needs to come from the 5.6 weeks, pro rata.

That's completely normal at most workplaces op.

Most bank hols are in the school hols so that should help somewhat with taking whole weeks off.

There's guidance here: www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

It's been a while since I was part time, but I had a pro-rata amount for bank holidays (I worked 30 hours over 4 days) added on to my pro rata leave allowance but then had to book off the bank holidays from my leave. Full time employees got bank holidays off in addition to AL allowance, so this made sure I didn't benefit nor lose out. I chose not to work Mondays though, so only had to book Christmas and good Friday off.

I think asking to swap only for the weeks of bank holidays is a great idea.

How part time do you work? Do you do less full time days or less hours every day or something between?

Did all your previous employers pay bank holidays on top of the annual leave? You arent entitled to that so wondering what led you into thinking you are.

If a full time worker has 20 days left after the bank holidays, then 14 days for a part time worker seems within what I would expect. 14 days still equal to almost 3 full weeks of holiday.The actual amount obviously depends on how part time you are. Looking at the sums I think you work around 75% of full time hours.

I’ll ask if I can swap to working a tues on BH weeks but it’s a big organisation and an automated A/L thing so they might not like that idea.

Do you work the same number of hours on those 4 days as your full time colleagues? I'm guessing not or you would be working more than 25 hours.
Your leave needs to be worked out in hours so if it isn't, go back to HR and ask for them to do that.

This ^

Its surely obvious if you are part time you get pro rata holidays and bank holidays (otherwise you would be getting more holiday allowance than a FTer) - I first worked part time over 20 years ago and it was always like this.

Any employer who does not calculate pro rata paid hols and BH and are giving their PTer more holiday entitlement than they are entitled too and must be very small companies who do not understand how to work it out.

The only thing you can do is ask for a few days unpaid leave.

We get 25 days + 8 bank holidays as standard.