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?

It always amazes me how many people don't understand how holiday works. Especially pro rata holiday when people work part time. You aren't being short changed. If you worked 5 days a week you'd still have the same issue of having to take that Monday off and having the exact same amount of holiday (pro rata) to use up on childcare.

Are you sure you are looking at it right as if you are part time and not working every day you normally work out your holiday in hours not days.
Have you tried working it out in hours?

The bank holiday part doesn’t sound right either, so you have a copy of your holiday policy as it should advise in there how holidays are worked out for part time employees.

I'm part time. My annual leave and bank holidays are converted to hours and then pro rata's. I work 24 hours of a 36 hour FTE.

I book leave on bank holidays that fall on my working days, but not my non- working days as I don't get paid for them anyway.

Is yours worked out like this?

I don't work Mondays or Fridays so most of my bank holidays get taken to suit me at other times, although I will need to book one for the 27th December this year as it falls on a working day, Tuesday.

its fine to do in days if you still work a full day (or half day) when you work.

Its not if you do shorter days - say 5 days a week but 4 hours rather than normal 7.5. or different hours on different days. Then hours is the best way to calculate it (or you need a holiday sustem where if you need to book a "day" off - and you work 80% of the days - you book 0.8 to take a day off).

@dementedpixie genuine question is this case law or legislative? If case law I would be interested in the case ref if you know it.

I work in retail. The store is closed on Easter Sunday, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Even though l couldn't go to work if l wanted to, l have to take those three days out of my holiday entitlement. I'm part time too.

@Princessglittery it says it on the .gov page about holiday entitlement

www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

Also if you use the government calculator and put in 6 days it tells you that 28 days is the maximum days given

Look for a new job, and make sure to read your employment contract

@dementedpixie thanks. Really surprised by that as it doesn’t seem fair and yet the opposite is true if you do 4, 3 or 2 days a week - although I always use hours to be fair.

I’ve just used the calculator for someone working 6 x 7.5 hours = 45 hours for both days and hours as you said it’s 28 days or 210 hours. However, if you enter 45 hours over 5 days you get 252 hours leave - not really fair but obviously legal.

Surely you'd need to be there for your kids on bank holidays as well??!

Isn't 28 the legal requirement?

For FT

Sorry to say it OP but they aren’t doing anything wrong.

During my old career in nurseries, we all got the minimum annual leave entitlement and bank holidays were included in that.
So for full timers like myself, 28 days a year. So, 8 days of that were the bank holidays. Of the 20 days remaining, 3 got swallowed up in Christmas closure week (so again no choice but to be off that week) so it worked out as 17 days off to put where we wanted. 3 whole working weeks plus 2 days. Yeah it really wasn’t much and must of use went through the first 6 or 7 months of the year before starting to use it for a summer holiday.

If you were part time, it would depend on which days you did. So if you worked Monday Tuesday Wednesday, you would have to remove all bank holidays from the year which fell on those days, but not others (eg Good Friday). But your total annual leave days would be less anyway because you work less days a week, so it evened out, maybe you gained an extra day due to less BH days but it wasn’t anything to be too thrilled about.

Draining but not illegal. Some companies are nicer and give you the bank holidays anyway don’t count them as your time. Some increase holiday leave with length of service. It sucks but sadly your company aren’t doing anything wrong.

If it’s not going to work I would just start to look round. And sadly asking to change day on bank holiday weeks to gain more time, you won’t be the first and it will be met with eye rolls and likely turned down, because at the end of the day everyone will want that.

OP, it’s shit. I work similar part time hours to you including Mondays. Next year, practically all of the BH fall on Mondays so I’ll have to use a weeks worth of annual leave to cover them. I moan about it constantly. **

In my case, my colleagues (small organisation) don’t work Mondays so have loads of hours that they can use at their convenience. I get that it’s fair and I agree with the principal of everyone being given the same entitlement but I resent having to use my annual leave to take days off that I don’t even want!!

if I change jobs, I will never work Mondays again (unless it’s over 5 days part time).

Unless your children go to school on a BH surely you need to be off with them anyway? And if you're part time that's yet another day you get to have with them in the holidays, so having holiday pro rata doesn't make a difference

What am I missing?

Op is only entitled to say 2/3rds if a day bank holiday, she has to pay back the remaining 1/3 of the day from her other holiday.

Because if she had Mondays off she would be off on bank holidays anyway and have more annual leave days to take as she pleases rather than current situation forced to take the bank holidays off as annual leave w
leaving less days to take off as she chooses

Most jobs will calculate the same way...

@HRD2be sure, but if current work doesn't suit her, needs to find a new one that does & negotiate days off that suit or other contract terms.

I think all you can do is to try to swap the days in the weeks that include bank holiday Monday, if you cant choose to have Mondays generally off.
I dont understand why you expected to have more holidays - if I understand correctly what you are upset or surprised about.

But not as though you find out holiday entitlement after you sign contract and actually start working there.

The employer has done nothing wrong but will have the hassle now of recruiting again for an employee who didn’t bother to read her contract before signing

Did you check/ clarity this before accepting the position?

I'd quit. Fuck that.

Yes but of course that's going to happen if you work part time and work Mondays! That's why people who work part time generally avoid working Mondays where possible.