If you work 9-5 and book half a days leave, what time do you finish?

[EmmyToo]

Gosh this is such a non issue but my brain can’t compute it.

I work 9-5, 7.5 hour days with a half hour break.

I want to book half a days leave, so assumed I’d be working 3.75 hours (= 3 hours 45 minutes) and taking 3.75 hours leave. So finishing at 12.45.

But because I don’t get my half an hour break, I have to work 4 hours 15 minutes. So can’t finish until 1.15.

I get it, it makes sense, but my brain doesn’t like taking half a days leave and the result being that I’m working more than half a day.

Also… this is the first time this has ever come up in 10 years at the same company. Just a new line manager.

What do you do? Is this standard?

You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be. You start work at 9am and finish 3hrs 45minutes later - half your usual working day. Your lunch break and your finish time are irrelevant.

This. You work forward 3 hrs 45 mins from you start time of 9am, so you finish at 12.45.

you leave at 12:45 unless you take your half hour break at say 12 then you leave at 13:15.
You work 3.75 hours

You needed to leave 4 mins ago…..

The working back thing only works if you are taking the morning off, so you would work back from 5 by 3.75 hours to see what time you should arrive ie, 1.15

If you are taking the morning off you start at 9 and add on 3.75 hours so you leave at 12.45.

Funny how that works eh, the difference happens to be lunch time if half an hour!

My partner worked for the family company and his sister would insist he had to stay till 1 for a half day. Despite not being paid for their hour lunch. Absolutely would not have it. He ended up leaving.

By their logic of going at 1.15, you could say you are doing this and then still go off on your lunch as usual at 12.45pm. So it’s still 12.45pm, even if they are trying to argue it back from the end of the day.

I start at 8 and work until 4.30 so if I have half a day I finish at 11.45

I know, I’m just trying to understand my bosses weird mentality. She’s one of those obnoxious types who is so unbelievably sure of what she’s saying. But as I say, in ten years I’ve never had this issue!

And annoyingly it’s only now that it’s actually important to me what time I finish as it’s the first time I’m doing the incredibly specific school holidays childcare juggle where every minute needs to be accounted for. In any other circumstance, I’d have just casually disappeared somewhere between 12.30 and 1.30 depending on what I was working on.

Luckily it’s for next week 😅

I get 1 hour for lunch

Well no, not unless they're going to pay you extra to work through your lunch break on this day.

Your manager is incompetent.

If you work 7.5 hours normally and take 3.75 hours leave then you should only work 3.75 hours. Which means finishing 3.75 hours after your start time.

It's very simple. Your manager is incompetent.

I think your new line manager is my old one. Our workplace was always clear on half-days starting at 12.30 based on a 7 hours day with an unpaid lunch hour. Then a new LM started and dazzled everyone with incorrect maths, insisting that half days start at 1.30pm. I was amazed at how many colleagues just accepted it.

Moved to a different department and was back on track again.

12.45pm is correct in your case.

OP, you only get paid 7.5 hours a day, so if you take half a day off you only get paid 3.75 hours. So if you work a minute past 12.45 you are not being paid for that. Ergo, obviously you won’t be working it!
Your manager is a joke.

Our staff work 8am to 4.30pm with a paid morning break and then an unpaid half hour lunuch. If they book a half day, they finish at 12.

Your manager is incompetent.

Lots of evidence of this. She’s been in post a very very long time, and I wonder if she always has been or just went mad with power a while back. No one else in the team seems to see it though, I’m starting to go mad thinking it’s me! Stockholm syndrome maybe.

Go out for your lunch break at 12.45 and don't come back half an hour later

Definitely 12:45

You with 2 1/2 days of 3.75hrs with an unpaid break in the middle.

When you take a half day you leave at the of your paid activity at 12:45

When you take a morning off you need to work 3.75hrs in the afternoon, so start at 13:15

You never work and addition 30minx on a half day. Breaks are unpaid and are not pat if your working hours. Your manager is wrong.

thank goodness I'm on flexi and there are defined rules about how to book full days and half days on the system!

i was going to suggest you say to your manager "OK if I finish at 1pm?" - does she literally stalk you to find out the second you log off. If so, that's one horribly petty manager. You shouldn't have to use mental energy agonising over this.

OP, if you take a whole day off at 7.5 hours, does this manager expect you to go in for half an hour at lunch time because you don't get a break if you've not worked the rest of the day? How would that be different to what's being proposed here?

You're contracted to work 7.5hrs, you're taking 3.75 off, you need to work 3.75.

Your manager would only be correct if your lunch break was paid.

She's either incompetent or at it.

Either way she needs to be challenged- go over her head if she doesn't accept sense. If she can have complete lack of sense on this there will be other things she's wrong on too. Do it for your team!

you are being scammed

if you work 7.30 minutes /hours as a full day then you work then you work half of that for annual leave purposes so you'd work until 3 hours and 45 minutes which would take you until 12.45pm

if they want you to work until 1.15pm then you will only book 3 hours and 15 minutes annual leave - not half a day

unpaid breaks do not count

I had this with my previous manager as he wanted me to work until 2pm but I just took my unpaid lunch break at 1pm and he was fine with that.... we were working 8 hours a day though

Posters are saying lunch breaks are unpaid - how do we know that? Not all lunch breaks in all organisations are classed as unpaid. It depends how well the Unions have negotiated, or if Unions haven't been involved, the economic viability of the company as to whether they award a paid break to their staff.

I would just email your manager and say that you are taking a half day and will therefore be working from 9am until 12.45pm that day which equates to half your paid working hours. Unless she is spectacularly stupid she can’t argue with fact.

Tell your line manager to jog on!

You should only work 3.75 hours if taking half a day annual leave.

For half day afternoon leave, you start at 9:00 and finish at 12:45.

For half day morning leave, you start at 1:15 and finish at 17:00.

She should not be taking into account your finish time, she should be taking into account your start time as you are taking the afternoon off.

If you are paid for 7.5 hours then you are taking 3.75 hours of leave. She is being daft. The lunch break doesn't come in to it as it's unpaid.