AIBU to expect to keep my full holiday entitlement?

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I've just applied to change my hours at work so I finish at 3pm every day, meaning I now work 80% of my full time hours. I was previously entitled to 25 days holiday but they're saying that will reduce to 20
(I.e. 20% less). I understand the logic, but I'm still working every day and losing a whole week's holiday is going to be pretty significant for me. The reason I'm cutting my hours is because I have no childcare outside of school! My pay is already reducing by 20% so taking a weeks leave from me on top seems unfair.

Surely, since in each day I work 20% less hours, when I am on leave I am also taking 20% less leave. So, I should still get 25 days (but am taking 20% less hours each day). I already argued this to HR but they refused, and sent me a policy which very clearly states the calculation and says if you're part time on e.g. 80% hours, you get 80% leave even if you work 5 days a week. This seems wrong to me but they refuse to give in.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation and managed to argue successfully? Am I being unreasonable to expect a bit more from a company who claims to support women who need flexible working arrangements?

Bank holidays are easier though for part timer who works every day, they use up 1 day fir the beck holiday, sane as everyone.

But if you say work only Mondays, you get given 1/5 if a day to reflect that bank holiday in your allowance but you use up a whole day. Leaving you in deficit somewhat.

I think under this system they'd pay you for a full day when you're on leave OP. So if you usually only work 6 hours, on those 20 holiday days, you'll get paid for 8 hours a day so you won't actually be losing time/money.
Agree it would be better if you could have the holiday in hours and take 25 x 6 hour days rather than 20 x 8 hour days!

@Hana89 😂😂 Lovely idea but the employer is only going to pay 6 hours on a BH.

Why is everyone saying she will get paid at x rate for taking holiday?

It's usually 2 different systems

Pay is just a monthly fixed amount.

Holidays are tracked by a system to ensure you don't take too much etc, though it's trued up when leaving.

Or maybe some people's payroll is done very different!

She wouldn’t be getting whole time equivalent though. I think you need to read through the thread. It’s explained pretty well. It’s important to note she works five days a week.

Crazy

I used to get that kind of nonsense when I worked in the NHS. An A/L day was always 7.5 hours, regardless of how many hours you worked the rest of the week. So, even if I took a "short day" off (5.5 hours) they would still take 7.5 hours from my a/l entitlement.

Then at the end of the month they'd recalculate and see the "total worked hours + a/l hours" were more than my contract, so they would have to take those extra hours off my next working week to balance it out. Or worse, if I was down for a 12-hour shift, they would only apply 7.5 hours a/l which meant I'd then I'd owe them hours the next month. It was a ridiculous shambles.

Are you sure? I worked in HR at a city council and it was handled as I described because the holiday pay system wasn't nuanced enough to distinguish full and part time hours - all holiday days were paid at full time rate. Part time people got less days as a way to make up the difference. It was an odd system but how it worked!

@Hana89 From what the OP has said I believe so.

All the places I have worked had a payroll system that paid BH based on an employees contracted hours for that day.

I am not sure the system your employer was using was an appropriate way to handle BH. Did the same apply if they took a days leave e.g. they were paid 7.5 hours but only contracted to work 6 hours. ?

They need to calculate it in hours. You also have only 80 percent of the bank holidays; however your reasoning is correct as you are already working everyday but reducing the hours you do, you are also reducing the annual leave so yes, I will agree to the 25 days in those circumstances. It is different when you work a few days per week

I honestly don't understand why people aren't understanding this OP, of course this isn't correct. Your annual leave should be pro-rata'd in hours, not days. As a devils advocate in the other direction, do those of you thinking this is okay also think if an employee compacts their hours into 3 days (say 36/3 so 12 hour days) that they should still get 25 days off because they are 'full time'? This of course would be bonkers as they would get 8 weeks off when their colleagues working standard hours would be getting 5.

Any difficulty with this then I recommend ACAS as your first step; they will aim to sort through mediation before any formal procedure is entered into. I really hope it is a misunderstanding OP, I have had misunderstandings with large employers in the past and you sometimes find it is a brick wall of incompetence/ignorance, but persevere and get assistance from ACAS, they are very helpful. Good luck.

Was that recent? Sounds like it would be discouraging people from taking their full 5.6 weeks holiday entitlement if they would be paid for fewer days.

This!

basically you are entitled to 80% of full time annual leave, but as you are only working 80% of full time hours you will still be able to take a full week of your working hours as annual leave. So if you would normally do 8 hours in a day full time, cut to 6 for part time, that’s 40 hours a week full time 30 part time, a weeks annual leave would cover the 30 hours of part time working so you get your full week of working hours as leave.

20 days is correct. However, when you take one of your 'days' off this won't equate to a full days holiday. So if you take leave one day, you will still be left with 19 days and 2 hours left. If you take leave for two days you have 18 days and 4 hours left etc.

This poster has it.

OP is neither fully right or fully wrong.

Of course her leave entitlement reduces pro-rata.

The day element is confusing it (as are the posters saying they work 4 days a week & their leave it pro-rata'd in days).

Your leave should be calculated in hours. So when you take a 'day's leave', you will use 6 hours not 8, means in 'days' terns you'll have the same, but as you work fewer hours, you'll get fewer hours' leave, and taking a 'days' leave will also require fewer hours.

I think a PP suggestion of providing examples should be helpful.

She has the same number of days holidays. She works x amount of hours a day. So gets paid the same amount of x hours for every days holiday she takes. It is not rocket science.

Why are people making it so complicated?

But that's individuating it

The company has to make it work on the same basics that holidays are calculated for everyone.

The solution is to work it out in hours. Her day is not equivalent to other f/t workers day.

So while she will have the same # days leave, in hours, it will be less. This is important so that in their system, the correct amount of leave, pro-rata'd is recorded.

They have communicated it poorly however

How do you know that's how her employer is working it out though @EarringsandLipstick? They haven't specified on the contract that 1 day doesn't actually mean 1 day but is 0.8 of a day. Without knowing if this is true then she shouldn't sign anything

all you need to do is ask them what their definition of a day is in the contract. My assumption would be a day is the same for everyone across the board. So equals 7.5 hours or 8 hours of what we the Fte is.

it's the same way you can take half days holidays. If they're defining it as 6 hours then they're in the wrong.

So it's possible you're both right. But you're saying a day =your contracted hours in a day and they're saying a day =fte contracted hours in a day.

No of course she shouldn't sign it.

But posters saying her 1 day is the same as a f/t workers 1 day in leave terms (just the pay is different) are incorrect.

As I said, the employer needs to confirm it much more clearly.

However somewhere her leave needs to be worked out on a pro-rata basis.

Or if they do it in hours then it's 33 x 6 (or however many hours you work) = 198 hours

Deduct 6 hours for every day off

That's the point many of us have made.

For staff in my organisation who work shorter days, this is how it's done.

But the days thing works too
She gets 33 days but her days are only 6 hours long

20 days plus 6 days bank holidays is 26 days. How have you got 20 days?

Yes. But somewhere it has to be noted that it's pro-rated. Whether that's her contract or letter.

It needs to absolutely clear that Mary's day of 6 hours is not the same as Ann's day of 8 hours.

The easiest way is in hours. When my p/t colleagues take leave, they'll do so in terms of days too, but the system will calculate hours.