AIBU to expect to keep my full holiday entitlement?

[namechange0998776554432]

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?

If the 20% was taken as a whole day and not finishing early you would go from 5 days to 4 days. Your AL would go from 25days to 20 days so why wouldnt it be the same now? Youll get 20 days leave if youve dropped 20% of your hours

Thats not how it works! I work in a place with hundreds of people on different hours and days and have changed mine many times. It ALL goes off hours! You reduce your hours you reduce your holiday entitlement. If them hours were clumped together as ONE DAY instead of 2 hours a day then she would lose 20% so why wouldnt she by losing 2 hrs per day! Everyone would do that if it was the case rather than reducing hours by dropping a full day!

@gemma19846 For the last time, the OP was getting 25 x 7.5 hours a day (187.5 hours for the year) leave and is now getting 25 x 6 hours a day (150 hours). The reduction from 7.5 hours to 6 hours or from 187.5 to 150 hours = a 20% reduction.

You want to penalise her further by reducing the number of days from 25 to 20.
Note: The OP works 5 days a week.

@gemma19846
There is a difference in dropping a day or working everyday just less hours.
If you drop a day, you are correct that the holiday entitlement will reduce. But if she works same hours each day and 5d/week then she would still be entitled to 25 days off. Each day or week off would obviously be paid per her normal p/t salary. (It would be 20days at FT salary but that is irrelevant. Obviously being paid her normal PT salary 25days is correct)

@gemma19846
Think of it this way, using your example: you've dropped a day. You now work 4 days a week and are entitled to 20 holidays. If you requested 4 days off you would get a full week off. If you were to take your full 20 days in one go, you would be off for 5 weeks, correct?
Let's say you drop another day. You now only work 3 days a week and your holiday allowance has dropped to 15 days. If you wanted a full week off you also only need to request 3 days off. If you took your full 15 days allowance in one go, you would be off for 5 weeks, correct?
How many days would OP have to request for a full week off? How many days for the full 5 weeks?

I dropped my working hours but carried on working each day, they initially tried to pro rata the amount of days holiday that I got but I argued that it didn’t make sense.
I now have the same amount of days holiday as full time people but just less hours entitlement.

This is precisely why holiday should never be in days. Weeks or hours is the only logical way this works.
if you got 25 days previously plus bank hols you would have 6.6 weeks and you should still have 6.6 weeks regardless of your hours or days per week.

Yes by this time in the thread. I agree with this response.

Op please come back and put us out of our misery. This thread needs a Trigger warning.

Your annual leave is worked out in hours. So when they say 20 days that usually means 8/8.5 hours so if you only work 6 hours, you will essentially only use 0.8 of your annual leave for a full day off.

So you will still get the exact same annual leave allocation in terms of your shorter working days

Everyone at my employment work 5 days. So a part time person who did 6 hours instead of 8 would still get the same amount of days holiday. Why are people arguing this and saying it has to be in hours?

Yes, if people did different hours all the time it would be worked out on hours.

Sorry! HR haven't replied yet and I'm not technically working this week. I'll let you know what the outcome is as soon as I know though!

@namechange0998776554432 Really hoping you got this one sorted!

So many different approaches on here which reflects the various ways business' calculate leave.

Having worked in HR for 17+ years I've seen them all!

Essentially though if they are giving you a 'days entitlement' they should be working out by how many days you work per week for their calculation. In this case 5 days so yes your entitlement should remain as 25 days, however when you book a day off, of course your days pay is less than normal. 25days @ 5.6hrs per day = 140hrs.

This way is perfectly reasonable way to calculate part time annual leave, on the basis that if payroll are processing said leave, they are doing so at the employees normal working day hours not FTE.

The alternative to this is to calculate in hours, so calculate what a colleague works per week so for consistency as above, they work 5.6hrs per day, 28 hours per week their years entitlement will be 140hrs, which does scale back up to 20 days but because they've calculated in hours, they need you to book in hours from this entitlement. I suspect they have confirmed this 20 days from your hours entitlement but you shouldn't then be booking 'days' from this.

Essentially, you either calculate in days and OP books in days, or you calculate in hours and OP books in hours. You can't switch between the two if that makes sense!

Hope this is helpful!!

Very helpful.

Just to add for clarity, the scaling back up to 20 days is based on a FT day but as OP works 5.6hrs if you cake back up correctly I does come to 25 days which is correct!

For part-timers, our holiday entitlement is done pro rata in hours - so to book one day off, they use less than full-time hours. This makes it fair and comparable.

What do you do if you do not mind me asking? I would argue if you are getting all of/the same amount of work done in less hours worked you could make a fair argument to your employer not to cut pay or holiday.

Correct but the op says she can't book 0.8 days off on the holiday system.
If she could it would be okay -20 days meaning 20 7.5 hour days. Booking 25 0.8 days holiday would use it up. All would be fine.

But the system only allows a unit of 1 to be booked. That's the main issue (and weird,no one ever allowed a half day when they have say hospital appointment)

Maybe this will make sense to those not agreeing OP is right:

Assume OP gets paid £1 a day. And at the beginning of the year, she is given 25 £1 coins to 'buy' her holiday with when she wants a day off.

She's now reduced her hours by 20% so her employer is giving her 20% less coins to buy her holiday. So she gets 20 coins.

Now OPs days are shorter, she only gets paid 80p a day.

OP wants a day off, so she hands over one of her £1 coins. 'can I have 20p back please' she says, 'my days cost 80p'

'NO' says her employer. (because ops holiday system only allows leave to be booked in 1 day blocks, and OP only has 20 blocks to use) 'we don't give any change. A day is £1.'

'But' says OP 'my days are 80p! You've already taken some coins away for my shorter days, now you want to keep my change too by charging me £1 for one day!'

Doubt it

I live in hope.

Maybe I should add on the end that if OPs employer want to charge her a whole coin per day off, then need to give her 25 x 80p coins.

Or they give her 20p change. But that sounds like it would require re writing the leave system, so 25 x 80p coins is much simpler.

Well I don’t think the OP is unreasonable (not based on her Op which was quite unclear, but subsequent posts)

however I couldn’t make head nor tail of your post!

I understand it.

I'm glad someone does.

I'm trying to say if you buy something worth 80p with a pound coin, and don't get any change, you're being ripped off.

exactly.

I have worked reduced hours (93%) evenly over 5 days, I've worked same % on a nine date fortnight and now work 80% over 4 days. I've been tupe'd twice so transferred between different employer systems and yet, I've never had an issue.

hours/days didn't matter when I worked 5 days of the same length. After that, I got allocation in hours but the system was clever enough to allow me to book in days/half days and deduct the correct number of hours from my balance even when my hours were not exactly the same everyday.

It even works out my pro rated Bank Holidays and sorts out deducting hours or not depending on whether I'm normally due to work that day. I don't work on a Monday and a lot of BH fall on that day.

Hope you get this sorted OP