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?

People are making this way more complicated than it is.

A day annual leave previous was worth 7 hours to the OP or cost the company 7 hours in annual leave.

Under the new agreement, a day's leave is with 5.6 hrs to the op/cost to the company.

Therefore the 80% reduction is made already but virtue of the shorter hours.

To reduce the annual leave days by 80% also would result in a day of annual being worth 4.48 hours. 64% of previous eentitlement not 80%

An employer cannot treat a part-time worker different to a full-time worker - it is actually against the law. If a full-time worker gets 25 days you must get the same but pro-rata.

@Princessglittery do you not understand what pro rata means? If you're working 80% of your former hours, you'll get 80% of your former holiday entitlement. If she worked 37 hours that equates to 50 hours of holidays (as an example number) if she now works 29 hours she'll only get 40 hours holiday pay (again example) yes she still works 5 days but only until 3pm not 5pm so those reduced holiday pay hours will still cover her working hours and she'll get the same number of days off just being paid 9-3 rather than 9-5, it's not that complicated 🙄

Someone doesn’t understand how to pro-rata leave, they need to convert it to hours and you then get 80% of full time leave

You should have the same number of days holiday, but only be paid 80% each day of what you were being paid before.

I'm surprised any HR/payroll department cannot work that out. The pro-rate calculation is for people like me who work four full days a week.

Really worrying people are so convinced OP is wrong to the point of being rude, when she's only asking for her legal entitlement. It's 5.6 weeks - whether that's 5 days a week, 7 days a week, 1 day a week, 18hr days, 1 hr days it doesn't matter. Yes the hours reduce pro rata, but OPs employer calculates in days, not hours so that's irrelevant.

Hopefully it's just the intern not quite grasping what you mean OP.

But this giving me flashbacks to an old job, where I worked 3 on 4 off on 12hr shifts, and got paid double time for Sundays. So I got paid for 48hrs each week. To book a Sunday off you had to use 2 days leave to get double time for your holiday so your weekly pay was the same. I think that was fine, even though it meant you got lots more holiday if you never had a Sunday off/only half the holiday if you only ever had Sundays off.

But good god, bank Holidays! Paid double time if worked, only counted as one day in the holiday entitlement calcs, but had to be taken as 2 days holiday so you got the double time pay! No amount of back and forth to HR made them realise they were diddling us out of 8 days holiday a year by making us take 16 days for 8 days off. (not that anyone did take bank hols off - for that exact reason!)

Then one day a memo came out - they'd 'decided to change' how bank hols were paid and you only got single time if you were on leave.

But they also ballsed up my pro rata reduction when I changed to part time and over paid me about 4 grand, so swings and roundabouts I suppose...

As you are working 80% FTE, you will get 80% of your previous holiday entitlement. You will also get 80% of the bank holiday entitlement meaning you will unfortunately have to use some of your own holiday time to subsidise them. Else, you'll need to work it back.

This would be the equivalent of about 2 days for you I think.

No she won't have to use extra entitlement for bank holidays. She will get all the bank holidays and will get paid her shorter day pay for them

@Tessabelle74

I know exactly what pro rata means - try reading my posts.

The OP was getting 25 days at 7.5 hours her employer wants her to have 20 days at 6 hours. That’s not pro rata, pro rata is 25 days at 6 hours.

To be clear I have consistently said her employer is wrong, your original post implied her employer is right.

If you work every day , no matter how many hours, then your entitlement in days wouldn’t change. But, it’s usual to change peoples entitlement to hours in this situation. However, those hours should still equate to 25 ‘days’.

@GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut That’s awful, not to mention unlawful, did you get any holiday back?

Wrong.

It's as simple as this. You are now entitled to the equivalent of 20 days because you are 0.8 Fte. You now convert 20 days into hours ie 20 days x 7 hours is 140 hours. When you take a day off you deduct 5 hours from your total balance. All assuming you work a 35 hour week. Just adjust to your equivalent in the workplace.

You are quite right OP you should keep your holiday entitlement as you continue to work 5 days.

However its shocking how many HR people don't understand how to do annual leave calculations so I am not surprised this has happened to you.

If you get stuck ACAS can advise on how best to handle the situation.

Good luck

To add it is a battle I have fought and won several times in different workplaces.

I've not a clue, but all the best op

Nope. The change was made from that date and 'would not be backdated'. They were lucky no one pushed it I guess. I was much younger and less sure of myself in those days!

They also did a really weird thing where your annual leave rate was calculated as your average weekly pay including overtime /4 = 1 day. But that included all overtime for ever. So did loads of overtime 10 years previously? Yep, bumped up your holiday pay 10 years later.

Completely bonkers.

Although you are most definately correct there is a very small caveat that virtually no HR team understands, and that is IF your contract of employment stipulates that your "holiday entitlement is based on hours worked per week", then it does become a ratio else it by default is based on days. However that's really a technicality because I've never seen any contract which stipulates it and I think no HR team would because you'd then have the overtime workers be able to claim additional holiday on top.

www.peoplemanagementpartners.co.uk/blog/happy-bank-holidays-calculating-part-time-employees-bank-holiday-entitlement#:~:text=If%20you%20have%20a%20part,paid%20bank%20holiday%20per%20year.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/holidays-and-holiday-pay/working-on-bank-holidays/

www.breathehr.com/en-gb/blog/topic/leave/bank-holiday-entitlement-for-part-time-workers-how-to-calculate

citrushr.com/blog/leave-absence/bank-holiday-entitlement/

I think what we are saying is effectively the same thing. She gets 0.8 of the bank holiday as paid leave. Whether she tops up with 0.2 holiday entitlement, has it unpaid, or works it back. Basically the same thing.

I work 5 days a week reduced hours so my annual leave is calculated in hours

This is an infuriating thread 😫

OP is not wrong.

When I started in my job back in 2004 - small charity, no HR dept - holiday was in days, and it was 1 day = 1 day. None of us were full time.

I quickly spotted the problem with this and pointed out that it was wrong. I confused everyone I think, but the upshot was that my argument was accepted and all holiday was changed to hours.

As with the OP, I'd have lost out on around a week's holiday, and so would everyone else.

Yes, you're absolutely right. Except - OPs employer is skipping this bit

You now convert 20 days into hours ie 20 days x 7 hours is 140 hours. When you take a day off you deduct 5 hours from your total balance.

And OP is only able to book 1 day blocks of leave through their booking system. So she'll be made to use 7 hrs leave to take 5 hrs off!

She gets all the bank holiday as paid leave. She doesn't need to top anything up or take unpaid leave. Her hours may have reduced by 20% but her number of days holiday is unchanged. Her day is just shorter than a full timers day

Yes, but not how OP’s employer is calculating it.

maths is never a strength in HR

No, that would only be the case if OP had reduces hrs by working 4 full days in a week.

Because she's working 5 shorter days she is only taking off 0.8 of a bank holiday (as she wouldn't work the 0.2 if she was at work that day either)

So she should still get 1 days leave allowance for each bank holiday, but it's only worth 0.8 of a full time day in terms of pay.