To think that if you work 7.5 hours…

[winterblueshitting]

Your half day should be 3.75 hours not four?!

My work day is 9-5 with a half hour unpaid break. So 7.5 hours working a day. I’ve got a half day this week and I have to work 9-1, “working through lunch”. I just don’t understand how that works!

Yes, that's unfair. I'm not sure what the rules actually are though.

It doesn't work! Management are wrong here and you are right. I work 7.5 finish at the start of my lunchbreak if I've booked a half day.

You are absolutely right.

I’m not sure if it’s because we can choose when we take our break? But in my head it should be 3.75 hours working, 3.75 hours annual leave.

somehow I’ve ended up with 4 hours working and 4 annual leave!

Is it 7.5 plus half hour lunch?

Yes I’d finish at 12:45 if I had a half day

Maybe ask HR. It might just be an oversight.

Lunch is unpaid, it’s 9-5 with half hour unpaid

They've worked it out incorrectly, email HR and get it corrected. Your half day is 9-12.45.

If you're working and being paid for 4 then it should be 3.5 annual leave - otherwise you're losing half an hour of your leave but not getting the time off.

You're not entitled to a break if you work a half day (less than 6 hours), so that's where I think the confusion is coming from.

I don't know what the law actually is on that situation. I've always taken half days as 'I earn 7.5 hours a day, I'm taking 3.75 annual leave, that leaves 3.75 hours I have to work' which I think is where you're coming from. But I can see how work are saying 'you Don't get a lunch break, you're not here for 6 hours' but in that case I'd expect to only hadlve to take whatever hours remain of the 7.5 as AL (as though you're starting your half hour unpaid lunch at 1pm). Or you're losing time you could take another day and getting an extra 30 mins pay that day.

The four takes me to 5pm though. Which is what’s confusing me

My hours are the same as yours, we have a time recording system so if I put in half a days leave I get 3.75 hours, it doesn’t count lunch breaks. I’d contact your HR dept and ask them to explain the reasoning but I’d be tempted to take my lunch in and eat it from 1245 -1300!

Work 9-12.45
Unpaid 12.45-1.15
Annual leave 1.15-5

Yeah, that's obviously nonsense. They can't have it both ways.

You either work 3.75hrs and take 3.75 hours off, or you work 4 and only use up 3.5 hours leave.

What type of job do you do? Does the extra 15 minutes make that much difference? You could get it back by having a more leisurely coffee break that morning. Or simply start packing up at 12:45 and faff around. (I avoid taking things up with HR unless they have a really big impact on my work / wellbeing).

That’s what you’d think. It’s not the end of the world because it’s only 15 minutes leave but I could use it

NHS is it? You are correct though !

Yep! It’s not the end of the world because I wouldn’t have got home any earlier because the buses were cancelled, but still

At my job, when we work part time, we book hours off not part of days, so I would have asked for a specific number of hours and then put in my diary when those hours were off. I would expect to exclude my lunch break from those hours as I m not paid for a lunch break.

So if I work 9-5 (7.5 hrs excluding lunch), I would ask for 4 hrs of leave 1.00pm to 5pm but I would tell my boss that I was taking my lunch break between 12.30-1pm, so would leave at 12.30pm. This does mean I am using 4 hrs of my leave - (so a bit more than half a day instead of strictly 3.75 hrs) but it works out fine for me and my boss has always been fine with this.

If I want the morning off, I book off 4 hours - 9am to 1pm but come in at 1.30pm to allow for my lunch break so I work 3.5 hrs and have 4 hrs off . Both ways I am taking 4 hrs of leave and working for 3.5 hrs, adding up to 7.5hrs of work, which is what I am paid to do. So half days are a bit more than half a day of leave for me but that works out of for me as sometimes I just book a couple of hours off here and there

As as you have said though , you definitely should have the 15 mins in the scenario you have given

That sounds very unfair & incorrect. In my last job I worked for a big co. with a great HR department. Our working day was 7.5 hours. If we were taking a half day we would work 3.75 hours only; so work 9-5, half hour lunch. We'd work until 1245pm if taking half day al in the afternoon.
Likewise if the half day was taken in the morning we would start work at 115pm.
Your company is incorrect. Your lunch break is unpaid so should not be taken into account. Your working day is 7.5 hours, half of which is 3.75 hours.

I had this when I went down to 0.5 FT - on my half day my boss used to get annoyed because core hours were 9-5 with half hour unpaid break, but I had organised with HR to start at 8.30, so I was done by 12.15. for some reason boss though it should be a half day til "lunchtime" aka "her lunchtime" aka 1pm.

Ours doesn’t work out right either as these are the rules according to our staff handbook..Normal working day 9-5:30pm with an hour lunch.

Book a 1/2 day pm and you’re working 9am - 12:30pm
Book a 1/2 day am and you’re expected to work 1:30pm - 5:30pm

So you’re quids in booking the afternoon off but lose out if you take the morning!