Full time or reduced hours..

[lisababyb]

I am due to return to work soon and cant afford to work part time :(

My contracted hours are 37 over 5 days m-f. I was thinking of asking for reduced hrs to 4 days.. but working slightly longer hrs over those 4 days..

Does anyone have any advice on whether it makes much of a difference working 4 days to 5 days.. as I will be losing some money off salary too..

Thanks

It really depends on how they treat bank holidays. You're legally entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday (28 days for a full time worker, 24 days for a 4 day a week worker).

So, for example, if they include bank holidays within the 5.6 weeks, and you work a Monday, and there are 6 bank holiday closures, out of your 24 days, you would use 6 days of your holiday entitlement for the bank holidays and choose when to have the other 18 days.

However, in the same scenario, if you don't work a Monday, you would still be entitled to your 5.6 weeks (24 days) and you could choose to take them whenever you like. So you have a bit more flexibility while still being off al the bank holidays anyway (handy if your DH has bank hols off anyway).

Does that make sense? Different companies deal with art-time workers holiday in different ways though, so find out what their policy is. A local authority should have pretty clear guidelines about holidays/bank holidays and part-time workers either in the employee handbook or via HR.

Sorry, I'm getting mixed up with my own entitlement - the legal minimum for working 4 days a week is 22.4 days. Sorry to confuse things! Whether or not you work on a Monday has less to do with getting more holidays but more to do with the freedom of when to take your holidays IYSWIM?

Agree check the bank hol calc. Ask part time workers at your council.

Normally Monday's is a better day to have off due to holiday leave calculation

Thanks, think I understand now! I will check with HR what the policy is on BH's.

So I understand it as this.. If I do work a monday, some of my a/l entitlement will be used as bank hol, so less to use on other days..

If I dont work Monday, I can use all a/l
when i want.. and won't have to work bank hols anyway.

I suppose one good thing about working on a monday is that it will be a short week after bh, if taking fridays as my day off.. but if i had mondays off, no more sunday night feeling!

Going to type the email to my manager now.

Wish me luck! :)

I don't work Fridays, and if there is a Friday Bank Holiday (Good Friday, Royal Wedding Day, sometimes Boxing Day etc) it's just tough titty, I don't get the days back.

But my company are pretty flexible and will let me swap my days off occasionally (for example, to cover an inset day), so on balance I can't complain.

That's right lisababy, but only in the example I quoted. Like I said, there are different ways of treating bank holidays so whether or not there are any pros/cons in working a Monday depend on that. If for example, everyone gets their 5.6 weeks PLUS any bank holidays whenever they fall on a working day (and they don't get pro-rated for pt workers), then working on a Monday would be better.