Poss complicated q re: hols - anyone fancy a challenge?

[IllSleepWhenImDead]

Hmmm, I think this might be complicated, or I am making it too complicated

I return to work after mat leave in September on reduced hours. I have a fair bit of hols to use up so will need to book them in asap.

The 'normal' working hours for the business are 8.30am - 5.30pm (40 hours), before mat leave I worked 8am - 4/4.30pm Mon - Fri (36.5 hours I think), and when I return I'll be working Mon 8.30am - 1.30pm, a mix of 8.30am - 4pm/4.30pm/5.30pm Tue - Thur and Fri 8.30am - 1.30pm so 31.5 hours.

My question is, if I want to book a Monday or a Friday off, do I need to book a full day or just half a day? Ive been told I need to book a full day off, but it doesnt seem right that if my FT colleague wants a week off work they use up 5 days because they work 5 days, whereas if I want a week off work I have to use the same 5 days even though I technically only work for 4 of them in total .

Work are explaining it away as because I have accrued my hols while contracted to do more hours than I will when I return, its not fair that I benefit from mor eholidays only having to book half days off. But my argument back is my hols will be reduced pro-rata anyway for the rest of the year and going forward in line with my new hours, and what I accrued previous is because of the hours I have already worked and is nothing to do with my hours going forward.

Help me!

Not an expert, but in my employment, if you're on maternity, you retain the same benefits at the existing level before you come back IYSWIM. Most employees use their leave at the end of their maternity to extend it.

Your contract entitled you to accrue annual leave. You amassed x hours annual leave and did not use them.

Now, your reduced contract accrues you annual leave at a reduced rate.

You should only be booking leave to cover the time you are absent.

It is 'fair' because you are simply using leave already earned. You won't get 'more' holiday time, because each week you have of will be paid at your new reduced rate.

Legally you may be correct, but morally? I doubt it.

You will get the same NUMBER of days off at the lower rate - but you want more because of the maternity leave? In effect you are arguing that you should actually gain from having been on maternity.

No, the OP has accrued a number of hours annual leave as a direct result of working.

If she had resigned she would have recurved that number of hours pay.

There is no 'morally' about it.

You are correct, but there can be rules about how they are used. In my work (big blue chip company) we have to tag the accrued hours to then end of our maternity leave. So you "come back" after, say, 11 months and then have a month at home on annual leave on full pay or you use it before you go.

Regardless of you mat leave if anyone reduce their hours for whatever reason they would accrue full time AL up to that point, which they could use when they wanted in the holiday year and pro rata afterwards.

For business reasons I think the way my company does it works best. In my case they made an exception because they wanted me back early. But I'll only be back 8 months before going on ML again and it's left us with 40 days leave to use up before then which is difficult because it doesn't leave enough time to actually do my job. It looks like they are going to buy it from me so I get a full days pay for each full day (ie 7.5 hours) leave I give up.

thanks for the really quick replies and for confirming what I thought.

Lougle I forgot that was also part of my reasoning, that I get the holidays at my reduced rate when I go back so it all evens out.

Now the problem is how to get them to see they have got it wrong.....atm Im just getting "no, you have to book a full day off end of discussion" type of thing . Is the onus on me to prove they are wrong or on them to prove they are right?

There should be a policy on holidays, and also your contract should go some way in explaining the way they divide up holidays. Also I have found ACAS really helpful, they are anonymous, government, and impartial. They really know the law.

Just keep talking about it in hours rather than days. As I said before they may be more understanding if you offer to use up some or all of the accrual by tagging it on to your ML.

If your hours are varying depending what day it is, your holiday needs to be calculated and booked in terms of hours anyway, surely? Is that not happening?

But yes, once holiday has been accrued, it's yours, and they can't take any of it away.

It happens all the time, obviously. Woman accrues holiday based on full time hours throughout maternity leave, then comes back part time with a ton of holiday to use up. Sensible employers encourage the employee to take as much as possible before mat leave, and then get them to use what's left on a full time basis tagged on to the end of mat leave before returning part time with holiday all dealt with.

Hi Flowery, no its still going to be dealt with as days, before I went on mat leave and my hours varied slightly it was booked as days and when I used to work 4.5 days a week a couple of years ago I had to book a full day off if I wanted a Friday off, but didnt have MN then so didnt query it but Im not bothered about whats past.

Id have no problem if they wanted to do it as hours instead as it would make no difference to me and make it easier for them to adminster, could I suggest that or do they have to do it the same for everyone?