Job share and Bank Holidays

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Basically, I job share my role where I work the latter half of the week (Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday). My colleague who works the other half gets all the bank holidays off without having to use her holiday allowance.

Obviously, this means she gets more holiday allowance than me as they are additional. Is there something I could mention to my employers about it or is this kind of thing different in every company?

I'm not trying to be petty by having a strop over an additional 5 or so days off a year she gets, but if there's a chance I could be entitled to something myself then I'll gladly snatch it (not overly fond of said job, you see.)

I work the same pattern as you.

as far as bank holidays go, they are shared between us, ie i get a half day allowance added on to my AL.

So if we both get say 20 days annual leave and there are 8 bank holidays, we will both get 24 days over the year, but have to use our AL to cover the bank holiday, so i use 2 days for Good Friday and a September holiday (Scotland) and we use AL to cover Christmas/New Year.

I used to be the one doing mon, tues and every other wed. I worked for a local authority. Where bank holidays cropped up, I would then have to work a half day extra somewhere (wasn't really 'extra' because I'd had the Monday of of course) and my job share colleague would get a half day leave to take.

are you sure she doesn't get bh leave which is deduct or that you don't benefit from a prorated number of bh hours (for Good Friday and any Christmas/New Year days for example) ?

but as far as i understand, she gets given the annual, leave which she has to take on a bank holiday.
she needs the extra
you don't.
you get good Friday and occasionally Christmas and new year

so it all boils down to the same thing.

I've worked two types of jobshare.
One, I worked M,Tu, 1/2W. BH weeks I'd work 2 days, as would my jobshare partner. It all worked out very nicely.
The other, I worked M, Fr and bank staff other days. I got pretty much all the BH off, but it came off my Annual leave allowance and was added to that of my jobshare. One year I only had 2 days annual leave of my choice, while my jobshare had 20.
It was really hard to juggle childcare, as DH gets BH off.

Thank you for your replies.

She doesn't get BH leave, she just takes them off as standard and she doesn't use her AL for them. Of course, it was the same for me on Good Friday but that's all I got this year. Also, this time Christmas works in my favour but it won't next year, ifyswim.

I just didn't know if there was something I could bring up to my employer to see if I could get the same allowance that she gets for BHs or if it's purely at the employers' discretion.

I work part time but work flexibly so don't have set days. I totalled up the bank holiday entitlement and agreed with my CX that I would pro rata the bank holiday entitlement and use that to fund the bank holidays.

So last bank holiday I worked 16 hours instead of my normal 21 hours. I didn't work the bank holiday (we were shut) but the full timers had the whole day off.

You shouldn't lose out by being part time but you shouldn't have the full bank holiday entitlement either - it's just the same as annual leave.

It's much easier for my employers to get it because I don't work set days. The complication arises when people work set days and employers don't think about how to pro rata the bank holidays - it's a common issue.

oh i see,
perhaps she gets given them?
it is a pretty bad deal for her too, she might not want the bank holidays off.
or perhaps it is in her contract that she gets the bank holidays. she cant work anyway.
or perhaps she doesn't know she should take them as leave.

she should either get given them added to her leave, or have to work extra, but if you are working the extra she can't necessarily work at the same time as you.
how do you know exactly what she does?

I was in this situation and although my colleague did indeed benefit from all the BHs without using her AL because no-one had thought about it, that's not what our contracts said.

Both of us had the same contract as f-t employees with holidays pro-rated. So we had 25 days plus 8 BHs each x 2/5 for me and 3.5 for her. The way it was supposed to work was the BHs that fell on our working days were deducted from our total leave at the start of the year and the remaining days were to be taken as holiday but like I said it wasn't done like that because no-one had thought about how it was different for us.

What does your contract say?

Once I pointed it out, my holiday allowance was increased each year so that I got what the contract said but I don't think anything changed for her so she was probably still getting a bit extra but at least I was getting what I was due.

Because we've discussed it. She can't work the BHs as the entire company have the BH off and because of the job that we do, there would be literally no work for her to do if she did go in. It's just a given that everyone who works on a day a BH falls, gets that day off.

It's like on good Friday, I was just told not to come in as the building is shut but I'd still get paid as normal. That's what she gets every BH Monday.

Under the terms of my contract, she would have her "extra" bank holidays deducted from her AL entitlement and you would have the ones you miss out on (any over and above your share of the 8 days) added to your AL entitlement.

There is usually a formula for this issue as it is not an unusual one.

I don't know what the size of your company is but if you have an HR dept they need to sort it out.

I have a colleague who worked the same amount of hours as me but got about 5 days less a/l. She kept telling me how angry she was about it as if I could do anything.

I kept telling her to go to HR and sort it out.

It's not fair, no. You are entitled to the same total amount of paid leave as a full timer (which you should check you are in fact getting), but there's no specific rule that says you must have the same as another part timer, although common sense/fairness says you should. So definitely speak to your manager about it.

(Bear in mind though, if you get this sorted out and get another couple of days added for you to take whenever you like, your colleague may then think it's unfair as a higher proportion of her holiday allowance has to be used up on specific days!)

it depends on how your company run the scheme

system 1. annual leave is 20 days if full time you work half time so you get 10 days each, business is shut all bank holidays so not added to leave in this case person who works mondays benefits as at least 4 BH are always mondays, good friday is a friday and christmas new year vary but monday person benefits as when christmas/ new year is a saturday or sunday monday is the BH, in this case your colleague will have more time off in total but free choice leave is the same

system 2 . annual leave is 20 days plus 8 BH total 28 days you both get 14 days, you have to take good friday as one of these days and some years christmas and new year so some years you get 13 days plus one fixed even when christmas is wed/thurs friday you would get 4 fixed and 10 free choice
your colleague will have 4 mondays deducted and some years christmas new year too because of the monday being BH when christmas is at weekend she gets same holiday but each year she would get 4 fixed and 10 free choice but if christmas a weekend could get 7 fixed and only 7 free choice in this sysytem though you both have same annual leave but your collegue has much less free choice

both systems have faults system 1 works in her favour ( which seems to be status quo) system 2 could be said to work in your favour

This has always confused me. Should BHs just be given pro rata – so, if someone works 2.5 days a week they should get 50% of bank holidays i.e. 4 days on top of their annual leave?

At my old employers, BHs were pro rated for part-time workers (which is what job sharers would be counted as) -- i.e. you and your colleague would both be "entitled" to four bank holidays a year; if one of you (in this case, her) gets more than that falling on her working days then the extra is deducted from annual leave (so if there are six Monday bank holidays that year, she'd not work any of them but two days would come off her annual leave allowance), while if one of you (in this case, you) gets less than that falling on your working days then the extra would be added on to annual leave (so if there are two latter-half-of-the-week bank holidays that year, you'd not work those but you'd also get an extra two days annual leave allowance added on).

They only realised there was an issue with bank holidays after I'd been there for several years, though (my guess is, when they passed a critical volume of part time workers). It's worth asking your HR department about policy on pro rating of bank holidays for part time workers.

I think BH should be pro-rata but an acknowledgment that if you work mondays this means more of your annual leave is fixed and less free choice

only 1 in 7 years will christmas actually be a thursday so someone working thursday would only have this day fixed once every 7 years

someone working mondays would have this day fixed 3 in 7 years ( when christmas is saturday/sunday/monday )

Hi

I'm an HR Manager for a large business with a number of PT roles and varying shift patterns which equate to less than a standard 5 day working week. The only fair way (and may I point out, legal way!) to calculate leave is by applying the same rule to all. That is;

A full time employee gets (in my business) 20 days annual leave plus 8 BH's. Total - 28 days per year.

Someone working a 3 day week gets 3/5 of this. So 28/5 = 5.6. 5.6x 3 = 16.8, so 17 days (they could leave it as .8, they cannot round down, for ease they should round up).

If a bank holiday isn't worked, but it does form part of a normal shift pattern (ie is a normal working day) then a days leave is deducted from the leave entitlement.

Your colleague who works Monday (and therefore more BH's) might not be best pleased, as technically they HAVE to use more of their leave than you, but thems the breaks I'm afraid.

HTH

www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement - lets you calculate your legal annual leave entitlement. Employers may add the bank holidays on as extra or can include them within your normal entitlement. Your entitlement would be 5.6 weeks holiday each year (i.e. 1 week for you would be 2½ days)

if you do 2.5 days you are entitled to 14 days holiday - bank holidays may/may not be added on top of that.

Thank you all. I do think it's worth finding out through HR then if it is worth doing. The only faff is, I work for a company who work as a contract company for another company so my HR department isn't so easily accessible.

I'll definitely look at that website. Thanks

I'd say your first port of call should be your line manager, especially if HR isn't easily accessible.