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Original poster

Annual leave allowance disagreement

89 replies

Dinodinosaur · 12/08/2019 19:19

I work part time and up until now this has been full days. I received a pro rata allowance for annual leave and bank holidays and bank holidays needed to be booked from this allowance.

I am now moving to a mix of full and half days, with the number of hours worked overall per week remaining the same.

My employer has said I now get the same number of days off as a full time employee, but if the day I have off falls on one of my half days it will count as a full day off as they base annual leave on days not hours.

I will need to take time off more often on the half days to cover child care in school holidays. Therefore, I will lose out on holiday in comparison to now, even though my number of hours won't change.

Is this something they are able to do? I am going to challenge, I would just like advice on where I stand first if anyone has it. Thank you.

OP posts:

isabellerossignol · 12/08/2019 20:30

No, hang on, I've confused myself!

So if you take leave on one of your half working days that counts as 50% of a day off? In that case it's all ok? You get the same amount now that you were getting before don't you?

dementedpixie · 12/08/2019 20:33

No, if she takes a half day it is counted as a full day. So if she takes a weeks holiday she gets 5 days off but some are full days and some half days

isabellerossignol · 12/08/2019 20:36

All I want is to still get 80% holiday entitlement, not 100% if I only take leave on my full days and 50% if I only take leave on my half days

But is this not saying that it's only 50% if it's one of the half days?

isabellerossignol · 12/08/2019 20:40

Ok, I've read it a dozen times and I'm going back to my earlier interpretation. I was thinking that meant 50% of a days leave not 50% of the entire leave allowance.

So I'm back to thinking it's unfair!

dementedpixie · 12/08/2019 20:41

How many hours do you work?

MacavityTheDentistsCat · 12/08/2019 20:44

I think your employer is correct - it's how my leave works too (I work 24 hours, which was originally spread over three days, when I got a 60% leave entitlement, and is now spread over five days, with a 100% leave entitlement). If I take a day off, it counts a one full day of holiday.

(This is not unfair to FT employees BTW because when I take a day's holiday, I only get paid for a 5 hour day whereas they get paid for an 8 hour day.)

BrieAndChilli · 12/08/2019 20:50

So you work 32 hours a week. And before got 32 hours holiday.

Now you work 32 hours but get 40 hours holiday x 5.6 weeks
You aren’t any worse off as they are essentially giving you the 8 hours for free but as you don’t work them it cancels out.
If you want to take a full week off before you would have had to take 32 hours off, now you will use 40 hours but as they have given you the extra 8 on top you aren’t losing any holiday hours.

DropZoneOne · 12/08/2019 20:51

You are not worse off, unless some employees get their holidays in hours. If everyone gets their leave in days, this is correct.

Lets say all FT employees get 25 days holiday. When you worked 4 days, 80%, you got 20 days. Your colleague wants a week off, they book 5 days, you want a week off, you book 4 days.

You now work 5 days a week, so you get 25 days holiday. You want a week off, you book 5 days. Your allowance is no longer pro-rated.

If you want this changed, it will need them to implement an hours based system. But in that case, the bank holidays get added back in so you use your leave hours for those too.

HouseOfGoldandBones · 12/08/2019 20:55

Surely they should just calculate your leave allowance based on the hours you work?

Then, when you take leave, you take it as hours, rather than days, and just subtract it from your allowance.

isabellerossignol · 12/08/2019 20:57

First of all I thought it was all fine, then I thought it was unfair, now I'm back to thinking it's fine. I usually find this all very straightforward, I don't know why I've found this so confusing

Jojo19834 · 12/08/2019 20:58

This is fair, they have given you the same leave to make things clearer. In their eyes you work 5 days, regardless of if some are half days. It makes tracking easier. You are no worse off if you take a day off on your half day as it’s just treated as a day for holiday allowance in the first instance. Not sure how to explain it but you are even and it’s right what they have given you. You work 5 days, you’ve been given the same holiday as a FT person. This is the fairest way to do it

Original poster

Dinodinosaur · 12/08/2019 20:59

@isabellerossignol if I take one of my full days off then it counts as one day, if I take one of my half days off it counts as a day.

@macavity it would work if I worked roughly similar hours across 5 days. Sounds like you do around 5 hours per day? The issue is because some days I work double the amount of other days, but have to take the same amount of leave for both

@dementedpixie I work 28 hours

OP posts:

isabellerossignol · 12/08/2019 21:02

Right, so you should be getting 80% of a full time employee's leave. But in reality that would only happen if you took all your leave on your full days?

hmwhatsmynameagain · 12/08/2019 21:08

It sounds like in your situation leave should be calculated in hours as you do not work the same amount of hours each day.

RedTreehouse · 12/08/2019 21:08

OP you are definitely right, you should have your leave calculated in hours and pro-rated so you get the right % time off.

Not quite sure why people are struggling to see that if you work an irregular pattern and still count leave in days, you could really beat the system by only ever taking your long days off or screw yourself over (as you say you would end up doing, OP) by taking lots of your short days off. Think of it like an exchange rate, you can either spend 1 annual leave day on 4 hours pay for no work or on 8 hours pay for no work (numbers are just for example, can't remember if you've said your actual pattern).

MacavityTheDentistsCat · 12/08/2019 21:09

Dino: your employer operates a day-based holiday system (as does mine). Under such
system, a day of holiday means you don't have to attend work for a day. The number of hours you would have worked is a red herring.

VeThings · 12/08/2019 21:10

@Dinodinosaur, I think you’ve fixated on the half day vs full day.

You can only get to book 1/2 days IF your employer is giving you pro-rata leave.

But they are not. You get the same number of days as a FT employee. If they want to take a week off, they book 5 days. If you want to take a week off, you book 5 days. The number of hours is irrelevant.

If you want to work it the way you are suggesting, then you have to be given leave at 80% of the FT annual leave entitlement.

Your employee is just trying to make life easier by giving you the same number of days as a FT employee, the fact you work different hours on different days is irrelevant.

Floopily · 12/08/2019 21:11

I work somewhere with this system. It's correct and legal and we have to do it this way as the system can't cope with anything else. I had someone in my team who worked 4.5 days a week but still had the same full days annual leave as someone who works full time. I had absolute blue murder with her trying to book the Friday mornings as half days when the system would correctly take it as a full day! Yes you are 'better off' by taking a day off not on one of your half days but you have been given the additional leave (in my example the difference between 0.9 of full time holiday equivalent and the full time equivalent - in my place this is roughly 2.5 days extra - which makes up for this).

Nannymacshe · 12/08/2019 21:13

Yes your leave should definitely be calculated in hours rather than days. Would be easier to work out for all concerned. There is so much misunderstanding around holidays. I have just had a right job convincing an employer that weekend only workers are still entitled to their share of bank holidays 🙄

RedTreehouse · 12/08/2019 21:21

Sounds like some employers need to invest in better HR systems.

OP is not going to only ever book leave in blocks of 5 days at a time. How is it fair if she ends up using all her leave on her half days and missing out on some of the hours she's due? She's only asking for it to be calculated correctly, not for more than she's entitled to.

Good luck OP, I hope you find someone sensible to talk to and get it sorted out.

MacavityTheDentistsCat · 12/08/2019 21:24

Floopily: I really can't see how she is 'better off' either way. If she takes a day off on a day she would have worked 8 hours then she gets 8 hours off. If she takes a day when she would have worked 4 hours, she gets 4 hours off. Either way she gets a release for 100% of her work commitment for that day.

My brain is starting to spin.

EarringsandLipstick · 12/08/2019 21:28

@MacavityTheDentistsCat sums it up best

If she takes a day off on a day she would have worked 8 hours then she gets 8 hours off. If she takes a day when she would have worked 4 hours, she gets 4 hours off. Either way she gets a release for 100% of her work commitment for that day

^^ this is the way it works & why she's getting the same allowance as a f/t employee.

MrsFezziwig · 12/08/2019 21:33

My colleagues and I work a full time week compressed into 4 shifts, and the shifts are of different length (niche department in a large organisation). If you took a full week’s holiday, no problem for the system to record this. If you wanted part of a week, impossible. It was so much easier to work out leave entitlement in hours (both for full and part time staff) that we ended up going off-grid and just recording it internally. Job done. If systems are rubbish I don’t think people should be made to suffer in order to fit into them.

EarringsandLipstick · 12/08/2019 21:37

MrsFezziwig

That's not the OP's situation though. She's not working f/t hours over 4 shifts. She works p/t, but works each day.

She gets the same allowance as the f/t employees. So she just takes a day's leave for whatever day she wants off.

Floopily · 12/08/2019 21:38

MacavityTheDentistsCat I probably didn't explain it very well! For the person I used to manage, she thought she was better off taking her holiday on a day where she worked 7 hours as she was getting more hours for her booked day of leave (if that makes sense). So on a day where she normally worked 3.5 hours if she took a day off she was 'worse off' in her head because if she'd used the day on a different day she'd have got 7 hours, so one days holiday had a different 'value' to another. I couldn't get through to her the exact argument you are making far more eloquently than my garbled explanation!

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