Help me to explain annual leave

[hiphopapotamuses]

In a bid to find something other than the pandemic (and probable breakdown of human civilisation over loo rolls) my friend and I got to talking about annual leave...this may be all moot given the way things are going, however...

A friend works compressed hours - does 37.5 hours over 4 days (mon-thurs)
Their HR dept has adjusted their leave entitlement from 23 to 18 days as they "only work four days a week".
I've just tried to explain that this isn't right as they've made no allowance for the 4 days increasing from 7.5hrs to 9.25hrs and that by their HRs calculations if my friend were to reduce their hours to 30hrs over four days that their leave entitlement would still be 18 days which can't be right.
I've insisted advised that their leave needs to be worked out in hours rather than days and that 9.25hrs needs to be deducted from the balance per day off.

I'm not getting through though (and might be getting a bit frustrated)- can anyone help me explain?

”they've made no allowance for the 4 days increasing from 7.5hrs to 9.25hrs”

How do you know this? Are they saying that although she gets paid for 9.25 hours a day when she’s at work, when she’s on holiday they are going to only pay her 7.5 hours?

” If my friend were to reduce their hours to 30hrs over four days that their leave entitlement would still be 18 days which can't be right.”

Why would it not be right?

I haven’t checked the actual calculation but your post doesn’t make sense I’m afraid.

If you have two people working five days a week, one working 3 hours a day the other working 9 hours a day, they’d both get the same number of days annual leave. The person on 3 hours a day would get 3 hours holiday if they take a day off, while the person working 9 hours a day would get 9 hours holiday for taking a day off.

The HR department is correct, as per posters above.

It only matters if she doesn't always take full days off.

If it's only ever worked out in days and you can only take time off in whole days then it's fine to work it out as a number of days.

However, if she is allowed to take annual leave in hours e.g. work some part days of use annual leave to attend appointments etc for a few hours then it does matter if she is only getting 4 x7.5 rather than 4 x9.5 as she should be entitled to the equivalent amount of hours that she works.

She also needs to check that her bank holiday entitlement hasn't been worked out prorata based on a 4 day working week when she does do the equivalent hours as someone doing a 5 day week.

She will get paid 9.25 hours for each day she books off as per PP - the calculations are correct.

As long as she is paid 9.25hrs then that is correct otherwise she is profuying from an extra day each week on annual leave

Are you asking for a friend? 😂

This is why non standard hours leave is paid in hours not days.
I work 24 hours, three days a week. I get 32.5 days leave FTE, i now take my leave in hours. 8 hours per day instead of 7.2 on a 36 hr week.