Calculating annual leave

[Stopsnowing]

Work has just changed how they show our annual leave from days to hours.
All our contracts give our annual leave in days and nobody works irregular hours or is paid on an hourly basis.
The vast majority of us regularly work through our unpaid linch hour and beyond the normal times stated on our contracts.

We are most than 3/4 through our holiday year and the new system means it is not clear how many days we have left to take. To see this we need to divide by seven.

(In the past we have been able to take leave in days or half days.)

No explanation has been given for the change but I wonder if it is a precursor to wider changes to how we are employed. (A while back one of the higher ups made it clear he liked the consultancy model.)

It doesn’t sit well with me that our annual leave is now shown in hours when we are not paid hourly and our contracts state our leave in days.

Would be grateful for any thoughts.

It could just be something as mundane as a change in software.
I worked for a company that did a similar thing and it makes it easier to calculate things like half days.
Especially for people that have changed their hours during the year.
Eg 2 months of the financial year was full time, then the rest was part time. If the hours are pro rata'd as you go along, you can now work out how much you have left exactly.
A previous employer did this with me and made me leave at 3pm one day to use up a child of hours of fractional leave I had left!

Often because for part time staff they have to calculate in hours as AL and bank holidays are all pro rata so can just be easier especially if held electronically.

Assume you are contracted for a 35 hour week then if taking 7 hours for a day?

I really wouldn’t be concerned about this.

It's really not a big deal. As a PP said probably a software change. Just divide it by 7!

Nothing to be concerned about. We have done this over the last year, like a pp said it's just a software change

I really wouldn't worry about this, you're not losing anything in terms of your annual leave. Our's is done in hours too, and if I need to come in a bit later due to an appointment or something then I could for example take 2 hours leave and come in at 11am, rather than using a half day or while day

Thanks so much for all the responses. Very helpful.

It’s a bit of a hassle but as long as you haven’t lost any leave, there’s no problem.

Everywhere I’ve worked ( NHS and private sector) over the last 15-20 years has given AL in hours. It’s not a new thing. To be honest I would feel it was odd being given in days.
When given in hours most people end up with an odd few hrs, if your employer has been rounding everyone’s up to the day they’ve probably realised they’ve been giving thousands of pounds away by using the day system.

As long as you have a set hours assigned to your day, it doesn’t matter. So while you might work more than 7 on a typical day, if you only have to trade in 7 hours of leave when you take a day off it is functionally the same.

My work does it by hours to accommodate the part-time employees. We have a lot of professional staff who work a reduced schedule.

It shouldn't make any difference to you at all.

Administratively it is easier to calculate entitlement for part timers if leave is done in hours.

It makes no difference to you if you are FT but will make it easier for PT people to work out their leave (which was always a nightmare involving many complicated calculations and spreadsheets where I was!)