Annual leave when working part time

[user1469229240]

This is my first post and just looking for some advice on behalf of my son.
He started a job on 8th December 2021 at Mountain Warehouse and he works 16 hours a week, usually across 3 days.
The holiday period is from 1st July to 30th June each year.
As he has only just started, his entitlement until the end of June 2022 is 9 and 1/2 days.
We are planning a holiday and he needs 9 days off in total.
His manager is saying that all those days need to be booked off issuing his annual leave but I’m not sure if that sounds right as he only works 3 days out of 7 each week?
Can anyone help?
Thanks

It sounds as though your DS will need to go book 7 days in order to 'block out' those days in the rota and ensure he isn't scheduled to work on any of them, but he should only be deducted 16 hours of annual leave because that is all he is contracted to work during those 7 days.

He needs to work it out on hours then deduct 16 hours per week off. Maybe he can swap days if he is missing part of a week so he can still work 16 hours that week and not need to deduct any or at least use less than 16.

The manager is completely wrong, your ds's holiday entitlement should be in hours, not days.

There's a Gov calculator here which by my reckoning gives 53.4 hours holiday until 30 Jun 2022. Ds should book 16 hours for the week he needs off.

www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement

My friend worked in a pub part time and her manager used to pull tricks like this.

Basically he wanted the holiday to be used up quickly as it affected his staffing levels as he was always short staffed. As the manager (salaried) he would have to work extra if he was short staffed (I doubt he got paid extra). So he’d try and pull bizarre tricks with young part time staff members who didn’t fully understand or didn’t dare to challenge. He was a shit.

Thanks everyone, I agree that is ridiculous to have to book your days off as holiday!
I went on the calculator and got 53.4 hours as well.
Will get DS to check, it’s his first job so doesn’t want to rock the boat this early on😬
DS has emailed payroll/ HR to clarify.
I’m very grateful for all the help, it’s my first post even though I’m a long time user, and I’m amazed I got so many replies!

I hate it when employers take the piss.
DS applied for a different job before he got this one and he went for a trial that should have been 2hours.
He ended up working 8 hours straight without a break!
When he queried that he had been working for a long time , they didn’t give a shit, no apology and no pay!!! Just used him on a busy Saturday!

Don't know about leave but just wanted to say my DH's leave period does start April 1st!

They need to do his holiday in hours

He only needs to book hours to cover those that he is going to miss, so for one week 16 hours

@Fedupsotired

Don't know about leave but just wanted to say my DH's leave period does start April 1st!

There's no set rule on holiday years, each employer can choose whatever period they choose

This sounds like a possible mi communication or misunderstanding by one or other party. I'd say it will be easily resolved now HR are involved

Might be worth clarifying that he is entitled to 5.6 weeks holidays www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights and that the hours calculation is simply to work out how many hours that would mean for someone who works part time.

If you work three days per week, you are still entitled to 5.6 weeks holidays but instead of it being 28 working days, it is 16.8 of your working days.

Holiday should be booked in hours. If he wants a week off then that’s 16 hours of leave.

The manager is probably confused because it’s shift work - in their mind, they probably think that your DS would ordinarily be available for work for all of those 9 days, so if he is unavailable, the 9 days need booking off. That isn’t legally correct though.

We have an employee who does variable hours over 7 days - if they are unavailable one day, they usually get paid for an 8 hour day, but because they are part time they can also just request to be “unavailable” (rather than on holiday) and have their remaining shifts scheduled around their unavailable days so they still meet their hours for that week.

So in your DS situation, our employee would book his full 20 hours for week 1 to cover the first 7 days, and would have the option to either book holiday for the remaining two (meaning he’d only have to work 4 remaining hours that week) or be “unavailable”, and would then just work his 20 hours on his return.

Ignore the slight typo - I meant that the 8 hours paid was for holiday, not unavailability…

If your DS can work any days in a week, up to 16 hours, does the manager possibly mean that he needs to book off all the days he's unavailable so that they don't rota him by mistake? If so, they should still only be using 16 hours of leave per week.

So if he says he's on holiday Monday through to Sunday, but his leave entitlement would have 16 hours deducted.

I agree with all the comments.
I think he should book in hours.
The manager in question is an area manager and my DS hadn’t met him yet.
There’s no manager at the shop just people who have worked there longer than my DS.
He’s emailed head office HR but not got a reply yet.
I think he will book 16 hours off for the week and be unavailable on the other days.
He may need to book Monday and Tuesday of the second week but that would be 12 hours, worst case scenario, so 28 hours in total should do it.
I think I’ll get DS to write it all down clearly and email it ti the area manager and see what he says. Hopefully by then HR will have replied 🤞