Bank holiday calculation - help!!!

[tradition]

I manage staff and calculate their leave. A full time staff member works 37.5 hours split over 4 days Tuesday-Fri (approx 9.4hours per day). She gets 6 weeks leave. We calculate in hours so that's 225 hours. If she takes a week off I deduct 37.5hrs but for a single days leave I take off 9.4hrs. So far, so good.

We also add in bank holiday hours. As she is full time she gets the full allowance of 9 bank holidays so I have added 9 x 7.5 (67.5 hours) to her allocation. So in total she has 292.5 annual leave hours.

I have gone through the bank holidays and any that she would ordinarily be in work on ie Friday 3 June I have deducted 7.5 hours from her total. As she doesn't work Mondays she mainly has the bank holiday hours to take whenever.

She disputes my calculations and says I should give her the daily hours she works for the bank holidays I.e 9 x 9.4 hours (84.6 hours). But to me this is adding another 2 days to her leave entitlement! Does anyone know what is correct in employment law?

Thanks

Please note in practice we always round these figures up or down in the staff members favour.

She has indeed shot herself in the foot, silly woman! She's going to be furious when she finds out

It's whatever is in her contract. Most employers at the bank holiday days to annual leave for just the reasons you are! You are correct in your figures

I used to have to work out people's annual leave/ bank holiday entitlement at my workplace.
My understanding is that she gets full bank holiday entitlement as she's full-time.
Any day that she works that falls on a bank holiday you deduct her normal daily working hours of 9.4 hours from her bank holiday allowance.
As she works Tues- Fri and most Bank Holidays fall on a Moday she will
end up with a bank holiday credit that can be added to her leave to take on another day.

She is being a bit stupid really.

There is no reason at all why she should accrue bank holidays at a different rate from other full time staff just because of her compressed hours working pattern. Naturally, she should get the same number of hours off as everyone else.

Likewise, there is no reason why she should get paid for 9.4 hour day on a bank holiday if you are only deducting 7.5 hours in holiday entitlement for each one. A full time member of staff would work 30 hours in a week with four bank holidays (4 x7.5). If you only deducted 7.5 hours, then she would work 3 x 9.4 hour days in that same week, which is only 28.2 hours in total. Consequently, she would "owe" the organisation 1.8 hours.

She seems to be trying to use her compressed hours to argue for an entitlement that is more than that of other staff. Either she isn't very clever, or she is trying to pull a fast one. Stick to your guns, OP!

Think about her as you would any full timer who works their hours over the more common 5 days a week:
Normal Hol Entitlement of 225 hours (30 days @ 7.5 hours)
PLUS
BH Entitlement of 67.5 (9 days @ 7.5 hours)
Total Entertainment = 292.50.

The entitlement for her is exactly the same as other full timers. The only difference is how much is deducted when she uses a holiday. As she works 37.5 hours across 4 days her daily hours are 9.37 so she should have 9.5 hours deducted regardless of whether the holiday is a BH or a normal AL day.

The bottom line is that as a full time employee they have 292.5 hours of holiday.
Any day she is not working when she should, 9.4 hours needs deducting from her hours doesn't matter if it's a bank holiday.
For example...
Employee A (works 37.5 over 5 days) takes two weeks vacation, the Friday is a bank holiday. 10x7.5 = 75. They have used 75 hours of their entitlement.
Your Employee (works 37.5 over 4 days) takes two weeks vacation, the Friday is a bank holiday. 8x9.4 = 75.2. They have also used 75 hours of their entitlement.
It's so easy to get tangle up in knots.

Thank you for all the replies. I have it clear in my head now. I replied to staff member today setting out the calculations and examples. I thought that's the end of it. But just before I left work this evening she replied disputing it all again -long email on how it wasn't fair.

I don't want to keep going over it all again but how do I make it stop and draw a line under it ? 😩

Just be clear that this is your final word and the discussion is closed.

This website is quite useful

www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/calculating-holiday-entitlement-atypical-workers#:~:text=For%20someone%20working%20compressed%20hours,hours%20holiday%20for%20the%20year.

Rather than taking a day's holiday, they would take the number of hours that they would have otherwise worked on that day (ie for 36 hours worked over four days, they would take nine hours' holiday for each day otherwise worked)

If she is arguing she should only use 7.5 hours leave on bank holidays, I'd be tempted to say "fine, will you be working on your usual day off to make up the extra hours?"

If she thinks she should get 9x9.4 hours for bank holidays then I don't know what to tell you!

Do you have a HR department?

Or this one..

www.charliehr.com/blog/what-are-compressed-hours/

*Calculating bank holiday entitlement for an employee working compressed hours
When an employee works compressed hours, then their annual leave is calculated in hours rather than days.

When one of their usual working days falls on a bank holiday, their usual number of hours for that day will be deducted from their annual leave entitlement.*

@tradition

Thank you for all the replies. I have it clear in my head now. I replied to staff member today setting out the calculations and examples. I thought that's the end of it. But just before I left work this evening she replied disputing it all again -long email on how it wasn't fair.

I don't want to keep going over it all again but how do I make it stop and draw a line under it ? 😩

It doesn't really matter that she thinks it's not fair, it's correct! You could always challenge her to show you her calculations that demonstrate doing it her way don't give her two extra days of annual leave? That's possibly a bit childish though I think as long as you have shown her the calculations that show her she has exactly the same amount of annual leave as all other staff who work full time, there's nothing more you can do. She can complain to your manager or her union rep but she won't get far.

Could I ask one final question? If someone contracted hours were more than 37.5 I.e say 50 per week would they be entitled to more bank holiday hours ?

So in that case if they did 10hours per day over 5 days would they get 9 bank holiday days x 10hrs = 90hrs ?? Or is 7.5hrs the maximum anyone can receive?

This is hypothetical but for my own peace of mind.

@tradition

Could I ask one final question? If someone contracted hours were more than 37.5 I.e say 50 per week would they be entitled to more bank holiday hours ?

So in that case if they did 10hours per day over 5 days would they get 9 bank holiday days x 10hrs = 90hrs ?? Or is 7.5hrs the maximum anyone can receive?

This is hypothetical but for my own peace of mind.

No one is entitled to BH hours ......many people have these days included in their AL entitlement and not as extras..... you would need to look at the leave policy to answer this question .....there is no definitive answer....however as your employee is only contracted to 37.5 ....the answer is irrelevant

@tradition

Could I ask one final question? If someone contracted hours were more than 37.5 I.e say 50 per week would they be entitled to more bank holiday hours ?

So in that case if they did 10hours per day over 5 days would they get 9 bank holiday days x 10hrs = 90hrs ?? Or is 7.5hrs the maximum anyone can receive?

This is hypothetical but for my own peace of mind.

They'd get 9 x 10 hours leave. You can't penalise someone because their working days are longer than 7.5 hours. Same as if they take a weeks annual leave - that's 50 hours leave they'd be taking, not 37.5

Statutory entitlement is 5.6 weeks, so if you worked 50 hour weeks, you would get 5.6 × 50 hours. You'd have to opt out of the working time regulations to work that many hours though.

Basically the upshot is this:

When you take a days annual leave, whether it be a bank holiday or not, you should be paid the same amount of money as if you had worked that day and you have one day deducted from your balance.

Working it out in hours is only really helpful if someone works different hours on different days eg 4 hours on a Monday and 6 hours on a Tuesday etc.

@Comefromaway

Basically the upshot is this:

When you take a days annual leave, whether it be a bank holiday or not, you should be paid the same amount of money as if you had worked that day and you have one day deducted from your balance.

Working it out in hours is only really helpful if someone works different hours on different days eg 4 hours on a Monday and 6 hours on a Tuesday etc.

That doesn't work for the staff member the OP is discussing though, as she does compressed hours. So the BH days for her are 7.5hrs.

Why does working compressed hours chsnge anything?

@Comefromaway sorry I think misunderstood your post! The argument here is that the person discussed gets allocated 9x7.5hrs on top of her A/L. But if she takes a days leave on a BH she would need to use 9.5 hrs as that's her normal working day. I thought your post was arguing that she should only need to use 7.5hrs but that is not what you said at all

@Comefromaway

Why does working compressed hours chsnge anything?

Because the bank holiday entitlement has to be fair for all staff.

All staff get the equivalent of 8 bank holidays per year. (Well, 9 this year, but let's ignore that for now). That equates to 8 × 7.5, which is equal to 60 hours.

If the OP takes off 8 bank holidays where she she should have worked 9.4 hours instead of 7.5 hours like everyone else, she will end up with 75.2 hours of paid bank holiday. In other words, much more than anyone else.

Of course, she might not work on all of the days that fall on bank holidays, so she could end up losing out that way. That's why the only fair way is to calculate it in hours, add the overall total to her annual entitlement and then subtract the appropriate number of hours for each day that she takes off.

@AlexaShutUp - You are making the same mistake as the OP.

If we insist on calculating it in hours, here are 9 bank holidays this year so full time staff get 7.5 x 39 = 292.5 hours holiday. The employee the OP is talking about works a 37.5 hour week, albeit compressed into 4 days, so she is also entitled to 292.5 hours holiday. Each bank holiday that falls on one of her working days uses up 9.4 hours holiday as that is the number of hours she would have worked.

[quote prh47bridge]@AlexaShutUp - You are making the same mistake as the OP.

If we insist on calculating it in hours, here are 9 bank holidays this year so full time staff get 7.5 x 39 = 292.5 hours holiday. The employee the OP is talking about works a 37.5 hour week, albeit compressed into 4 days, so she is also entitled to 292.5 hours holiday. Each bank holiday that falls on one of her working days uses up 9.4 hours holiday as that is the number of hours she would have worked.[/quote]
Yes, I agree, that's what I said above basically. I don't understand how I have made a mistake?

Also, I don't see how you can avoid calculating the entitlement in hours in order to make it fair. Unless you looked at in whole weeks but that would be an unusual way of doing it.

You can calculate in days for PT staff if they work equal hours across 5 days, but if they compress their hours into fewer days, then their days are not worth the same as a normal employee's days, so hours is the only fair way to do it. Of course, you could calculate the entitlement in hours then convert it back into the employee's longer days if that's easier.

That's not how I read it, but glad we are in agreement.

There is only any need to do it in hours if people don't work the same number of hours per day every day and the same number of days every week.

In the case of the OP's employee, she works 9.4 hours per day. A full time employee working 5 days a week gets 39 days off this year, so this employee is entitled to 31.2 days off (39 x 4 / 5). With 9.4 hours per day, that works out at 293.28 hours - 0.73 hours more than full time staff because 9.4 hours over 4 days works out at 37.6 hours a week, not 37.5.

We calculate in hours as we have over 50 staff all working different hours over different days, part-time and full time.

We were advised this would be the easiest system and I couldn't do some staff in days and some in hours. For the most part it's been easy to implement and this is the first time it's been challenged. I do want to get it right and not short change anyone.

Thanks for all the advice. Really helpful.