Holiday - Is this legal?

[Iguessyourestuckwithme]

Hello.

I have just received an email from my work HR advising a change in holiday entitlement. I had recently queried it and they are changing holiday entitlement for all.

So basics. I work 40 hours over 4 days- their choice, and they change weekly with 1 day off plus the weekend. I have no control over these 4 days, even to the point that I cant schedule a doctors appointment because I don't know when working from 1 week to the next and can't ask to schedule my day off to be a certain day to book appointments such as my smear.

I recently was made aware that holiday days are 8 hours which means that when there has been a bank holiday I have had to work 32 hours over 3 days instead of 30 to make up that short fall.

So this is the wording of the email I need to sign.

"

As you are contracted to work 40 hours a week, each holiday day would be paid at 10 hours. As you would
not have a set day off each week due to the need of the business changing week to week. If you were to
book a full week off (Monday-Friday), it would be 5 days of holiday being used due to the fact you are
stating you are not available to work on one of those days if the business required you to work some hours.
Therefore, you would be paid 10 hours paid per holiday day booked, which would total to 50 hours paid to
you for the full week booked off.
As you would not have a set day off each week due to the need of the business changing week to week. If
you were to book a full week off (Monday-Friday), it would be 5 days of holiday being used due to the fact
you are stating you are not available to work on one of those days if the business required you to work
some hours. Therefore, based on the above example it could mean 9.5 hours paid per holiday day, which
would total to 47.5 hours paid to you for that week off.
We appreciate that the change in holiday allowance may come across as a loss due to it being 5.5 days less
than the 28 days (based on working 5 days a week), however with only working 4 days a week with a day
off, it means a large number of extra non-working days off across the year. "

Am I right in thinking that if I work 40 hours a week that if I book a week off I shouldn't have to use 50 hours holiday and that me working 40 hours over 4 days compressed does not equate to me having lots of extra days off rather that I have completed my workload.

They have also said I'm entitled to only 22 days but I thought it was 28 days legally?

Any help would be great!

I think they've worded it clumsily, but I sort of understand what they are trying to achieve.

If I'm right, they are saying that because you work fewer, but longer, days than the company standard you should be entitled to proportionately fewer days leave. (And, obviously, when you then take a day's leave you should receive your normal pay, reflect the hours you would otherwise work.)

Their example of taking five days' leave whenever you take a week off might make sense to them, but what about when you take a day off, or two?

I'd reply to your HR team and suggest that they convert your leave entitlement into hours. In your company's case, that seems to equate to 224 hrs/yr for everyone working a 40 hour week (8 x 28). in your case you would then need to deduct ten hours from your entitlement whenever you took a day off - including on Bank Holidays.

Ah, did they used to give you 28 days of 8 hours = 224 hours?
Working 4 days would be ⅘ of 28 days which would be 22.4 days of 10 hours each = 224 hours

They are going about it in a very complicated fashion

I'm pretty sure, irrespective of your days, your working week is 40 hours (however that is split) so if you take a week's annual leave, that is for the 40 hours of work you will miss.

I work for an organisation with a very crazy and varied shift pattern with different length days but we each work the average UK amount of hours per year (something like 38 hrs a week). When working out what annual leave we are entitled to they worked it out pro rata i.e added up all the hours we each work per financial year and calculated how many HOURS we are legally entitled to (and happened to advise us this equates to 28 7.5 hr days plus bank hols). They gave us an Annual Leave card at the start of the financial year with the total amount of HOURS we are entitled to which if you divide by 7.5 hrs equals 28 so we know it matches the UK entitlement. They list underneath somewhere the bank holiday dates which are treated seperately to annual leave as they should be. Someone here's helpfully put a link for a calculator so you should be able to see what you are entitled to pro rata i.e how 28 days legal entitlement translates as a percentage to your number of hours. My main point is that whatever way you look at it the focus should be on hours worth of entitlement not days. You have a legal amount of hours to take and how they fit into your employee's business week is of no concern to you! It does seem that they are wrongly treating a day off as holiday like saying "because I haven't decided yet if your day off on your week off would have been Mon or Tues had you worked it I've decided to just call them both your working days so deduct them as annual leave"!
It's like well hours wise you would still be entitled to that day off as a day off anyway! I'd push for an annual leave card with hours of entitlement listed which is far more simple for everyone to use.

Use the government calculator first to check . Then speak tonACAS their advice is free.

The "payroll" staff are idiots of they cant explain work weeks and calculate basic holiday pay and/or have been lazy in setting up the payroll system.

If they have people working 5 days over 7 a week and 4 days over 7 a week they need to split the holiday calculation (manual or payroll line on the computer input screen) so that one day holiday for the 5/7 is 8 hours and 4/7 is 10 hours.

28 holidays days per year is calculated over a 5 day week, you work 5 work days over 4 days.
You still get 28 days holidays but its condensed 28÷5×4 =22.5 days at 10 hours each. They cant round down.

Your work week is 4 work days plus 3 rest days. Your work day is 10 hours by 4 days.

(If you worked 5 days it would be 8 hour days)

So the holiday calculation is correctly calculated at 10 hours per day. For 40 hours each week.

However for holiday weeks (only) they are claiming that your work pattern week is 5 days plus 2 rest days (which imo is stupidity lazy meanness).

You can't be available on rest days 1, 2 or 3 because your employer, not you set your contract obligation as 4 on 3 off per calender week.

If they want to have you control your rest day that applies to all rest days in the year.

Or for holidays you have to apply for "workdays and rest days together"
Eg You could apply for "4" work days off in a 7 day week from "date to date" and request that your employer inform you which of the 3 days they are allocating as your rest days on those weeks because you are going to book the non-rest days as holidays. If they are unsure you will take the first 4 days of the period off and if one falls on your allocated rest day you will take the next work day in lieu.

Don't sign anything as its a change of contract.

condensed 28÷5×4 = 22.5

Typo
condensed 28÷5×4 =22.4

The way I see it, it depends if they have pro rata'd your leave.
Eg if full time leave was 30 days a year, and you are given the full 30 days, then you need to book 5 days off for every week you take off.
If they have pro rata'd your leave to 4/5, in my example this would be 24 days, then you should only take 4 days off for every week's leave.
Doesn't sound like a great company to work for though. They are basically asking you to keep 50 hours free a week and paying you for 40.

I would ask them to change your holiday entitlement to hours, rather than days. That would make it more clear for them and you

HRD here. Don't sign it. Fuck knows who is running your HR dept but they are talking absolute rubbish.

Everyone previously saying you book off 4 days/40 hours is correct. You absolutely do not need to use annual leave to cover non working days.

You are supposed to be able to take 5.6 weeks off per year and they can't count your non working 1 day a week towards that. If they want you to book 5 days off for having a week off that's fine so long as your leave entitlement hasn't been pro-rata'd down due to you only being in 4 days a week. So if someone working 40 hours a week across 5 days has 28 days of holiday and gets a week off using 5 of those days, then someone working 40 hours a week across 4 days should also book 5 days out of the same 28 day entitlement in order to have a week off. Essentially each day of annual leave you take in compressed time is really 1.25 days off.

But separately from this you are allowed reasonable time off for healthcare purposes without using annual leave - you should book your smear and tell them you'll be unavailable for that slot for medical reasons and that is entirely separate from the annual leave system. If you had something happen that required a consultation at a hospital you would have no choice at all about when it happens and employers have to deal with it - they are employing human beings not robots and human beings do sometimes have medical needs and they can't restrict their employment pool to only people who are willing to sacrifice their access to healthcare for the convenience of their employers.

That doesn't match the way staff on compressed hours annual leave has worked at any employers I have seen. You don't need to work 5 days a week if on compressed hours nor should you need to take 5 days leave when you only work 4. I lost the will to live in their text but would their system work if you have one day's leave and work three in a week or would you be paid a little less for that week and would they overpay you a little too? As PPs have said, I would try and gently push back at your HR function?

I work ft compressed into 4 days. I effectively take 1.25 days annual leave for each day I take off

...but I work for a large company so they've converted my annual leave into hours and I only have to book in the working days I take off

Have they explained what happens if you book one day off? Could you still be expected to work the other 4 days that week? Would you be paid for 50 or 40 hours if that happened?

I would see an employment solicitor. Do not sign it until you do.

Thank you, glad to see general consensus was not to agree.

Think I should probably call acas then.

Perhaps before you call ACAS, some gentle and friendly questions to HR to ask them to work through some examples where you have whole weeks off and where you have a day off to show you still earn the same money and have the same amount of annual leave in total as you would if they adopted the same approach as every other employer. If they can then great, if not then perhaps point out the apparent unfairness though you're 'not a HR expert'...

Easier to look at your holiday allowance in hours not days.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but there is an extra bank holiday this year so you will have extra hours of holiday this year to cover that entitlement.
If they insist taking the five days as holiday for a week (50 hours?) then you could insist on taking one of those days (10hours?) as not paid. So realistically you get a full weeks holiday and don't lose out on any money but also don't lose out on them taking extra holiday.
It is surprising how many HR people cannot get there heads around holiday entitlement.

.*their

We don't really have a hr department we have the owner, an administrator and a manager.

I found out a colleague didn't get any holiday pay at all. They work term time and we're under the impression that they weren't entitled to holiday pay regardless of whether she can't take time off during the term.

Oh dear OP you really do have some drongos running your firm :(

I suspected i did but now I'm more certain

At first glance, it sounds awful, but I think I get what they are trying to do but they are doing it in a way too complicated way IMO. (I'm only talking about the A/L here - the inflexibility with working days sounds shit.)

I work a compressed week, so 4 long days Mon - Fri. My AL is pro rata'd so I have 4/5 the number of AL days as my colleagues. However my AL days are for the same long hours as I work. This means to take a week off on full pay I use 4 days and they would need to use 5. This is fair because I have fewer days to take.

I suspect that OP was getting the same number of days holiday as a 5 day per week employee, but each day was paid for 10hrs. This would mean they actually had more than the minimum 5.6wks I.e. 28 days would = 7 weeks off on full pay - and the employers are trying to fix this but are doing it in an overly complicated way. And it won't work if they want to take less than a full week.

Each holiday day used to equate to 8 hours on weeks there were bank Holidays I had to work 32 hours over 3 days rather than my usual 30.

And when I day I work 40 hours I do mean 40 hours worked ie 7.45-.630 with a 45 minute unpaid lunch break not 9-5

They should be working out holidays in hours (40x 5.6 = 224 in your case) and when you take a days holiday they deduct 10 hours. If a person only works an 8 hour day then they would get 8 hours deducted if they have a day off.

Much easier to work out than the convoluted calculation they have come up with