Annual leave for shifts of different lengths

[MakingNBaking]

We really don't know if we've cause for complaint or not. Grateful to know how this works at your place.
We work in a 365/24/7 setting, overnight shifts of 10 hours. The days are covered by people working 7.5hr shifts. We're on a variety of contracts, some 30hrs, some 20hrs. All staff receive their annual leave allowance expressed as hours eg 160hrs a year etc (even though on paper contracts annual leave is expressed as 30 days a year pro rata).
Our issue is that our allowance is the same as day staff, but we work through our leave hours more quickly than a day worker, so in essence we aren't getting the same number of 'days off'. For every 3 days off we take, the day worker gets 4.
For a family event at 10am on a random Weds, the day worker has 7.5hrs deducted from their leave, the night worker has 10 hours deducted as obviously she will need to take off the night shift before the event.
Is this just how it works? Or is our organisation missing something somewhere? Or are we? It just doesn't seem fair.
Contracts/figures quoted are just for example.

Just my opinion, but don't you have more days off in the week as you work longer shifts?
So 3 ten-hour shifts is not equivalent to 3 daytime shifts - day workers would need to work more than 3 days to equal your 3 nights hours-wise.
You are conflating number of shifts and number of hours when these are not interchangeable.

Presumably you have a larger leave allowance if you work nights?

This is the fairest way of doing it.
You will be getting paid more for your longer shifts as well I am sure?

So in our place if you work compressed hours you get 30 days leave like everyone else but need to take 9hrs for a day off not 7.2. But for a weeks leave it’s 36hrs for both. So is that the same for you?

I work part time, different hours each day because I do school runs on some days (NHS). My AL is calculated in hours and deducted depending on the day - so if I want a ‘short day’ off 5.5 hours is deducted; if it’s a 9-5 day then 7.5 hours is. It seems perfectly fair to me, because the rest of the week I will work and get paid for my actual working hours - if you take 10 hours AL you’ll work less hours the rest of the week than someone taking 7.5 surely?

A day worker on 30hr contract works 4 x 7.5hr shifts. If they want to take a full week away from work they will need to use 30hrs leave.

A night worker on 30hr contract works 3 x 10hr shifts. If they want to take a full week away from work they will need to use 30hrs leave.

Totally fair. Both will have the same leave allowance, and both will need to use the same amount for a week's holiday, for example.

A night worker already gets an extra full day off each week, which is why your comparison regarding how many hours you need to use to take a day off isn't reasonable.

Do those working 7.5 hrs work 5 shifts a week and those on 10 hour shifts work 4 per week?

You do have to think of it in relation to your working week. I do 4 days a week of differing lengths so some days I use more hours to have a day off, some less. But overall I use the same proportion of my annual leave to have a week off as my full time colleague.

So a day worker on a 30 hour contract works 4 lots of 7.5 hrs a week and has 3 days off, and a night worker on 30 hours contract works 3 lots of 10 hours a week and has 4 days off?

Then it's totally fine to use the annual leave in the way your employer is doing.

I work 4 x 10 hour shifts

My colleague works 5 x 8 hour shifts

A holiday "day" costs me more hours than my colleague but a week off costs us both the same.

Hours is the fairest way of doing this, otherwise I could give myself a lot more long weekends using far less holiday "days" than my colleague even though we're on the same contract.

The leave entitlement should be worked out pro rata. So someone working double the hours should get double the annual leave. If you're working longer shifts but the same hours, just in a more condensed period, then the entitlement is fair. If you're working more hours overall then it isn't.

How your work does it seems reasonable and fair to me. I work compressed hours which means I work longer days than my colleagues but only four of them a week; it 'costs' me more hours to take a day off than it does them, but that's how it has to be; if I'm off on a Wednesday I'm only working 75% of that week, whereas if they are they're working 80% of the week. It does mean you get through days faster but you also need fewer of them - I can be off for a week with four days and they need five.

I think what might be at the root of what feels unfair to you is actually that working nights is generally a rougher deal, hence your point about needing the shift before off. But that isn't specifically about the leave hours.

That’s normal. I have that too. A day’s leave for you uses up more hours, but you have more days off. Just taking a day of leave can seem unfair for you, but taking a week may act in your perceived favour.

Thanks all
This keeps popping up at staff get togethers and with everyone putting their twopenn'rth in, I couldn't get it straight in my head whether they had a point or not.

If you work 30 hours a week, and use 30 hours leave to take a week off, then it's irrelevant whether you work those 30 hours over 3 days, 4 days, whatever.

The benefit of nightshifts is that you do your full amount of shifts in 3/4days so you have more 'days off'. Although in reality you are shattered all the time. Most places allow swaps of people with around the same experience so if I needed a day off I'd swap the night before the event so I don't need to bother taking annual leave. Some times you just have to go exhausted to stuff though and catch up on sleep later.

Our workplace has their holiday given in hours as well. On a Friday, I work more hours up then on a Monday, so if I want a Friday off, I use up more of my holiday allowance.

Holidays aren’t done by days, ie. 20 days/shifts per year. If they were, you could argue the 10 hour shift workers were getting more paid holiday than the 7.5 hour shift workers.