Part time holiday entitlement

[arista]

Hi, I work 5 days a week, 4 hours per day, 20 hours in total. I have been working for the same employer for a few years. Holiday entitlement for a full time employee is 25 days and as a part time worker I am entitled to 12.5 days. The thing is I have been questioning how my holidays is calculated lately. I am told if I take a day off this counts as a day off but should it not be counted as a half day considering I only work 4 hrs and the rest of the day I am off anyway. I spoke to the employer who says it could as a day. I wanted so advise from people in the same position or who knows a bit more.

Your holiday entitlement should be in hours so a full time person will take a day off - that’s 8 hours of annual leave, you take a day and that’s 4 hours.

They should be calculating your leave in hours if you are part time. So you should get 100 hours annual leave and a day off would cost you 4 hours of that.

That's just cutting you both ways. They pro rate it by hours and your holidays are taken as hours or you have the same entitlement as everyone else (much simpler)
I work similar 5 days, 5hours a day. A day is a day. I get the same number if days entitlement, its just that I only need 5 hours for mine instead of 7. They are having you on!

You are right OP. Either you should get 25 days and each day off counts as 1, or you get 12.5 and a day off counts as half. The current system isn't fair.

It's often easier to work it in hours. If I've read your post correctly...

So if a full-time worker is 5x8 hours and is entitled to 25 days holiday that's 200 hours in total. Every time they want a full week off work they need to use 40 hours. That's 5x full weeks off work.

You work 20 hours a week and get pro-rata 12.5 days holiday so 12.5 x 8 hours (or 25 x 4 hours) which is 100 hours in total (but still 5x full weeks). For you to take a full week off you only need 20 hours of holiday. Or to take a day off you use 4 hours.

It's slightly misleading for work to say that you have 12.5 days a year - actually you still have 25 days, it's just that yours are shorter days so fewer hours.

Your employer is not calculating it correctly and is giving you half the holiday entitlement of everyone else.
They are idiots.

You should still get the same number of days as everyone else except your day is only 4 hours.

Or it can be worked out in hours if easier

I'm part time and I get 6 weeks of 10 hours so 60 hours. If I take a week off I use 10 hours.

Basically.

Yep, my old employer were idiots too, even though I was half-time on a M-F schedule.

New employer informed me I'd be getting my whole 25 days.

I am still paid pro-rata. It's not as though I get a full time salary when I take annual leave.

I work 16hrs a week (4hrs a day x 4 days)

My annual leave is in hours, so if I book a day off, 4 hours gets deducted

Google holiday entitlement and the government website will tell you exactly how many days off you are due.

You work 5 days so you also get 25 days holiday.

The minimum you should get is 20 days plus bank holidays. They can't give you less than that.

Yeah you also get 25 days then? You work 5 days!!

or else calculate in hours !! Either way it’s the same and your employer is wrong

Hi OP. I too work 5 days a week, mornings only. The standard full-time holiday entitlement is 20 days. I get 20 x half-days for holiday. They don't open on bank holidays anyway.
So if I book a week off I would use 5 of my half-days, leaving me 15. Does that make sense?

That's more like what they should be doing with you.

It does make sense to me but explaining this to them they don't seem to get and told me it does work this way. Feeling frustrated because I thought I was right and all if your messages confirm my exact thoughts.

This is how I worked it out as well. I asked them to work out in hours. But I reckon they would say 100 hours yes and a day is 7.5 despite that I work only 4. I am waiting for the end of the week for their work out/response but in the meantime I wanted to have other opinions. I am so grateful for all of your replies. Thank you so much. I think it won't be easy and I just need so form of back up to prove I am right.

You should also get the bank holidays - don’t forget to make sure that’s factored in.

My former boss tried to do the same to me. He just couldn't get that I was entitled to the same number of days annual leave as he was - my contracted day, and pay, was just shorter than his. I got HR to do the calculation in hours and laid it out for him. This was one of the many things he didn't 'get' about the working world and his employees...I now have his job 😁

When they say yes to converting days into 100 hours, keep the words ‘days’ and ‘hours’ in the sentence, something like:

25 days leave of my 4 hour days is 100 hours
When I take a 4 hour day leave I take off 4 hours

If it sinks in then they should not be able to move the conversation back to 25 x 4 = 100 less 8 per days leave for 4 hour part timers

If they do then point out that 25 x 4 / 8 = 12.5
12.5 x 4 = 50
….. “why do my 25 4 hour days make 100 hours but I can only have 12.5 days ?’

If it still does not sink in then give them a spreadsheet leave hours calculator showing 3 columns:

Days - with 1 to 25 listed below
Full time hours - with 8 to 200 listed below
Part time hours - with 4 to 100 listed below

Your employer is clearly wrong. Either you are entitled to 25 days and a day off counts as a day, or you are entitled to 12.5 days and a day off counts as half a day. They are treating you worse than full time staff which is illegal. They are also giving you less than the legal minimum paid holiday entitlement.

You are entitled to a legal minimum of 5.6wks holiday - at what ever your average weekly hours are (which can include fixed/bank holidays). So if you are not getting your full 5.6wks, (which 12.5 days is clearly not if they are counting in days unless you have ALOT of fixed holidays as 5.6weeks on a 5 day week is 28 days), then they are under the legal requirement and I would consider telling them that they owe you for the last X years they under allowed you also!

As others have said - you either get your 5.6weeks/exactly what fulltimers get - at your contracted week, or they need to calculate in hours.

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

Use the above to work it out and if they still insist on calculating incorrectly tell them about this link.

I work the same hours and I get same as if I did full time.

Thanks for all your replies. They were meant to email me on Friday about it but they haven't. I will have to ask again on Monday.