Can someone explain how bank holiday entitlement works if you are part-time?

[NewJobConfusion]

Hi, I know I could probably keep emailing HR about this but don't want to keep bothering them...!

I'm about to start a new job after being off work for various reasons for quite a long time. I now have school-age kids so have to think about covering school holidays. I'm doing 3 days a week but can choose which days.

A/L is 23 days (so I'd be pro rated to 13.8) plus bank holidays. If I worked eg Monday - Weds I would obviously get all the Monday bank hols. (But so would DH - in terms of childcare we'd be doubly covered).

If I did Tue-Thu I wouldn't get any of the Monday bank hols but HR have said 'an adjustment is made for this'.

Does anyone know what sort of adjustment is usually made? Do I just get 3/5 of them as extra leave?
Does it make any difference having Monday as a normal working day or not?

Depends on your company’s policy.

In my present job, my normal working day is mondays. These are taken out of my holiday allowance, so in reality, I get few hours I can choose, as most are consumed by the bank holidays. Eg. If I get 100 hours of holiday per year, and there are five bank holidays, then 5x 8 = 40 hours, so then I only have 60 hours left to book holiday.

if I was working Tuesday-Thursday, I wouldn’t expect extra days off above the five weeks.

At my work, the number of bank holiday days you get is pro rated along with your holiday. So if you’re 60%, you get 60% of the bank holidays that you can take as holiday allowance. You don’t HAVE to take them on bank holidays, but if you want to take a bank hol as leave you have to put in a leave day request from your allotted percentage.

So, it would be a disadvantage in some ways to work Mondays, as lots of bank holidays fall on Mondays, and you’d always have to use one of your bank hol leave days to cover them if you wanted to take it. You might not have enough and might have to work some bank holidays.

However, it works like this at my workplace cos we don’t close on bank holidays - the office is still open, it’s global, you can choose not to take that day off, and take your bank hol allowance another time. There might be a diff way of working it if your workplace is automatically shut on bank holidays.

Do you get all bank holidays or pro rata’ed bank holidays? Our p/t staff get pro rata for both annual leave and bank holidays.

For example, if someone worked 3 days a week and got 27 days annual leave (the starting a/l allocation) they would get 121.5 hours a/l and 40.5hrs public holidays, irrespective of what days they work each week. These hours are then added together to give their total leave allocation for the year.

At my company you're given all the bank holidays as additional annual leave allowance and you needed to book off the ones that you were due to work.

This really doesn't depend on company policy. It is dictated by the law.

Annual leave for full time staff is 23 days plus bank holidays - 31 days total (32 this year due to the coronation). Working 3 days a week you will get 18.6 days (19.2 this year). If you normally work on a day when a bank holiday falls, you will use 1 day of your leave for that.

This is the easiest way of thinking about it - in terms of total numbers of days leave.

If you work Mondays you end up using some of your leave on all those Monday bank holidays - no choice over which days you take

If you don't work Mondays you get more choice on when you use those days leave.

That's assuming your workplace closes on bank holidays.

My working week doesn't even include Monday and I still get a chunk of bank holiday leave! Where I work it's given as hours rather than days and is pro rata for my hours worked. Absolutely has to be used in the year though as any not taken is deleted from the system on the new fiscal year.

If you work BH then this will be deducted from your AL

If you don't work BH then they will be added to your leave pro rated

You are not losing out. So pick the days you prefer to work.

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

I moved my working days when all this came in, so I don’t work Mondays. That way I don’t have to use leave because the office is closed.

like everyone else has said. I work 3 days, so get 3/5 of the bank holidays added to my leave allowance. If Christmas/new year falls midweek, then I book that out of my leave allowance. Otherwise, I just take it as normal leave. I’d avoid having Monday as a working day because of it.

Thanks, I think this is how they work it. 23+8 bank hols for full-time, so if pro-rated it all gets lumped together essentially, but if I was working Mondays those would be "enforced" days off.

I think I'm best sticking to Tue-thu!

I get 3/5 of the public holidays allocated in hours. Because I work on Monday and because we are basically expected to be off on bank holidays I'm therefore disadvantaged by working a Monday as I need to use leave for these days (people who are part time but don't work on a Monday don't). Some years I don't actually have enough hours to cover all the public holidays because so many fall on a Monday (e.g. this year there is an extra Monday public holiday because of the Coronation). When this happens the hours are automatically taken from my annual leave hours. If your workplace operates as mine does I would strongly encourage you NOT to work on a Monday!

Tue to thu is the dream! My colleague is only using one day of her allowance for a bank holiday (tue at Christmas) the rest she can use when she likes.
I don't work mondays so get an extra 4 days holiday a year (in a normal year, the last 3 have been a bit weird but in my favour with extra Monday bank holidays except for a May bank holiday on a fri for VE day, I think)

There's no entitlement legally.
The law states 5.6 weeks is your legal entitlement so yours would be 5.6 x 3 not 5.5 x 5
So your holiday entitlement will be 17 days.

This is wrong. Since OP's employers give full time workers more than the statutory minimum, part time workers must also be given more pro rata. She is entitled to 18.6 days in a typical year (19.2 this year as there is an extra bank holiday).

If you work a Monday you would have less choice as to when to take your holidays as you'd need to use extra leave to cover bank holiday Mondays (as you only get a pro rata amount of bank holidays you'd need to make up the shortfall from your annual leave hours)

Having Monday as your day off gives you more choice as to when to take your holidays as you won't be forced to use them to take Monday bank holidays.

Definitely stick Tue-Thur if you can!