Bank holidays and compressed hours

[SirChenjins]

Can someone explain this to me in really simple terms please as I'm just not getting it.

I work a 9 day fortnight and get every other Monday off. My working week is 37 hours and I calculate my leave in hours.

Most of the bank holidays fall on a Monday, which means that I am recording public holidays even though they fall on my non-working days. This has reduced the A/L part of my hours as I've had to 'take' hours from that part of my leave to use for my public holidays - even though I'm not working that day as it falls on my non-working day. I can't get my head round why I'm having to do this as I have to work additional hours through the fortnight to get the second Monday off.

You should only be deducting the bank holidays that fall on a working day and not those that you are not scheduled to work

That’s what I thought, but HR are adamant that all public holidays are recorded regardless of whether they fall on a non-working day or not.

They are wrong then unless they have given you all the bank holidays in the 1st place. Are you given the full number of annual leave and bank holidays as full time staff?

If you work 50% of Mondays you should deduct 50% of bank holiday hours that fall on a Monday

From acas website

The best way to do it is write out the calculation using hours and show this to HR.
I can do this if you can confirm full time hours and contractual annual leave.

Yes, they are saying to record all the bank holidays and annual leave - because I am full time - and then deduct both from the total allocation. However, I would have assumed that I would get all my annual leave as a full time employee and only those bank holidays that fall on my working Mondays (of which there are very few)

Thanks Full time hours (37 per week) and 33 days contracted A/L. 8 public holidays over the year (providing it's a standard year e.g. no coronations!)

in my area of work most people just work normal hours on a bh week….then go back to compressed hours the week after

33 days x 7.4 = 244.2 hours
8 BH x 7.4 = 59.2 hours
Total gross leave = 303.4 hours

Compressed daily hours = 74/9 = 8.22 hours.

BH falling on working days - Mondays are either 8.22 or nil depending if NWD.
NYD (varies Mon in 2024) = 8.22/Nil
GF (Friday ) = 8.22
EM (Monday) = 8.22/nil
MD (Monday) = 8.22/nil
SBH (Monday) = 8.22/nil
ABH (Monday) = 8.22/nil
XD (Varies Wed in 2024)= 8.22
BD (Varies Thur in 2024) = 8.22

If all Monday BH fall on a working day 8 x 8.22 = 65.76
303.4-65.76 = 237.34 hours net leave.

If Jan 1st is a working day then EM is a NWD, SBH is a NWD, XD is a NWD (I think😂) so 5 BH fall on working days so 5 x 8.22 = 41.1 hours.
303.4 - 41.1 = 262.3 hours net leave.

The floating BH of XD, BD and NYD mean you need to calculate each year and your BH hours will vary. If you follow the above calculation it is absolutely fair.

HTHs

Thanks so much for doing that! I’m a bit confused but I think the fact our public holidays here are slightly different is throwing me, plus I think my leave allocations are slightly different - although I can’t remember for certain as I’m not able to access my leave folder at the moment. I’ll check tomorrow when I’m back at work and try and match it all up - hopefully then I’ll have a lightbulb moment 😊

Your HR are correct.

You add your AL + all BHs to get your total 'paid time off'

Since you are a full time employee you get 100% of BH. However on your 'working Monday' you are supposed to do a longer day which you are missing due to BH so you'll have to catch up on those extra hours missed.

Needs to be done in hours. So when your down to work and get the day off you will owe them something like 30 minutes
when your on day off you should get a bank holiday credit which would be a 1/5 of your weekly contracted hours

This is how my husband’s employer (local government) have explained it to him too.

Thanks - it’s beginning to be a bit clearer now…

Does the fact that my non working day is a Monday make a difference? Eg if I was off every other Wednesday would there be less of a hit on my AL part of the total leave?

Easiest way to do this is put all your leave and bank holiday entitlement into hours. If a bank holiday falls on a day you are due to work you deduct the number of hours from your leave (ie your longer hours). If it falls on a day you don't work you don't need to do anything.

So I get 30 + 9 bank hols. A normal working day here is 7 hours. So I would multiply 39x7 to put into hours. If my compressed day was 9 hours let's say I deduct 9 hours from that balance every time I had to take time off whether bank holiday or just wanting a holiday. I'd ignore days I wasn't due to work.

If it falls on a day you don't work you don't need to do anything

No, HR are saying that all bank holidays need to be recorded and deducted from the total, even the ones that fall on my non working days.

I have the same working pattern. This Monday was on my non-working day so no time was taken my leave allocation. If it was a working day, I would have booked 8.5 hours leave, instead of the standard 7.5 hours working day on account of my usual working hours that day.

7 bank holidays within our leave year this year - 52.5 hours entitlement

I work on 5 of them so use 42.5 hours of leave and add the other 10 hours to my leave to take when I want.

That’s right I work similar
36 hr week
one week I work 40 hr next week 32 all 8 hr days

my contracted hours are 36 a week so my bank hol entitlement is 7 hr 10 minutes 1/5 of my weekly hours

so if BH falls on my day off I get 7hr 10 credited to my leave card if I was down to work I get 50 minutes debited off my leave card as I’ve taken a full 8 hr shift of and my bank holiday allowance is 7hr10 (1/5 of my weekly contracted hours)

@SirChenjins
Having Wednesday as your NWD would mean you would get less AL to take when you want.

As my calculation shows if a BH falls on a NWD they should not deduct any leave.

You said your public holidays are slightly different. All the advice here is UK law based. Are you not in the UK?

Yes I am - there are slight PH differences across the UK.

@Harassedevictee would you mind if I sent you a PM with my calculations? No problem if not though

@SirChenjins im fine with a DM

I think you're right.

The BH hours should only be deducted when you're actually scheduled to work. If BHs fall on days when you are in work, you should subtract the hours that you would have worked on that day (ie longer than the standard day because your hours are compressed). As you are full time, your entitlement should be the same as a FT worker's entitlement.