Help! Can't work out holiday entitlement and think I'm being shortchanged

[MistressWeatherwax1]

Hi,

So I work 40 hours a week (4 days x 10 hours).

My annual leave entitlement is in my contract as 20 days paid leave plus 9 days paid public holidays (of which 5 are used for specific dates).

Last year (24-25) I used 17 days total from the 29 and we're allowed to roll over any unused.

This year (25-26) I've booked leave totalling 17 days including the 5 public holidays.

I should have 12 days rolled over from last year and 12 days left of this years allowance = 24 days / 6 weeks / 240 hours

240 hours ÷ 40 hours = 6 weeks to take

My holiday statement says:

Annual leave (25-26) = 160 hours
Public holidays (25-26) = 72 hours
Rolled over = 62 hours
Total = 294 hours / 7.35 weeks

From this 294 hours they said I've still to take this year's 17 days and after that I have 3.1 weeks left to use.

I can't understand this and my manager says it's correct.

I think I'm missing out on 3 weeks holiday.

Is your leave entitlement in days or hours? Do you work compressed hours?

I've tried but he insists what he's worked out is correct. I just can't see how he's getting those figures and was wondering if I was missing something?

I'm responsible for the leave management for our small company where we have several members of staff on unusual working hours/patterns, and it can be quite complex.

Is the 20 days leave in your contract the standard base for your company, which is then pro rated into hours? Do you know exactly how this is being done? Is the standard working week 40 hours over 5 days?

It's quite unusual to be able to rollover bank holiday leave entitlement. Is this definitely allowed?

It's confusing because it's presented as a mixture of hours and weeks.

I would need to know more about your contract. Are your 40 hours condense into 4 days. You say you work 10 hours a day but does that include a paid one hour break for lunch. Do you have annualised hours?

Something isn't right about the base facts. You say you work 10 hours a day and get 17 days per annum. Your holiday entitlement is expressed as 160 hours which would be 16 days.

My annual leave entitlement is in my contract as 20 days paid leave plus 9 days paid public holidays (of which 5 are used for specific dates

Your holiday as calculated is 4/5 of the above days. As PP has said you need to check whether your contract states whether this is the standard base which is then pro rated or your actual entitlement.

We work on bank holidays and have always been allowed to roll it over. We only close Christmas day, Boxing day, and 1st/2nd Jan. There's nothing in the contract to say we can't roll unused bank holidays over.

All of the 40 hour contracts are over 4 days, not 5.

OP if only 62 hours were rolled over it makes me wonder if you did have all 12 days rolled over or there's been a miscommunication there?
In several companies I've worked for, there's a cap on holiday you can roll over (normally a week) ~ anything more you have left just gets lost. Could this be the case?

Do they really allow you to roll over that amount of holidays?

Working 4 days would usually mean your holiday allowance is pro rata of 29 days giving 23.2 days holiday (but your 'day' is 10 hours long) = 232 hours

From his calculations a leave day = 8 hours which is correct if you're working a full time week of 40 hours over 4 days instead of 5.

However, it looks like your roll over hours are incorrect. Should be 8 hours x 12 = 96 hours.

Looking at the figures your holiday entitlement is based on an 8 hour day but you need to claim 10 hours for a day off so 20 days holiday entitles you to take 16 days off at 10 hours, same with bank holidays and what you carried over.

Ask for the manager for the workings out to how your workings out, are incorrect

If bank holidays and any other annual leave can carried over then it doesn't make sense

If your holiday is pro rated then last year you would have had 23.2 days holiday of which you took 17 leaving 6.2 days carried over which is 62 hours

I agree, the information isn't clear enough to know what's right or wrong.

You say you get 20 days AL - is that 20 x10? Your annual leave statement would indicate not, given it's saying 160.

Also I don't understand the 5 PHs. Did you work some and not others? Do you work set days and if so, which days? That matters. If you were due to work a PH and were off, that's 10 hours from your entitlement, I and if it was a day off anyway, it's 0 hours from your entitlement

And lastly, anywhere people work compressed hours or PT, it's always best to work leave out in hrs, and never in a mix of hrs/days.

62 hours carried over is because the op booked 17 days leave ie 170 hours last year out of a total of 232 hours. (20+9)× 8 hours

Thanks. Looks like it's the pro rata bit confusing me.

We can roll over any unused holidays. We're often not able to use the years entitlement in the holiday year due to 'business needs'. We have 30 staff and only 4 can be off at the same time.

When you pro rata your leave over 4 days then you have 23.2 days annual leave (but your days are 10 hours long). If you deduct the 17 days amount took last year then that leaves 6.2 days left to carry over which is 62 hours which is what the calculation says.

You dont get 29 days in total, you get ⅘ of 29 which gives 23.2 x 10 hour days

You need to check the detail of your contract, but I presume that the 29 day entitlement is based on a standard 5 day week/8 hour day. Based on this, the numbers your manager has calculated would seem to add up. However, if your contract states that you should get 29 x 10 hour days, then he is wrong.

Your manager is working it out as 20 days of annual leave at 8 hours a day, which doesn’t cover your working day so he borrows from
another day (cutting down the number of days you’d then get off).
You’re working it out as 20 days annual leave at 10 hours a day.

The same for the public holidays. He is doing 9 days at 8 hours and you’re doing 9 days at 10 hours. He is only allowing for 8 hours leave each day.

His way means that even when you take off a mandatory public holiday, he is using 8 hours (“one day” of leave) plus another 2 hours (from “another day” of leave) to cover a mandatory day off. That’s wrong unless you work compressed hours.

His way of doing it means you’re not even going to get the full amount of public holidays off. His way actually means that if you booked off every public holiday, you’d run out of public holiday leave because he is only giving you 9 x 8 hours when you work 9 x 10 hours and he would then have to take it from the annual leave section of his calculation. That can’t be right. Unless your hours have been compressed to 4 days from 5.
Do you have HR?

Unless, you work compressed hours. Have your hours been compressed from 5 days to 4?
If someone works 5 days a week at 8 hours, that’s 40 hours. To take 5 days off (a full week) they use 40 hours leave.
You work compressed hours so 4 hours a day at 10 hours. To take 4 days off (a full week) you use 40 hours leave.

You’re using the same number of hours to take off fewer days, so it feels like you don’t get as many days off as other people but you do, because your hours have been compressed so your annual leave is also compressed.

If the standard day is 8 hours but you’ve compressed your days to 10 hours a day, you don’t start getting 20 annual leave days at 10 hours while everyone else gets 20 annual leave days at 8 hours. You continue getting 8 hours leave for “a day” and the other 2 hours comes from another day, because those 2 hours actually are from another day; they’ve just been compressed.

Your OP is totally confusing as you use hours, days and weeks for your leave.

If you stick to hours:

It seems that the 20 days leave and bh are at 8 hours a day (as if the working week is 5 x 8 hours).

So 20 days leave = 20 x 8 = 160 hours
9 bh = 9 x 8 = 72 hours

17 days taken (at 10 hours a day) = 170 hours

So 160 + 72 - 170 = 62 hours carried over.

So it’s correct.

I think you may be thinking you have 20 days leave at 10 hours a day, but it’s at 8 hours a day.

You need to check whether your annual leave entitlement is the equivalent of 29 days assuming you worked 5 days a week which would be a normal holiday entitlement.

In which case, every day of leave you take would count as 1.25 days of leave (you have taken 10 hours, a day is 8 hours) so the 17 days count as 21.25 days and you only have 7.75 days carried over ( i.e. 62 hours, as your manager said, which only get you 6.2 days given your working pattern).

This year you have booked another 17 days, which count as 21.25 days, so you have 7.75 days plus the 7.75 days from last year, which gives 15.5 days or 124 hours which would get you 12 days given your working pattern. So that's your 3 weeks, given your working pattern of 4 day weeks.

The issue is that your allowance is on 8h days but you're taking 10h off each day leave. Your employer should work in one unit for a 'non-standard' (by which I mean anything other than a 5dpw) full-time contract (normally hours). And it should say in your contract (using "days" in your contract is confusing if they mean "standard working days of 8 hours" - they should be clearer).

This is how they've arrived at their calculation:

Your allowance is 29 x 8 = 232 hours
Your roll over is 232 - (10 x 17) = 62 hours
Your total allowance for this year = 232 + 62 = 294

You've booked (10 x 17) = 170 hours

You've got 294 - 170 left = 124 hours which is 3 weeks + 4 hours