Anyone HR savvy here to help with a (hopefully) straightforward question re: working Christmas week/bank holidays when p/t please?

[BretonStripe]

I work in an office three days a week, normally Tues-Thurs but can be flexible and swap to a Mon/Fri depending on business need. New job this year.

Boss said today that she thought I could work Mon-Weds the week of Christmas so I wouldn't have to take any annual leave. Christmas Day is a Thursday, so falls on one of my normal working days. I thought I'd only have to work Tues & Weds (23rd and 24th) that week, not my normal three days.

Can anyone advise please? Seems I'm missing out on a BH day off doing it her way.

Quite often as a part time worker your bank holiday entitlement is added on to your annual leave allowance. Is yours?
If it's been added to your total then whenever you don't work a bank holiday you have to use holiday to cover it.

Where I work, part timers have to book bank holidays out of annual leave. We get a pro rata amount of the bank holiday allowance added to our standard leave. I guess it depends on what the normal process is where you work for booking leave for bank hols!

Oh, I don't know. I've been there since February, but don't know if my pro-rata'd annual leave includes all the bank holidays or not - I'll ask tomorrow. Thank you!

Or swap for another day as suggested here.
All my bank holidays are added on before working out my part time entitlement. And then if Christmas or new years day falls on my normal working day I have to use holiday.

Do you know how many days of annual leave you have and how many a full timer gets?

Normally on a 60% contract you will have 60% of the standard full time holiday allowance plus 60% of the 8 bank holidays. So if FT time staff have 25 days of holiday, you get 15 days plus 4.8 days for bank holidays. Some of your NWDs will fall on bank holidays

Once you've asked your entitlement feel free to post here if you need help checking if they've calculated it correctly.

Ah, ok. I'm new to this as previously worked term-time for years. I stupidly thought I'd get the bank holidays on top of the pro rata'd annual leave. My contract is different to others as they're not office based, and I'm the only one in the office most of the time (small family firm).

The way it worked for me was:

FT annual leave + 8 bank holidays × 60% = total leave.

Then I'd need to deduct any bank holidays that fell on working days from my total leave. Some years it worked well for me and I didnt need to take leave for Christmas, sometimes I did.

So your boss is right, you need to take a day's leave for Christmas, or she's offered you an alternarive if you don't want to do that.

I only work Tues-Thurs though, so unless Christmas/NYD falls on one of those days, I wouldn't be working any of the other Bank Holidays?

Full-time staff get 23 days per year I believe.

It's all worked out in hours (shift work for everyone else) but believe full timers get 23 days.

@BretonStripe this is a question that comes up regularly. The photo sets out how you calculate leave including BH in hours.

You need to check how your work accounts for leave including BH. If you want to swap and work Monday to Wednesday and keep a days leave (BH) to take another time I would accept the offer. However, if you still want your usual Monday NWD then decline the offer. Your manager is being thoughtful.

I work in payroll.

our employees get 31 days off per year. (Statutory minimum is 28) 23 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays.

part timers get the total pro rata. So working 3 days per week would give someone 18.6 days off per year & if a bank holiday fell on a working day they’d have to use a day from their allocation.

you need to read your contract to see how it is worded and how you accrue the holiday.

You will still be entitled to leave for bank holidays though, especially if full timers are having those days off. You just won’t take it on the actual bank holidays and you can use it when you want

If they get 23 days plus 8 bank holidays then they get 31 days in total. You'd be entitled to ⅗ of that which is 18.6 days (round up to 19).

This number includes pro rata bank holidays so if you are off as annual leave or taking a bank holiday you'd deduct that from your total. Your manager is trying to help by letting you save the holiday day for a different day of your choosing.

Thanks everyone. Yes, boss was saying about keeping that day off for another day in the future/save my annual leave. Thanks for the info @NMWchanges - very useful.

I think I was just hopeful that the office would be closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and I'd only have to work two days that week instead of three. All a big learning curve!

Will find my contract and see what it says and go from there.

You could just work 2 days but the day you have off would come out of your holiday entitlement.

I’m nhs ….a 3 day worker gets 4.5 hrs for every bank holiday ( a full timer gets 7.5 hrs) ….so a 3 day worker would need to take an extra 3 hours from their annual leave to cover taking the bank holiday off …..so your boss sounds like they are looking out for you to save you a bit of leave

Every NHS trust does things differently though. In my former trust you would either take a NWD or 7.5 hours from your holiday allowance. My current employer does exactly the same and I would expect the OP to have the same approach