How to deal fairly with part timers and lunch break

[IAmGiant30]

I manage a team of 7 people of whom 3 are part timers.

Our working week is 40 hours so part timers are pro rated (20, 24, 32)

Our local office is only physically open 9-5 so 5 team members can only work 40 hours in the office. 2 work in an office with longer opening hours.

Technically that must mean the lunch break is paid but the person who work part time 20 hours has been taking 30 minutes and doing 20 hours of work across 3 days. It's only been since September but I've realised it isn't really fair.

Because of the nature of our work, people work outside the office/working hours e.g. scanning the news, sharing articles etc which the 20 hours person also does.

I feel like I know the answer but I would welcome MN wisdom to help me make the decision. I only have 1 boss as it's a small business so it's just her I'll need to run my decision by. She leaves the day to day to me as she's out and about most of the time splitting her time across the 2 offices.

Sorry, I’m not clear from your op.

Do the part timers have set working hours every day, or a cumulative total per week? If they work 4 hours a day, five days a week, then legally they are not required to have a paid break.

So the 2 who work elsewhere - is their lunch break unpaid?

Sounds like it’s a bit of a mess.

Are your team hourly paid, or salaried? If salaried, nd they are all meeting their targets, the break time is really irrelevant.
If they are hourly paid, then you need to find a way to account for working hours in/ out of the office.
And as pp said, unless they are working 6 hours or more per day, the part timers don’t get a break.

Look at the ACAS site it's laid out there, but i believe it's 20 minutes break after 6 hours or during a six. Hour shift

Sorry if I wasn't clear. 3 days = 8 hours a day= 24 hours. 4 days = 8 hours a day= 32 hours. 3 days = 6 (and a bit) hours = 20 hours.

Yes everyone gets and takes a break. My question is the paid bit as the full timers are in the office 9-5 = 8 hours x 5 days = 40 hours but everyone leaves the office at some point to get lunch, take a walk, take a break etc. So everyone gets a break but at the moment it's paid for everyone except the 20 hour worker.

So they are working a full working day, but less of them.

I think the ‘office opening hours’ versus ‘actual working hours’ needs some clarification from the organisation.

What is the actual full working day there? If it’s 9/5, depending on if people take a 30 minute or hour lunch, no one is actually committed to a 40 hour week.

No the other 2 do at least 9-5 but do also take a lunch break. I don't monitor their hours but I do know they are in the office. We do have a TOIL system and 1 has claimed TOIL (evening meetings) but the other hasn't yet.

Everyone is salaried.

Yes this is the point I've reached. Everyone has 40 in their contract but cannot physically work it from one office location.

Well everyone needs to be treated equally, you can’t not pay a part timer their lunch break just because they are part time. Especially if you are paying two other part timers. The easiest way would be to not pay lunch breaks at all. For anyone. The next easiest way would be to pro rata the lunch break so the 20 hr a week gets 15 minutes paid break but has to legally take another 5 minutes that is unpaid. The way that would probably seem fairest and not take a paid lunch break from your staff would be lunch breaks for full time employees are 40 minutes and pro rata for part time. I don’t know how that will work with scheduling though.

If this has been going on for some time, I would think your best bet is to rewrite their contracts to show their contract as 35/37.5 hours a week, with all benefits and pay remaining the same.

The organisation could be in hot water for not providing clearly mandated legal requirement breaks.

The alternative is enforcing that they start or finish 30/60 minutes earlier/later. This is unlikely to go down well.

Could the 20 hour worker simply start 30 mins later or finish 30 mins earlier, then everyone's lunch would be a paid break?

So the people who are supposed to work 40 hours only actually work 35, because the office isn’t open long enough for them to work 8 hours a day and have a lunch break? Therefore the person contracted to work 20 hours should only have to work 17.5 if they are getting half the pay of the others.

@IAmGiant30 You need to check contracts and pay calculations.

If full time staff are paid Gross 40 hours but work net 37.5 hours how do they pro rate the full time salary?

For example if full time staff are paid Gross £40,000 are part time staff doing 20 hours paid £20,000? If so then they should get paid breaks totalling 1 hour 15 mins (2 hours 30 mins / 40 x 20) or 25 minutes a day if they work 3 days. So they would work net 18 hours 45 minutes.

Honestly paying gross hours including a break complicates pay calculations. Much better to employ on net hours of 37.5 but require a minimum unpaid break of at least 20 minutes a day. Most employers make it 30 minutes. Any employee working more than 6 hours a day is required to have an unpaid 30 minute break in their contract.

40 hour contracts are weird in a 9-5 environment for this very reason OP.

we are paid by the hour. part timers and full timers.

lunch breaks are not paid.

we are forced to take an unpaid 30mims (more than the legal minimum) of unpaid breaks if we work over six hours (and not at the end of the six hours either).

when they changed all our contracts it gave those who were previously paid for lunch breaks a higher hourly rate which made up for the unpaid lunches. It equalised the pay full and part timers get. previously part timers for more per hour as they didn’t get paid breaks. now all get the same.

At my work all breaks are unpaid. Full timers are paid for 37.5 hrs/week plus have to take an unpaid 30 min break each day. Part timers - if the shift is longer than 6 hrs must take an 30 min unpaid break.

I work P/T and 2 days/week I’m paid for 7.5hrs plus I have 30mins lunch so in the office for 8hrs total. On a different day I work a shorter day of 5.5hrs so no break on that day.

Makes it much easier to manage when breaks are excluded.

This is absolutely fair to everyone so it works.

Yes, this. Pay net hours!