anyone know anything about flexible (hourly) working in terms of holiday etc?

[thirtysomething]

Have just started working on an hourly basis - i.e. i do flexible hours every week depending on how much work needs to be done, for a fixed rate per hour. This suits me as I need the flexibility to fit in with school hours etc. There's no minimum/max hours specified on the letter fixing my hourly rate, or anything about length of time/holidays etc. I'm not expecting to be paid for holidays/sickness obviously, but would like to be able to arrange holidays pretty much when i want without having to be on a staff holiday rota (as they are all on fixed contracts with employment rights) - would i theoretically be within my rights to do so? thanks in advance for any replies!!

You still have rights, even if you are not on a fixed contract, and you are entitled to one hour of paid leave for every so many hours worked - the exact amount depends on how many hours a week is considered full time in your work place, which could vary from say 37 to 40 hours, and how many days paid leave full timers are entitled to, and whether bank holidays are paid or unpaid.

The easist way to calculate your leave entitlement is to add up the hours you work in a month (it may be different every month), and work out what the pro-rated annual leave is compared to a full time person.

I can't remember off the top of my head how to do the calculation, but it involves working out the number of hours a full time person works per month, and how much holiday they are entitled to per month, and pro-rating the holiday entitlement to the number of hours the part time person works per month.

Sorry, hope that makes sense, I'm not finding it easy to put into words.

thanks for that, i didn't realise I'd be entitled to any paid leave!

You're welcome

Have a look at this I linked to the holiday rights page, but the whole website is useful (and if your employer is reluctant to give you holiday pay, then it's useful to be able to back up your argument).

thanks that link is really useful!