Full-time vs. part-time holiday entitlement

[CrowCrow00]

Just looking for some advice here. I currently work 28.5 hours per week, as opposed to our full working week, which is 37 hours. I had my hours cut (voluntarily) after a period in hospital due to a chronic illness, which was around October 2011 I believe, so this is a little over two years that I've been working cut hours. The illness is covered under the DDA and the changes to my hours are permanent.

I received a letter from the company to say that I have to use my own holiday allowance for bank holidays, and that I only have 10 days to last me for the whole year. Full time workers get 23 days holiday, plus Christmas and bank holidays on top. Bank holidays are not taken out of their 23 day allowance.

I'd like to know if there are a different set of guidelines for part-time workers which allows them to do this? I work 75% of the total working hours per week, therefore I would expect to have my holiday entitlement reduced by 25%, but still be given bank holidays off. The company is closed for bank holidays so I have no option to not use my holiday allowance for those days.

Thank you

[Engineer1]

I'm no employment lawyer but I would say that without knowing more it would be hard for anyone to give you good advice after all if you still work Monday to Friday but at shorter hours then you need the same number of days to get a week off but if you work fewer days you only need to take the days you would be at work off to get a week off.

[anonymous-user]

IANAL, but if you still work Monday to Friday just at reduced hours, I would expect your holiday entitlement to remain the same at 23 days + bank holidays. This being that the number of hours you work is less, but so is the number of hours you get paid whilst being on holiday. The number of days would only change if you worked less than the usual 5 days a week.

[CrowCrow00]

I work one less day per week now. We get our holiday allowance in hours rather than days, so I assumed that my hours would be proportionate to my working hours e.g. I work 75% of the 37 hour week, so I assumed I'd get 75% of the holiday allowance, which would equal 17 days of the usual 23. I'm unsure of the rights of part-time workers, so maybe it isn't as simple as that.

The main thing I'm concerned about it having to use my days for bank holidays, which full-time staff do not have to do. I don't have a problem with my holiday allowance being reduced appropriately, but I'm not really happy about the bank holidays.

[anonymous-user]

Maybe this will help

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

[Engineer1]

The best option is to ask for your holiday in hours and agree that you can only use your hours in the same way full time staff use their days, (my current job gives you the option of taking days or half days holiday)

[CrowCrow00]

Engineer1 said:

The best option is to ask for your holiday in hours and agree that you can only use your hours in the same way full time staff use their days, (my current job gives you the option of taking days or half days holiday)

Thanks. maybe you're right. The link posted above gives this quote:

"Bank holidays
Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave.

An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave."

But then I don't think it's right for me to be the only employee excluded from having paid bank holidays. I specifically asked them if I'd have the same rights as full-time workers within the company and they said I would.

[decadent]

This always seems to be a problematic one. My wife worked part time Wed-Fri and her colleague worked Mon-Wed. Bank holidays and Annual leave hours were added together to give a total entitlement, in her case she got 38 days AL + 8 BH x 60%. Where one of them worked a BH it was taken from their entitlement as a day off (not fair for the one that worked Monday’s as the had more BH’s taken than the other from their total entitlement).

The other scenario seems to be working out what you get by % worked x AL entitlement = X + take whatever bank holidays fall on your work days. I.e if you don’t work Monday’s you’ll never benefit from that day off.

The later scenario is less fair if you’re job sharing with someone; they end up with a lot more days off than you do if they work the first day half of the week.

I don’t think it is fair to in the OP’s case where they seem to be working out 75% time worked x 23days, less any BH that happen to fall on work days. Minimum entitlement for full time workers is 20 AL days + BH on top, I would have thought it’s the same in proportion for PT workers.

[CrowCrow00]

I've signed a part-time contract with my reduced working hours. Do you think that if there is no mention of it in my contract, and it has never been discussed with me before, that it would be reasonable for me to complain about it and ask to have paid bank holidays?

I work every Monday, so it must be about 7 days I've lost this year. It makes me wonder if they could do it with Christmas holidays too, as we all get about two weeks paid leave at Christmas. If they took that off me I'd be left with no holidays at all.

[Zeeky]

Generally, a part-time worker's benefits should be adjusted pro rata to full-timers. A part-time worker has a legal right not to be treated less favourably than full-timers. You should ask your employer to justify its decision in light of that.

[decadent]

edit - no idea what heppened (copied previous post)

Edited by decadent on Thursday 9th January 12:52

[CrowCrow00]

Thanks for the help and advice, I'll try to speak to someone at work. We're in Newcastle and our headquarters are in Hampshire, and we have no senior or HR staff available to us, we just operate independently. It makes trying to find anything out a game of waiting for a scrumpled up email printout from one of my managers.

Call me cynical, but it feels like they're sort of closing in around me in the hope of eventually sacking me because of my illness. They know that I use my holidays as a safety net for when I'm ill, so they've taken them. They recently sent me to the company doctor to see if they could take action if I was absent. There have been other things in the past couple of years, and even though I'm protected by the DDA to a certain degree it seems like they're always looking for something that'll give them enough of a reason to get rid of me.

[Loaded1me]

HTH.

The legal annual holiday entitlement for each employee is 28 days per year.
This entitlement can be made up by combining the number of days of their contractual entitlement, with the number of public holidays (currently 8) allowed for in the contract. Some business may give more, and long service may increase the entitlement, however the calculations below are based on the minimum legal requirement of 28 days.

E.g. a member of staff entitled to 20 days would add 8 public holidays giving a total of 28 days. This is the legal minimum required.

This would also apply to seasonally employed staff. The following calculation would be used to calculate holiday entitlement for seasonal staff:

Number of weeks of contract/52 weeks x 28(d) = Number of days of entitlement.

E.g. 13(w) / 52(w) = 0.25(d) x 28(d) = 7 days entitlement.

Part-time staff have the same entitlement as fulltime staff, however this is calculated pro-rata on 28 days. This would be calculated as:

4(weeks) x Number of days worked in a week + 8 public holidays.

E.g. 4(w) x 3(d) = 12(d) + 8(d) = 20 days entitlement

Casual staff (or those on zero hours contracts) also accrue holiday entitlement throughout their period of employment. This may mean holiday entitlement is shown in hours rather than days. The calculation is:

Number of hours worked per week x 12.07%.

E.g. 24(h) x 12.07% = 2.9 hours entitlement for the week.