P/T Holiday allowance (28 hours over 5 days but varying shift lengths).

[magpie100]

I am looking for advise on what my correct contracted holiday allowance should be as a part time worker ( 28 our week over 5 day but with varying hours work each day). These are my circumstances.


My full time colleague (40/week) get the following allowance in their contract.

24 days leave (to use adhoc through the year)
+ 8 days bank holiday.

They can book leave as a full day 8 hours 9-5 or half-day 4 hours 9-12.30 or 13.30-5 (minus 1 hour lunch).

I work 28 hours/week and get:

20 days leave (to use adhoc through the year)
+ 8 days bank holiday

However, I have recently changed to these hours to fit around school hours so I work the following shifts:

M-T: 9.30-2.30 (5 hours)
Fridays: 9-5 (8 hours).

As I don't work the same hours each days, i.e 1 x 8 hour and 4 x 5 hours days I asked my employer could I please use my 20 days allowance in hours, which according to holiday allowance calculators I should get 157 hours as equivalent with my 28 hour working week. However, my employer has refused this and insists I can have 20 days leave only and only to fit in as per my colleagues either via a half-day or full day. So I have to use a full day whether its a 5 hour shift or an 8 hours shift. If I book a half-day I then have to come in for 1 hour on my 5 hour day!!

This means:

If I choose to use my 20 days for Fridays only ( 8 hours) I would get 160 working hours off/year
If I never book a Friday and only choose to take holiday on a Monday-Thursday, I would be getting only 100 working hours off/year.

So if I decide to book a full day only on my 5 hour days and never a Friday 8 hour, I would then be working 60 hours more than I would if I only book Fridays, does that make sense?

As I mentioned, I could book a half-day, but that would mean I would need to come in for 1 hour on a 5 hour day to make up my hours for that day, which is a nonsense.

I think this would be solved if my employer let me break this down into hours so I can book 5 hours off Monday-Thursday and 8 hours on Friday. I would be very happy with this as I will then get my full allowance. However, they are refusing to do this as they said I need to fit in with the same thing my 40 hours full time employers do. I.e 8 hour full day or 4 hour half-day.

I realise that the holiday allowance is very generous and that they only legally need to give me stat holiday allowance which pro rate would be much less than I get. However, this is in their contract for full and part time, so I feel it is fair I get want they have offered in the contract.

My question is, is the above calculations correct for my hours and contract as per full time equivalent and do I have the legal right to ask them to give me my full allowance in hours. Or can my employer still hold the line and make me take full days for 5 hours working and I end up then getting much less hours off than I would a company who would break it down into hours?.

I hope this makes sense, any advice on this would be much appreciated.


Thank you!

[ULA]

Hi, sorry to take so long to respond to you.

Part-time holiday allowance can be a bit tricky to work out. So it seems that although you work part-time hours

you work 5 days per week, in which case I would work out your holiday entitlement in a different way to your employer. Effectively as far as I can see it your employer has worked out your holiday entitlement based on a pro-rata of the hours you work each week, however since you work 5 days a week in my opinion this is incorrect. I would say that you are entitled to 24 days plus bank holidays the same as someone working full time for the 5 days, the difference is that your rate of pay for your holiday pay is based on the hours you work in the days that you have off. So if you took a week off you would use 5 days holiday but get paid holiday pay for 28 hours, if you took a Mon-Wed off you would take 3 days holiday but be paid 15 hours holiday pay.

Hope that makes sense.