Holiday pay question

One More Solo

One More Solo

One More Solo

Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2004
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Shepley
I think I'm being ripped off (albeit only slightly). I work part time and my contracted hours are 20 per week over 3 days. I split this and do 6 hours on two days and 8 hours on one day. This month I took holiday on one of my 8 hour days, however the company are stating they will only pay me 6.66 hours holiday pay for it (e.g. 20/3). This doesn't seem right as I would effectively be working below my contracted hours that week. Is this allowed and if not what can I do about it?
 
Makes sense - you have taken more than a proportional day off. If you worked 25 hours per week, 1 day 24 hours and 1 day 1 hour, then took the 24 hour day off, would you expect to receive full pay? In reality a "day" in this case is 12.5 hrs.
 
Not sure what you can do about this. I work on payroll for a civil engineering company. Some of our blokes are contracted to a 42.5 hour week, other to x amount per day. Some have 8 hours Monday to Thursday and 7 on a Friday. In this case they'd get the same amount of holiday pay as regular pay for each day they would have worked.

I'm not sure how you could argue it other than that in total your weeks pay is 'short'. Sounds like if they've not offered to correct it of their own accord you might be fighting a loosing battle.

When we pay holiday pay generally the rule is to divide contracted hours by 5 and pay that many hours pay. However as I mentioned some are contracted hours per day as opposed per week. If you're not contracted to work x-amount of hours per day then I don't think you can do much other than have your contracted ammended to say you work 8 hours on X & Y and 6 on Z. This would save this happening again but not solve the problem at hand.
 
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Yes, sounds quite correct if your holiday is booked in days, assuming 6.6 hours on each of 3 days a week.

If, on the other hand, your holiday were booked in hours (which would probably make more sense for the pattern you work) then you would be entitled to 112 hours per year, and you would have booked 8 hours worth of your allowance for your day's holiday, and been paid for all of it.
 
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PMKeates said:
Makes sense - you have taken more than a proportional day off. If you worked 25 hours per week, 1 day 24 hours and 1 day 1 hour, then took the 24 hour day off, would you expect to receive full pay? In reality a "day" in this case is 12.5 hrs.
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If I'd accrued enough holiday to take 24 hours off then surely it doesn't matter? This is where I'm confused because the amount of holiday I have is worked out in hours yet they pay me according to days. Not going to make a huge fuss about it at all but I like to know where I stand. Might be worth having my contract amended to state hours worked/day as you say above because no-one is going to work 6.66 hours a day, 3 days a week. :p

Cheers for the help anyway.
 
When calculating holiday and holiday pay, there are several ways to do it. If you work different hours on different days (but these are fixed weekly), then the most appropriate is to do it in hours.

If your employer is going to work it out the way you've described, do they also offer you 6.66 hours pay when you take a six hour day as holiday? If not, then you might be getting screwed. I would suggest you have a word with ACAS (08457 47 47 47), so they can run through how to work out what you're entitled to and how you can go about taking it up with your employer.
 
One More Solo said:
If I'd accrued enough holiday to take 24 hours off then surely it doesn't matter? This is where I'm confused because the amount of holiday I have is worked out in hours yet they pay me according to days. Not going to make a huge fuss about it at all but I like to know where I stand. Might be worth having my contract amended to state hours worked/day as you say above because no-one is going to work 6.66 hours a day, 3 days a week. :p

Cheers for the help anyway.
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The 6.66 hours is correct. If you took a 6 hour day, you would still receive 6.66hrs for it as holiday. Divide the number of hours worked by the number of days you work in a week to get your entitlement. (20/3=6.66).

We have employees contracted on 3, 4 and 5 days per week, duties are very irregular with regard to hours ranging from 6hrs to 13hrs and this is how we do it. for example take a 40hr week worked over 5 days, the holiday pay for one day would be 40/5=8hrs paid. If you worked 40hrs over 4 days it would be 40/4=10hrs paid. It wouldnt matter how those hours are made up on a daily basis but a weekly one. This applies to our hourly paid employees.

It is common practice and you are not being 'screwed', if you took a 'full week' it would be correct, the reason everyone does this is to stop p/time employees from just taking their 'longer' days as holiday and thus receiving more than their entitlement overall.
 
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It is common practice and you are not being 'screwed', if you took a 'full week' it would be correct, the reason everyone does this is to stop p/time employees from just taking their 'longer' days as holiday and thus receiving more than their entitlement overall.
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A better idea would be to convert p/t employees annual leave to hrs to prevent this.
 
Why would be ask his union rep?
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For advice? The local rep (if there is one) would have an idea of how the contracts are worded and any custom and practice in existence.

Because he wanted to get the wrong answer?
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Unlikely :-P
 
amigafan2003 said:
A better idea would be to convert p/t employees annual leave to hrs to prevent this.
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Not really because then they could end up taking less than the statutory required amount of holiday which is done by days. By dividing contracted hours by days worked in a week we comply with the statutory holiday requirement.
 
Castiel said:
Not really because then they could end up taking less than the statutory required amount of holiday which is done by days. By dividing contracted hours by days worked in a week we comply with the statutory holiday requirement.
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Indeed, I'm somewhat concerned that the union rep didn't know this... They'd be the first to complain if an employee complained they weren't being allowed their 28 (inc bank holidays) days leave...
 
Dolph said:
One of the most vocal and militant ones on the forum in fact...
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hmmm. Well the bottom line is that I have never come across anyone working out holiday entitlement for hourly paid workers differently than the way I described.

We only allow full weeks to be taken anyway. Lieu days are available for the odd day here and there (accrued via public holidays).

My wife (a company CFO/qualified charted accountant) states the same thing.

The statutory requirement is 5.6 WEEKS. (28 days for someone on a 5 day week) it is then worked out pro rata for part time and 4 day full
time workers (22.4), but it MUST equal 5.6 WEEKS and not the constitute hours.


Here is how to calculate part time entitlement...

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandholidays/DG_10034642

Casual workers are slightly different, and your hours are not irregular enough and as you are contracted to work xhrs weekly you don't warrant using a percentage system.

Next time, take holiday on the shorter day...
 
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Castiel said:
Not really because then they could end up taking less than the statutory required amount of holiday which is done by days. By dividing contracted hours by days worked in a week we comply with the statutory holiday requirement.
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No, the law allows for this when converting to hours for part timers, or in this case an irregular worker (part time working that includes different length days is referred to as irregular working.)

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandholidays/DG_10034642

If you work casually or irregular hours it may well be easiest to calculate the holiday entitlement that accrues (accumulates) as hours are worked. The holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks is equivalent to 12.07 per cent of the hours you worked. The 12.07 per cent figure is:

5.6 weeks' holiday, divided by 46.4 weeks (being 52 weeks - 5.6 weeks) multiplied by 100 = 12.07 per cent

The 5.6 weeks have to be excluded from the calculation as you would not be present during the 5.6 weeks in order to accrue annual leave. For example, if you had worked 10 hours, you would be entitled to 72.6 minutes' paid holiday:

12.07 per cent x 10 hours = 1.21 hours = 72.6 minutes

The holiday entitlement is just over seven minutes for each hour worked.
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Indeed, I'm somewhat concerned that the union rep didn't know this... They'd be the first to complain if an employee complained they weren't being allowed their 28 (inc bank holidays) days leave...
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But you're wrong.
 
I work for a company that base holidays on hours for this very reason.
go voice your concerns with them and your hours you work.
 
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