A thorny and often misunderstood issue that constantly raises its head in every organisation is part time workers holidays and bank holidays. I hope this guidance is of some use.

A key factor in employing staff is the fact that you need to ensure consistency across all the sites of your organisation. In terms of leave, like money, is a personal thing which affects people’s everyday lives. Consistency is also a key point in heading off potential discrimination claims.

This guidance is based on the statutory legal holiday requirements for employees in the UK, which is 20 days holidays plus 8 days statutory public holidays, this equates to 5.6 weeks, pro rata, which means you to calculate the equivalent of those 28 days, to fit against the hours you actually work.

You can give more holidays but they need to be given across the board and have to be justifiable under the Equality Act 2010, therefore they should only increase due to length of service or seniority as both of these are reasonable justifications. Holidays above the statutory requirements are now as contractual holidays; i.e. this information is contained within the contract of employment. Therefore your company may choose to start people on 25 days plus 8 bank holidays and this rises every 2 years to retain your staff.

The additional bank holiday this year due to the Queens Diamond Jubilee is not statutory so you don’t have to give it or pay it, if you do give it. Unless your employment contract sates that you will give staff all bank holidays and they will be paid.

In terms of reward, recognition and morale, you might want to consider it and balance that against your business needs.

In terms of calculating part time employee’s holiday entitlement; you combine the 28 days the law requires (or more if you give them). Divide this by 5 (working days) and multiply by the actual working days. This is your pro rata holiday entitlement, e.g. for a 2 day a week worker its 28 (days) divided by 5 (working days) x 2 (days they actually work) = 11.2 days annual leave entitlement.

If they only work a few hours per day, the course of action is to convert their days into hours before you start. i.e. 28 days is 196 hours, if you work a standard 7 hour day.

The same calculations apply and you give their leave allowance in hours therefore 196 (hours) / 5 (days) x 2 (days) = 78.4 or 196/35 hours x 14 hours = 78.4.

They then book their leave in hours rather than days, so if someone who works 5 hours per day wants a day off they book 5 hours, not one day. The same applies to them taking the bank holiday.

In all cases where pro rata leave has been calculated in the ways I have advised, The employee must use this leave if their working day falls on a bank holiday or they will get an unfair advantage over others.

This may seem unfair to them but it is the same as full time worker e.g. They get 28 days and use a day off without any choice every time there is a bank holiday, so we only have flexibility with the 20 remaining days.

They may say is that as someone who works Mondays they have less flexibility than others, this is unfortunate, however, there are bank holidays on other days especially around Christmas & New Year.

They don’t get any other compensated days off if they don’t work on a bank holiday either as they have been given a day for it and can use it elsewhere.

If a member of staff is really struggling, for instance they only work Monday and Friday, you could consider, if you wished, to allow them to work another day that week, they won’t get extra pay but they can effectively win the bank holiday back to use more flexibly, or they can take the bank holiday unpaid so they save the days leave. This should only be given if the business can live with it and you can justify those people’s circumstances.

For further advice please contact Niel Cope at People Matters 0161 738 1808.

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