How to calculate bank holidays for part-time staff

As we approach the festive time of year again, staff may well be checking on what’s left of their annual leave entitlement and looking forward to next year. For some, the realization there’s none left to take may come as an unpleasant surprise, but it happens, and more often than you think. Then, of course, you may have to recalculate the maths as part-time staff challenge your workings out.

Getting ahead puts you on a good footing, and gives time to work out those tricky calculations, which can baffle the best of us if caught off guard. You see the problem most of us encounter is the vexed question of how we work out bank holiday entitlements? Throw in for good measure the fact most bank holidays fall on a Monday, and then ponder how you ensure your part-time employees, who do not work on Mondays, are not treated less favourably? It’s a conundrum many an office manager has had to grapple with.

Absence Management

Posted 06/12/2018

So, how do you avoid a complaint of less favourable treatment under the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/1551)?

Well, although there is no exact formula that may ensure entirely fair results for all employees, whatever their working pattern, the preferred option may be to calculate pro-rated bank holiday entitlement according to the number of hours that the part-time employee works, irrespective of whether or not they work on the days on which bank holidays fall. If you decide to adopt this approach then it’s relatively straightforward to work out a ‘fair share’.

For example, if you have a part-time employee who works 3 days a week, then they will be entitled to 3/5ths of those 8 bank/public holidays. This approach ensures that all workers enjoy a ‘fair share’ of the benefit received by full-time staff.

So far so good then, but let’s not get complacent; is it worthwhile revisiting your contracts to see exactly what terms you have provided for in your annual leave provision? It could be a decisive, and not to mention contentious factor, if an extra public holiday is granted, as we last enjoyed to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee on 5th June 2012.

If your terms specify your full-time employees are entitled to the statutory 28 days inclusive of all bank holidays, then any additional day that is allocated as a public holiday would not increase their paid holiday entitlement. (It is a common misconception that bank and public holidays should be paid, not so). However, if your contracts state that full-time staff are entitled to 20 days' annual leave plus all bank and public holidays, they should receive the additional bank holiday as annual leave.

Knowing exactly what your terms specify should settle any dispute as it’s there in black and white. Understanding the impact your wording has on contractual obligations is therefore even more fundamental to the bottom line, and getting it wrong can be a very costly mistake, ouch!

See how TeamSeer handles bank holidays