Know how much holiday to give your staff
Calculating holiday entitlement for atypical workers
There are alternative ways of working out the holiday entitlement for workers who don't have regular working arrangements or patterns.
Part-time workers
Paid holiday entitlement is calculated pro-rata for part-time workers.
So if a member of staff works three days a week, they are entitled to 16.8 days (5.6 x 3).
Shift workers
It is sometimes easier to calculate holiday entitlement as shifts.
So if a member of staff works four 12-hour shifts followed by four days off, the average working week is 3.5 12-hour shifts. So 5.6 weeks' holiday is 5.6 x 3.5 = 19.6 12-hour shifts.
For other shift patterns, it may be easiest to calculate according to the established repeating pattern.
More irregular working patterns: calculating holiday in hours
If a member of staff works annualised hours, you need to calculate how many hours a week they work on average over the whole year.
So if a member of staff works a total of 1,600 hours a year, or 34.48 hours a week over 46.4 weeks of the year, the holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks x 34.48 hours a week = 193.09 hours' holiday for the year.
The statutory holiday entitlement is excluded from the average working week calculations.
Arrangements for term-time-only workers will depend on their contract of employment. If they work a reduced number of weeks during the year, they accrue a pro-rata entitlement to paid leave. You need to calculate how many hours a week are worked on average over the whole year and exclude the statutory holiday entitlement from the average working week calculations.
For example, a worker works 1,600 hours over 40 term-time weeks during the year. This is the equivalent of 34.48 hours a week over 46.4 weeks of the year. Therefore their paid annual leave entitlement is 5.6 weeks x 34.48 hours a week = 193.09 hours holiday for the year.
If they don't take annual leave during term time, the worker actually works 1,600 hours and accrues holiday on the whole 1,600 hours = 193.09 hours' holiday.
However, if their contract requires them to take their annual leave only during term time they accrue holiday on the weeks (or hours) they actually work.
For someone working compressed hours, for example, a 36-hour week over four days instead of five, their annual holiday entitlement is 36 hours x 5.6 weeks = 201.6 hours holiday for the year.
Rather than taking a day's holiday, they would take the number of hours that they would have otherwise worked on that day (ie for 36 hours worked over four days, they would take nine hours' holiday for each day otherwise worked).
Casual workers
If a member of staff works on a casual basis or very irregular hours, it is often easiest to calculate holiday entitlement that accrues as hours are worked.
The holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks is equivalent to 12.07 per cent of hours worked over a year.
The 12.07 per cent figure is 5.6 weeks' holiday, divided by 46.4 weeks (being 52 weeks - 5.6 weeks). The 5.6 weeks are excluded from the calculation as the worker would not be at work during those 5.6 weeks.
So if someone works 10 hours, they are entitled to 72.6 minutes paid holiday (12.07 ÷ 100 x 10= 1.21 hours = 72.63 minutes).
Part days
Calculations may result in part days, eg 22.4 days for someone working four days a week.
If this is the case, you could:
- Allow the worker to leave early or arrive late one day, eg for someone working an eight-hour day taking 0.4 of a day's holiday, you could allow them to leave after working for four hours and 48 minutes (480 minutes x 0.6 of a working day = 228 minutes) or allow them to arrive three hours and 12 minutes late (0.4 of a working day).
- Round the entitlement up to the nearest full day - or half day if this is still easy for you to administer. You cannot round entitlements down.
- Allow the worker to carry the part day over into the next leave year (and then perhaps round up to the nearest full day).
- Pay them for a part day. However, you can only do this if the worker's paid holiday entitlement is more than 5.6 weeks as you cannot pay a worker in lieu of untaken statutory holiday - see the page in this guide on calculating and paying holiday pay.
Subjects covered in this guide
- Introduction
- Statutory paid holiday entitlement
- Calculating and paying holiday pay
- Calculating the increased holiday entitlement for different leave years and new starters
- Calculating holiday entitlement for atypical workers
- Holiday entitlement for employees on other statutory leave
- Pay and time off on public and bank holidays
- Taking holiday - notice periods, restrictions and sickness
- Holiday pay on termination of employment
- Here's how I manage staff annual leave
