(part time) employm...
 

(part time) employment law and public holiday entitlement - co-op content

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wife works 16 hrs a week (mon & thurs) at co-op pharmacy and each year complains about losing out on holiday hours due to public holidays that fall on a monday and its not fair that she has to use her leave up for days that she'd rather work etc etc.

ive no idea whether its true or whether she's confused so i thought right, i'll do some digging and get to the bottom of it for her.

the story is, shes been told by her manager and their managers too, that she has to book 8 hrs of her holiday entitlement every bank holiday monday (and thursdays i spose if christmas/boxing day etc fall on that work day).  i told her that i think it should be pro-rata, so ive looked on the app that she has to use (MyPlace for anyone familiar with the co-op).

its a bit of a clunky old app, not easy to get around, but i think ive got to the bottom of it, and i must say im still a bit confused so im turning to you folks.

her holiday entitlement page states that she is entitled to 99 hrs (372 hrs pro rata).  so..... it looks like her entitlement is already pro-rata, so yes she should book 8 hrs off for each days holiday, so thats probably fine.  what i dont understand here is the '372 hrs pro-rata'.  to me that implies that a full time worker gets 372 hrs off which they clearly dont, thatd be too good to be true. 

but anyway, theres 4 x BH mondays this year plus christmas and new year this year (they fall on thursday) so half of her holiday will have gone on PH's that she's forced to take and she'd rather just not be paid as it doesnt leave much left over for our weeks holidays.

i looked at how she has to book it.  she's been told that she has to input these into her app herself.  i asked what happens if she doesnt, she said she just has to.  yes but what if you dont.  i have to.  short answer is she has to 😀 

i went to do a 'ghost booking' and saw that when she inputs one of these PH's as holiday, she chooses 8 hrs (correct), but her only option from the dropdown is 'Personal Holiday'.  cue another conversation..... you dont get the option to book it as a Public Holiday, so just dont book it.  i have to.  but youre putting wrong information in, its not a personal holiday, its a day youre forced to take.  your leave entitlement might already have taken PH's into account if it only gives you the option of 'personal holiday'.  well my boss wouldnt be wrong and hes told me to do it this way.

are you still with me, or have i lost you at this point? 😀

so my TLDR question is, does this sound right to you?  when her leave entitlement is worked out, should she then be forced to lose half of it to PH's?  or might her entitlement already have taken these into account and shes been told wrong?  and if she's being disadvantaged by her rota is it just sods law and suck it up buttercup?

sorry for the long winded post, im sure i could have simplified it, but hey ho, ive typed it now.

thanks

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 6:43 am
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No, it does not sound right. I work half time. My leave entitlement is calculated in hours and is half full time employees. My bank holiday allowance is also 50% of a full time member of staff (works out about 3.45hrs per bank holiday). At the start of the year my employer automatically takes off leave for a bank holiday which falls on one of my working days, if none do then I get the extra leave in its entirety, if the BH is a Wed and Thurs then they take off 9hrs and 8.5 hours which are my working hours for those days.Sometimes I do lose out (last year) but, on the whole, not working a Monday does get me extra leave.

You should not be taking leave if the bank holiday is a none working day. I think it was a Sainsburys employee that took them too court over this, sounds like the Co-op didn't get that message or else they do it automatically at the start of the leave year (mine do).

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 6:56 am
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I can't really help other than mention that at my company we have two systems and I expect other replies will fall both sides of the fence.

Non manager grades are salaried but still paid by the hour, our holiday hours do not include PH and we don't need to book them. So we don't lose any holiday hours to PH.  If I book holiday over a PH it deducts 0 hours.

Manager grades get extra holiday hours but have to manual book their PH and therefore are forced to use some of their holiday.  So an inexperienced manager could inadvertently tell an employee to incorrectly book holiday for a PH, but in our case it wouldn't actually change the employees leave balance.

What is your wife's statutory/minimum legal holiday (pro rata)? If their booking practise takes her under the minimum then something must be wrong. Also does the 372hrs allowance work out for someone working 7 days a week? Obviously no one is allowed to do that but perhaps a 5 or 6 day weeker is also prorata down from a theoretical 7 day week!?

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:04 am
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I can't help either but in my place we've got many people who work part-time who then take a different day off when the bank holiday falls on a day that they don't work - which seems bonkers to me.

They don't work the day the office is closed so they take their next working day off instead. Makes absolutely no sense to me, but it suggests there are many ways to interpret things unless it is written down specifically.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:10 am
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I get my annual leave prorata'd and the same with Bank Holidays. I don't work Fridays, so use up all my Bank Holiday hours and a day or two of leave on the Bank Holiday Mondays, unless Christmas falls right for me.

A lot of part time colleagues don't work Mondays to avoid this problem.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:14 am
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I can't help either but in my place we've got many people who work part-time who then take a different day off when the bank holiday falls on a day that they don't work the bank holiday falls on a day that they don't work

That's the opposite scenario to the OP but in that scenario, if my day off fell on a BH I get a credit to my holiday hours so that I don't miss the day off. (However most of us are full time 4 day week with a rotating day off so we all generally get a couple of credits a year, but sure if it's a prorata credit for a part time employee...)

 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:18 am
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How many days do the full time workers get? At 8 hrs a day that seems like 38.5 per year (taking off 8 for bank hols)

Yeah, it doesn't really sound fair that she gets penalised a whole 8 hours as a part time worker, leaves very little discretionary holidays. Clarification needed from HR I think. Or try and change one working day to not Monday. 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:25 am
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Meant to add, is there a union (ask them) and are there Facebook groups etc where she could ask colleagues from other stores if they follow the same process?

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:34 am
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 ACAS

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:37 am
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How many days do the full time workers get? At 8 hrs a day that seems like 38.5 per year (taking off 8 for bank hols)

 

Might it be that FT workers get a bigger holiday allowance because they have to work some weekend days, etc., and someone working Mon and Thurs doesn't. So while 99/372 isn't truly prorata, it might be once those extra days are considered.

You'd need to see the actual calcs (HR policy, etc.) rather than just the summary on the app of her allowance but I suspect a company like Co-op will have calculated it properly.

At my place it's simple as we have no weekend working (unless agreed and as overtime) so std is 27d holiday, plus 8 BH = 35. If you work 3 days a week io 5, you get 3/5 = 21 days but you have to book your BH off. In essence so does everyone else, it's just that because a FT worker has an allowance of 8 for that purpose, the system can automatically deduct them.

I think you can game the system slightly as above by eg: being pro-rata credited for Monday BHs which are disproportionate (50% of BHs are a Monday and then others as it falls) and then not working a Monday anyway so not needing to use them, but equally you could end up using more if Christmas/Easter falls against you.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 8:04 am
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I think the 372 hrs is for a nominal 7 day a week full time worker as 5/7ths of this is approximately 33 days which equates to 25 days holiday and 8 bank holidays which is a fairly standard allowance for full time workers. The odd numbers may be due to different definitions of a standard working length day which day differ from role to role.

If you work part time then you will often find that more of your holiday allowance is taken up with bank holidays if you work Mondays. I know of people who moved their 3 day week to Tues-Thurs to get more holiday when they wanted and less dictated by the calendar.

To simplify HR systems it's common to book all holiday under one heading. HR managers are too easily confused otherwise.

If your wife worked a bank holiday does she get overtime and if a premium rate can she take the premium as lieu time giving her more time off for free?

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 8:24 am
kelvin reacted
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When I worked part time they added 8 days to the full time annual leave allowance to include public holidays, then pro rata that total to the hours I worked. That was then my total leave for the year, personal holidays and public holidays, booked as annual leave whatever the reason.

 

 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 8:43 am
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It's crazy how UK employment law says we are all entitled to at least 5.6 weeks contract hours as paid annual leave, but it is the discretion of the employer as to whether that includes bank holidays or bank hols are in addition to the 5.6 weeks (max 28 days even if your contract involves working more than five days per week).

At a minimum, OP's wife entitled to 89.6 hours leave (16*5.6).

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 8:53 am
 IHN
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To most people in retail, the concept of a bank holidays are basically non-existent. The hours will just be added to the general holiday allowance and if they want to take them off, they book them as holiday. If they work  them, they just get paid their normal hourly rate. I suspect this is what's happening here. So, as ever, the first thing to do is check her contract.

Anyway, if she works for the Co-Op then there is a union. Join it, ask them. Even if she's right, she's not going to persuade her manager (and their manager) without some backing.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 9:26 am
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 poly
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99/372 seems strange to me.  The rest seems perfectly normal.  there’s nothing to stop an employer dictating which days are your holidays.

Is the shop really closed on “ordinary” bank holidays?  Bank Holidays seem to confuse a lot of employees in my experience.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 1:11 pm
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If she should have worked 8 hours on a certain Monday and didn't because it was a bank holiday then I think it's correct that 8 hours comes out of her leave allowance. 

 

She shouldn't be booking any leave for, say, Good Friday because she doesn't work Fridays so hasn't missed any work by not turning up. 

 

Working part time by doing 5 half days rather than doing 2 long days changes how much leave you get choice over but not how much leave you get in total. E.g. if you only work 3 hours on a Monday then you only 'lose' 3 hours of leave to each bank holiday. But if you work 10 hours each Monday then each bank holiday Monday uses 10 hours of your allowance.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 1:25 pm
 db
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Sounds ok if I have understood the post. Part time people (Like me!) and entitled to the same proportion of Bank Holiday leave as a full timer.

I would Tue-Thu so only have to worry about this at Christmas where depending on when it falls I have to book 8hrs (my normally daily hours) on the Public Holiday days.

Its a bit rubbish for Part time people if you only say work Mon and Fri as you will need to use some of your own normally holiday entitlement to cover the public holidays. But you are getting the same proportion of Public vs normal leave a full time person would get (which is key to avoid discrimination).

 

 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 2:31 pm
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People who work Monday Friday will have to use more of their holiday entitlement on public holidays than people who work Tuesday and Thursday for example, but essentially should be working same number of hours overall, otherwise the person who works Tuesday Thursday will be pissed the other person gets extra time off just because they work Mondays. There's guidance on hmrc web site for calculating this fairly.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 3:09 pm
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The bit that looks odd to me is the minimum hours leave for the year would be 89.6 if she is being paid for 8 hours per shift, but she is getting 99 total.

Are her shifts 8 hours per day, but she gets an unpaid 30mins total break time per shift (another oddity with uk employment law)?

15x5.6 would be 84 hours and two paid bank holiday days would account for the other 15.

But she should be getting 2/5 of the bank hol allowance, which would be 3.2 days or 25.6 hours in addition to her contract 84 hours (in England when 8 bank hols, but we got an extra for Liz's Funeral in Sept '22 for example)?

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 3:15 pm
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Legally with regular full-time employees a) an employer must not just allow staff to take holidays but insist that they take the bulk of them even if they'd rather work, and b) when those holidays are taken are at the employer's discretion.  They would be perfectly within their rights to go "OK Dave, you're on holiday for 'November' and that's your annual leave used up."  So insisting that she takes bank holidays off is legit as far as I can see, albeit a shitty thing to do to a part-time worker.

Regular leave is a minimum of 28 days a year. Working 2/5 days in a week would give 2/5s of that, ie 11.2 days, or a few minutes under 90 hours.  If her allowance is 99, she's got a day and a half extra.

I think.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 3:45 pm
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I'm not reading all that.

But the way it worked for me when I was part time was that full time leave entitlement and public holidays were added together and the pro-rated to give a number of leave hours that covered both annual leave and public holidays.

I then booked hours to cover public holidays when they fell on a working day 

This is the only fair to do it so you are not advantaged or disadvantaged whether public holidays fell on working or non-working days

 

 

 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 3:52 pm
 poly
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Posted by: n0b0dy0ftheg0at

The bit that looks odd to me is the minimum hours leave for the year would be 89.6 if she is being paid for 8 hours per shift, but she is getting 99 total.

Are her shifts 8 hours per day, but she gets an unpaid 30mins total break time per shift (another oddity with uk employment law)?

15x5.6 would be 84 hours and two paid bank holiday days would account for the other 15.

But she should be getting 2/5 of the bank hol allowance, which would be 3.2 days or 25.6 hours in addition to her contract 84 hours (in England when 8 bank hols, but we got an extra for Liz's Funeral in Sept '22 for example)?

That's the sort of confusing logic that gets people in a mess understanding this. 

  1. There is nothing stopping employers offering >minimum statutory leave
  2. There's no entitlement to Bank Holidays at all.
  3. If the country declares an extra BH for the Monarch's funeral, wedding, etc there is absolutely no requirement for employers to provide it. 
  4. A quick look at the Coop recruitment page seems to suggest they offer an initial 31 days holiday to standard retail positions and perhaps 36 to supervisory positions?  - those numbers "include" bank holiday provision.

Assuming 31 days holiday = 248 hrs, and 16 hr = 2/5ths of full time then the allowance would be 99.2 hrs - so that seems to work out (I'm sure there is no need to stress about the missing 12 minutes).    In that case her boss is perfectly reasonable that all leave is booked the same way, whether its Christmas day (when it falls on a Mon/Thur), a May bank holiday or any other day.  The employer is perfectly entitled to close their store (or a part of their store) on any day they want and tell its employees that normally work that day to use leave.   She may have an option to take unpaid leave in addition.

Employees who have only worked places which are very generous with leave or who are very flexible / relaxed about how its booked often don't appreciate the importance of the "perk" and assume everywhere is the same.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 3:59 pm
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Yep, I agree with the majority, that sounds entirely normal, except for the bit where 372hours appears to be based on a 7 day week, but that might just be a bug/feature of the system to account for the fact most shops open 7 days and therefore everyone is effectively part time.  It probably avoids unfairness  due to the number of week / weekend days varying slightly year to year depending on where the weekend falls around new year.

Sounds almost exactly like our work system, you have to book BH's as holiday just like any other days holiday.

You can't not book them as contractually we have to take off time when the office is closed (bank holidays and Christmas).

We do have the option of "holiday buyback" which means buying hours holiday at the start of the year to use whenever and the 'cost' deducted across the next 12 months.  Effectively the same as taking approved unpaid leave, but without it all coming out of one paycheck.  

In an previous job we had to work bank holidays, which was equally unfair as those people who's shifts fell on BH's got several days per year double pay for just doing their job.

 

 

 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 4:35 pm
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wow thanks folks, just catching up on this and will reply in more detail when i get chance but heres a few quick responses to a few of the questions.

she works monday and thursdays, and maybe 1 saturday morning per month (8 hrs per weekday, 3 and a half on saturday)

she's asked to swap her monday for something else but been refused.  i wonder why 😀 

she doesnt lose any money for BH's that are not on those days as she wouldnt be working them anyway.

i spose we just werent sure whether BH's were already considered before allocating leave, so no need to book off again.

looks like there are many variations, and the gaffers are probably right then.

shes bummed out this year then with 4 x monday BH's plus christmas and new year on thursdays.  6 days enforced doesnt leave her much flexibility for family holidays.

thank you all very much

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 4:44 pm
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Posted by: sadexpunk

she's asked to swap her monday for something else but been refused.  i wonder why

Don't wonder, ask.

"We don't have cover otherwise" is a valid reason.  "We don't want to" is not.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 6:30 pm
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Posted by: sadexpunk

looks like there are many variations, and the gaffers are probably right then.

I would not assume the gaffers are correct. Check with any union rep and HR directly. 

Both managers and part time staff at our place regularly get it wrong.

 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 7:47 pm
 poly
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Posted by: MoreCashThanDash
I would not assume the gaffers are correct. Check with any union rep and HR directly.

except that they appear to have - given the vast majority of their staff are probably part time it’s quite likely that they do actually know what they are doing, and I’m not sure it’s healthy for partners to be telling people how to conduct their work relationships never mind strangers on the internet telling her partner what to demand.

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 8:05 pm
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Posted by: poly

Posted by: MoreCashThanDash
I would not assume the gaffers are correct. Check with any union rep and HR directly.

except that they appear to have - given the vast majority of their staff are probably part time it’s quite likely that they do actually know what they are doing, and I’m not sure it’s healthy for partners to be telling people how to conduct their work relationships never mind strangers on the internet telling her partner what to demand.

HMRC have 60k staff, thousands of whom are part time, and we still get it wrong. Asking to double check something is not a capital crime.

 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 8:30 pm
 Drac
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Poly has explained it well. However, there is no need for her to book the Good Friday as a holiday if she does not work Fridays. 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 8:33 pm
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She may be able to request unpaid leave. 

 
Posted : 09/04/2025 10:33 pm
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However, there is no need for her to book the Good Friday as a holiday if she does not work Fridays. 

probably didnt explain myself very with  "she doesnt lose any money for BH's that are not on those days as she wouldnt be working them anyway."  she doesnt lose any leave for days she wouldnt work normally is what i should have written.

Don't wonder, ask.

"We don't have cover otherwise" is a valid reason.  "We don't want to" is not.

it was more a rhetorical musing.  shes asked plenty of times and been told "its your day, nobody else wants to swap, sorry".  so its a cover issue.
 

She may be able to request unpaid leave. 

asked and been denied.
 
Assuming 31 days holiday = 248 hrs, and 16 hr = 2/5ths of full time then the allowance would be 99.2 hrs - so that seems to work out (I'm sure there is no need to stress about the missing 12 minutes). 
thanks for the confirmation that its there or thereabouts then.  i guess whats still puzzling is that looking at her info for last year, this year and next year, her allowance is slightly different by a few hours each year.  thats what made me wonder whether PH's have already been factored in, hence more or fewer hours depending on how many fall on her workdays that particular year.
 
ive advised my wife to check her full-time workmates terms, see what their allowance/pro-rata numbers are to compare, and also to follow up with a request to HR to explain it all.  whether she will or not i dont know, she tends to accept things more than me rather than make waves.  im like a dog with a bone when i get my teeth into something.  they say opposites attract 🙂
 
thanks everyone, i appreciate the input.
 
 
Posted : 10/04/2025 6:38 am
 poly
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The trick to maximising her leave is to make the family holidays include the BHs.

the variation in previous years may be because as she works Sats she accrues extra hours or because the government magicked up extra BH and employers felt they had to provide or be seen as evil/unpatriotic!

 
Posted : 10/04/2025 8:28 am
 rsl1
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Has she ever asked whether she can just work the Tuesday instead in the week with the bank holiday Monday? I have Fridays off but will be working next Friday in place of easter Monday, to save holiday. Sure it feels a bit cheeky but if you don't ask you don't get, and it's not like the rest of the job market is rigged in favour of employees. 

 
Posted : 10/04/2025 8:35 am
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HMRC have 60k staff, thousands of whom are part time, and we still get it wrong. Asking to double check something is not a capital crime.

Yes but the private sector can't operate like the public sector, infringements can cost us real money whereas public sector failures cost 'wooden dollars'...

I work for an equivalent retail organisation, the HR systems are set up very tightly, they have to be we employ nearly 200k in the UK.

 
Posted : 10/04/2025 8:36 am
 poly
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Posted by: rsl1

Has she ever asked whether she can just work the Tuesday instead in the week with the bank holiday Monday? I have Fridays off but will be working next Friday in place of easter Monday, to save holiday. Sure it feels a bit cheeky but if you don't ask you don't get,

 

she works in retail- unless there’s some reason the day after BH is busier than usual then why would they want to do that?  

I have a number of staff who work four days and think it would be great to swap the non working day to Friday and following Monday everytime they want a long weekend then get to end of the year and have “loads of holiday left” - so we strongly discourage managers from agreeing to this.

and it's not like the rest of the job market is rigged in favour of employees.
mmm… I don’t want to sound like a Tory but I’m old enough to remember before the minimum wage, minimum holiday, shared parental leave, flexible working, pension entitlement etc…  

 

 
Posted : 10/04/2025 10:40 am