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Holiday Pay

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Epiphany74 | 12:18 Sat 19th Aug 2006 | Law
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(I posted this in Jobs and Ed too, but maybe this is a more appropriate section)

I have an employee who thinks I am paying her incorrectly for holidays. Can you help?

She does 16 hrs per week at �5.05 per hour. All staff get 18 days holidays plus 6 stat days per year paid. Everyone does a 5 day week.

What should her holiday pay per day be?
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i think it would be the average hours worked on a day times the amount she is paid per hour. eg
16 divided by 5 multiplied by �5.05. same way her normal wage divided by 5, whats her problem!
You provided lots of figures but there still seems to be something missing. In general, if someone takes a day off, as paid holiday, they should expect to receive the same pay as if they were at work on that day (excluding any overtime they might have worked).

Although you've stated that the employee works 16 hours per week, you haven't said how this is distributed. If your statement that 'everyone does a 5 day week' means that the employee works 3 hours 12 minutes per day, then a day's holiday pay should be equivalent to 3 hours 12 minutes pay. If, however, the employee works different hours on different days, things can start to get get really complicated! Further information, please!

In general, it would be better to think of things on a weekly basis. The employee normally receives �80.80 per week when they're at work. If you continue to pay the employee �80.80 for each week which includes paid holidays, both you and the employee should be able to see that everything is fair.

Chris
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The employee works 8 hrs on a Monday and 8 hrs on a Tuesday.. The question arose over a statutory day that fell on a Wednesday. All my employees were paid for the stat day, pro rata. So a full time member of staff got 6hrs and this member of staff got 3.5hrs. She reckons it should be 5.5 hrs. Citizens Advice worked this out for her and provided a print out that says: The Employment Appeal Tribunal has decided that a workers daily rate of holiday pay should be calculated by dividing her annual salary by the number of working days in the leave year. I'm not even sure what that means, never mind how to calcalculate it. Any thoughts?
(Multi-part post):

OK, I'm confused. There is no such thing as a statutory day's holiday.

If your employee works 2 days per week, then her only legal entitlement is to 4 x 2 = 8 days of paid holiday per year. The employer is free to determine when these can be taken and, as long as the employee receives those 8 days of paid holiday, the employer is not obliged to operate the same policy for different employees.

Assuming some level of fairness though, if full-time employees get 24 days paid holiday per year, it would seem logical that this employee's total holiday entitlement should be 0.4 x 24 days = 9.6 days.

If your company is closed for bank holidays then, this year, this employee will have 7 days of her holiday dictated by the dates of those holidays. (That's because Christmas Day is on a Monday and Boxing Day is on a Tuesday. In year's where these days don't fall on either Monday or Tuesday, only 5 days of the employee's hoilday entitlement would be 'fixed').
So, the employee's only statutory entitlement is to receive 1 day of paid holiday this year (other than bank hoildays) to bring her up to the legal minimum of 8 days. Her only entitlement under a 'fair pro-rata' system is to receive bank holidays +2.6 days holiday. (2.6 days could either be rounded up to 3 to show the employer's generousity, or the employee could be given 2 days holiday and an aditional payment equivalent to 4 hours 48 minutes pay).

The system of calculation used by the CAB is designed for use solely where an employee works irregular hours. I'm amazed that they've tried to apply it here.
In about a week's time, I can guarantee that there will be lots of questions appearing on AB, asking about Bank Holiday pay. These come up every bank holiday. One of the most common questions is along the lines of "I work on Thurday & Friday each week. This week the firm will be closed on Monday for the bank holiday and my full-time colleagues are getting a day's pay. What am I entitled to?". The answer to that question is "Nothing". If the firm closes on a day when an employee wouldn't be working anyway, there's no entitlement to any pay for that period. Similarly, if your firm shuts on a Wednesday, any employee who only works on Mondays and Tuesdays is not entitled to any payment, so I can't see why this woman should get paid a penny.

I'm also not sure how you worked out that full-time employees should get 6 hours pay. Your full-time employees all have a legal entitlement to receive a minimum of 20 days paid holiday per year. The pay for each of these days should be the normal pay for that day (which I assume is 8 hours). If your company offers a contract which gives employees an additional 4 days holiday per year then, in the absence of any contractual terms which state otherwise, they should also expect to receive 8 hours pay on each of those days.
As I've already stated, the employee, with whom you're in dispute, has no legal right to receive any payment for a 'holiday' when they wouldn't have been working anyway. If, however, you do decide to give a pro rata payment (although I can't understand why you should) then assuming that full-time employees work for 40 hours per week, then a payment for 3.2 hours would seem to be the correct figure.

As I said at the start, much of the confusion seems to come from this strange idea of a 'statutory holiday'. There is no such thing. Employee's don't even have the right to take Christmas Day off (or to receive extra pay if they work on that day). The only statutory entitlement is to a certain number of days paid holiday per year, calculated as 4 x the number of days worked each week.

Chris
i thought you said she worked 5 days a week , thats what my figures were based on, or do you expect her to sometimes fill in on the other days when others are on holidays or absent (when it suits you)
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lastchance and Chris, thank you for your most comprehensive answers. Just to explain, here in NI we have 12th July as a Bank Holiday, and all businesses close that day. I took over a cafe in July and inherited the previous owners holiday planner. Staff receive 18 holdays to take when ever they please and 6 Bank Holidays (which I have called Statutory Days). As it's a cafe, the full time staff work an average of 30hrs per week (or a 6hr day). I have been told by Labour Relations that all staff (regardless of whether they would be rota'd to work on a given day or not) should be paid for all of the 6 Stat Days listed by the previous owner. Thanks for setting my mind at rest - I believe the 3.2 hrs to be the correct figure for this employee. Now I just have to figure out the best way to communicate this to her!

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