Greater holiday entitlement has significant implications for employers, according to guidelines from ACAS.
With statutory holiday entitlement having risen by four days on 1 October, both employers and employees now need to make some new calculations about holidays and pay.
Managers will need to inform their employees in writing about their increased annual allowance (up from four to 4.8 weeks a year) and again in April 2009 (when entitlement rises to 5.6 weeks a year).
Calculating entitlement
Part-time workers are entitled to the same holidays as full-time workers, calculated on a pro-rata basis. For example, an employee who works three days a week is entitled to 14.4 days' paid holiday - representing their normal week multiplied by 4.8.
For those staff who only work during term time, it will be a matter of calculating how many hours they work on average over the whole year.
For example, if the employee works 40 hours a week for 40 weeks of the year, they work a total of 1,600 hours a year. This is the equivalent of 33.3 hours a week over 48 weeks of the year (the four weeks of holiday under the Working Time Directive are excluded from the average working week calculations). The employee's holiday entitlement therefore is 4.8 weeks x 33.3 hours a week, equating to 160 hours holiday for the year.
Managing part-days
Holiday entitlements for some employees who work part-time may be made up of part-days - for example, 19.2 days for someone working four days a week. Employees whose leave year starts before or after 1 October may also have holiday entitlements made up of part-days. An employer can manage these by:
- taking the part-day off a day's shift (an employee leaves early or comes in late)
- rounding the time up to the nearest full day (the time cannot be rounded down)
- paying the employee for the part-day owed
- allowing the employee to carry over the part day to the next leave year.
As a temporary measure, employers can also pay employees in lieu of the additional days or part-days introduced this month (four days for a five-day week, 3.2 days for a four-day week and 2.4 for a three-day week). From 1 April 2009, payment in lieu cannot be provided for anything less than 5.6 weeks (28 for full-time).
The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has a ready reckoner to help employers work out holiday entitlement. See 'Holidays' section at www.ber.gov.uk.
Employment relations service ACAS has produced a guide, 'Holidays and holiday pay', which is available free online to businesses and employees at www.acas.org.uk.
