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In recognition of how staff have continued their work over the past year in challenging circumstances, the Executive recently announced two extra minimum service days (31 March and 7 April) over the long Spring vacation weekend, in addition to the two existing minimum service days on 1 April and 6 April. The annual leave calculator has been updated to reflect this.

For staff who have worked full time at the University for a number of years, calculating their holiday is a relatively simple activity.

But if you have just joined; work part time; changed your hours or working pattern part way through a year; or if there is additional time given, you might want to work out what leave you should take.

The benefits of taking time off work are well-known and, for many, the last 12 months have brought this sharply into focus. Calculating holiday should also be a fair process for everyone.

To support colleagues, for many years HR have provided an annual leave calculator; a tool that can assist in calculating how much holiday they can take if they work part time and/or have not worked for the whole year.

Principles

The total amount of annual leave entitlement for all employees is set out in the relevant terms and conditions. These are published on the HR website. This entitlement is stated as the entitlement for a full-time member of staff.

Where a person joins and/or leaves the University part way through the year, there is the need to ensure that this factor is taken into consideration when calculating the correct amount of annual leave.

Where a person works part time, any annual leave, bank holiday and minimum service day entitlement needs to be proportionate to the number of hours they work when compared with that of a full-time member of staff.

So if someone works 50% of the time of a full-time employee, their entitlement would be 50% of the same colleague; the pro rata principle. In addition, an individual must be employed at a particular time to be entitled to a specific bank holiday or minimum service day; for example, an employee who joins the University on 4 January would not be entitled to the bank holidays and minimum service days taken over the Christmas period.

Calculating the bank holiday and minimum service day entitlement can be tricky for some part-time workers, particularly where they do not work every day or if they work a different number of hours on each day that they do work.

Firstly, there is the need to calculate the entitlement. Secondly, there is the need to identify the amount of time the individual would have worked if it were not for the bank holiday or minimum service day. And thirdly, it needs to be established if, as a consequence of not working on the bank holiday or minimum service day, the pro-rata entitlement is sufficient.

Where an individual does not work five days per week and/or they do not work the same number of hours on each workday, it is recommended that the holiday entitlement is calculated and recorded in hours.

To get a single total entitlement, the recommended approach to this is to add together the total leave entitlement, including:

• annual leave entitlement
• bank holidays
• minimum service days

Having calculated the entitlement, the next step is to identify any bank holidays or minimum service days that the employee is/was due to work but did not; calculate the total number of hours that they did not work as result of the bank holidays or minimum service days; and deduct this amount from the single total entitlement. This will give the amount of leave that the individual can book as holiday in line with their workplace arrangements.

Additional minimum service days

In recent times, where the University has granted additional minimum service days, some colleagues have seen a reduction in the amount of holiday they can book when they choose. On the face of it, this might appear unfair, however, by tracking back through the calculations, it is clear that the entitlement to minimum service days has increased, but as a consequence of the individual's working pattern, the amount of time that the individual would have worked if it were not for the additional minimum service days has also proportionally increased. To cover this shortfall the amount of their entitlement that they could book as holiday has reduced.

If employees had pre-booked holiday on a date which then became a minimum service day then you can remove this holiday from wherever you book and/or record holiday and add the day or hours back to your total of leave still to book. Employees will not lose annual leave entitlement due to the additional minimum service days being awarded.

Online calculator tool

To make all these calculations easier you can use our online calculator tool. This spreadsheet has been set up to take account of a persons contracted hours and individual working pattern as well as when they are working.

If you have any questions about your leave entitlement, in the first instance please speak to your manager.