Why your compressed hour work accrues 4/5th holiday days
You still work the same 40 hours, but instead of 5✖️8, it’s 4✖️10. So you’d think you’d still get the same 28 days a year. You’d also be wrong.
This applies to the UK, and the ammounts are correct as of writing this, though I am not an HR professional, and I am definitely not your HR professional, so all of this is information that I found out and I found helpful for myself. Not advice.
A year and a half ago I applied for compressed time, and when the HR rep responded with “hey, you know you’re only getting 4/5th of your holiday days, right?” I said I did not, and revoked my request.
At the time it felt unfair because I’m still working 40 hours, so why am I getting less holiday?
Turns out, gov.uk already has the answer, but actually understanding it took me a while. Here’s the link to the guidance, you want to look at 2.2: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/calculating-holiday-entitlement-for-workers/how-to-calculate-holiday-entitlement-for-workers-on-different-types-of-contract.
Let’s calculate!
Right now I’m working regular 5 day a week, 8 hours a day pattern, as most office / remote knowledge workers in the UK. That means I fall into the “Days per week” calculation, so my holiday entitlement is the lower of 28 days, or 5.6✖️days worked per week. That latter is 5.6 ✖️ 5 = 28, so I get the lower of 28 days or 28 days. Interestingly 28 days ✖️ 8 hours / day = 224 hours, this is how much leave I get.
If I move to a 4✖️10 working pattern, 2.1 in the guidance would no longer apply to me, so 2.2 it is. The entitlement is the same: the lower of 28 days, or 5.6✖️days worked per week. In this case, the days worked is 4, so 5.6✖️4 = 22.4. I get 22.4 days off.
22.4 also happens to be exactly 4/5ths of 28.
22.4 days of 10 hours a day also happens to be 224 hours, which, if you refer back to about 7 lines above, is the same as 28 days of 8 hours a day.
Therefore
I get the same amount of holiday entitlement in both cases. The difference is that it’s not “days I can have for myself,” but rather “hours I can not spend working for The Man™.”
Hope this helps.
Photo by Chen Mizrach on Unsplash