Temp Workers - Bank Hols/Hol Pay

[ruthy1604]

Hi,
We have a temporary worker who started last week (6/12)to cover sick leave.
Currently we offer the statutory minimum 5.6 weeks holiday, whick is caluclated to accrue per hour worked. All our permenant staff get 25 days holiday plus paid bank holidays (which accrues over the year in the same way).

My first question is...is it OK to offer temporary workers less holiday than permanent workers?

Secondly, How do I work out her Christmas pay, given that our work shuts down from Xmas Day until the new year. All permanent employees save 3 days holiday for this. The holiday accrued for the 3 weeks worked before the shutdown will be 14 hours which is just less than 2 days. Can I pay just this, and leave the rest as unpaid leave?

Any help would be really appreciated.

Ruth

[ruthy1604]

Just Bumping to see if anyone has any views on this
Ruth

[Ian Congreave]

Very sorry for the delay in responding, we seem to have had some problems during the period the forum was being prepared to transfer to its new web address.

First of all, temporary workers who are engaged as employees (as opposed to being supplied by an agency) are protected by the Fixed-term Employees Regulations, and you are required to provide the same pay and benefits as are provided to permanent employees doing the same job, but pro-rata as appropriate. So, holiday entitlements must be the same as permanent staff doing the same job. There is guidance for employers at http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/ac ... 1081853623.

How you handle the holiday pay for Christmas is a contractual issue and depends on how the rules are defined in your employment contracts. The question to ask is, what would you do in the same situation for a permanent employee who started with you during December and had not accrued 3 days for the Christmas break? I suspect you would pay what holiday was available and not pay for one day. Another option is to pay up for the 3 days and hope the person stays long enough to accrue some more. Some contracts make provision for deducting "over-taken" holiday on termination.

[Joanne Jeffery]

I assume you have already resolved the query regarding their pay for Christmas 2010 but I hope this helps anyway. We have the same situation with Christmas holidays, we calculate the holidays based on the Part Time employees Full Time Equivalent.

You have not stated the PT person’s working pattern so assuming it is 5 days a week but only 20 hours their FTE would be 0.53 (20 hours / a FT working week 37.5)

A Full Time (FTE 1) person gets 28 days per year (excl Stats) and works 5 days per week.
A Part Time (FTE 0.53) person would get 14.84 days OR 15 days rounded up.

They would then be able to keep the 3 days required for Christmas 2011 and have 12 days remaining.