Non-motoring > Apportioning Leave. Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Bromptonaut Replies: 17

 Apportioning Leave. - Bromptonaut
A first world and pre-pandemic issue but I'm getting my head in knot sorting out leave calculations for a part time worker.

Full time leave is 25 days contractual plus 8 days Bank/Public Holidays so total of 33 days. A full timer's five day week is 37 hours on which basis a working day is 7.4 hours that's hours and decimal fraction, not minutes.

The part timer in question works 24 hours over 3 days so 8 hours a day. So based on days you'd say 33/37*24 = 21.405 so say 21.5 days.

However using hours (which was my former employer's practice for people not conditioned to five days of equal length) seems to give a different result.

For a full timer 33 days of 7.4 hours = 244.2 hours.

Apportion that in same way divide by 37 and multiply by 24 and you get 158.4 hours. Cross checking that for days - dividing by 8 - gives 19.8 days.

Whichever is preferred neither employer or employee is going to die in a ditch over a day and a half. I'm just trying to understand why the answers are different.

For clarity, this relates to colleagues not clients.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 28 Jan 21 at 12:15
 Apportioning Leave. - Manatee
If you multiply something by 7.4 then divide it by 8 you will get a smaller number than you started with.

You need to decide whether they are working 3 days or 3 and a bit days - if they are working 24 hours and a day is 7.4 hours then they are working 3 and a bit.
 Apportioning Leave. - Fullchat
The figures you are presenting are very similar to what I was working before I retired.

For a 5 day worker it was 7.4 + 0.6 for lunch break (unpaid).

For me on 3 days it was 7.5 hrs + 0.5 for lunch. Total 22.5 working hours.

My supervisor excelled in doing all the maths over leave calculations and time due and was very good at it but also made a career out of it.

My experience is that some are prepared to die in a ditch if they think they are losing out.

Its a whole load easier to work annual leave out for all workers in hours to make it transparent.
 Apportioning Leave. - Rudedog
Part of the reason where I am in the NHS we have gone to leave calculated in hours.
 Apportioning Leave. - smokie
That's unusual (or maybe it isn't). Can you take it in hours, e.g. if you want to leave work an hour early one day?)
 Apportioning Leave. - sooty123
My wife's leave is worked out in hours, bit different at first thinking in hours but actually it's easier for part time staff.
 Apportioning Leave. - Rudedog
Yes, and that's one of the reason why... it's easier to use up your allocation by taking the odd hour here and there than a whole day, as it is this year where I am and the trusts around me are allowing us to carry twenty days over into next year due to the staffing pressures from cv19, there's even talk of us being able to sell some leave back..

 Apportioning Leave. - Bromptonaut
>> That's unusual (or maybe it isn't). Can you take it in hours, e.g. if you
>> want to leave work an hour early one day?)

There were a few people in my Civil Service department who worked patterns other than the standard 36 hours over 5 days. Some were compressed hours, 36 hours in four days. Others worked fewer hours and in days of differing lengths to suit family/childcare or whatever.

Their leave was counted in hours.

I *think* if they wanted leave it would normally be expected to be in portions equal to the half day that was the regulating unit for staff on normal hours. Their conditioned hours were mostly based on flexi-time so an extra hour here or there could be dealt with by that.
 Apportioning Leave. - No FM2R
Back in the 70s when I worked in insurance we worked flexitime, which was obviously in hours, and so our leave was calculated in hours though the allocation was in days.

It was very accurate, but kind of lost the spirit of partnership between employee and employer. Not that there was much of that anyway in the composite insurance companies. Very much rules based. About as close to working in the Civil Service without actually doing so I think.

But it's been a very long time since leave allocation mattered to me, or hours for that matter. Late 80s I guess.
 Apportioning Leave. - Fullchat
The sort of people who would die in a ditch also walked out of the door bang on finish time day in day out. Fidgeting and looking at their watches.
I don't know how they did it. I often 'gave a bit for the queen' just to finish off or prep for the next day. I don't think my time management was bad more of pride in what I did and having things sorted to start the next day with a clean slate.
Certainly working part time did not reduce schedules and planning pro rata.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Thu 28 Jan 21 at 15:00
 Apportioning Leave. - No FM2R
>>The sort of people who would die in a ditch also walked out of the door bang on finish time day in day out. Fidgeting and looking at their watches.

I remember that our flexi time had to be done to the nearest 5 minutes, so walking out at 2 minutes before the time was standard for most.

To be honest the advantage to me was that in those days I was so s*** at getting to work on time it kept me out of trouble. I've always been the type to finish what I'm doing so I used to make up my lateness minutes easily and often get a free day off.

Ridiculously the company forced it upon us, and the employees didn't want it, fought it in fact. But it was *entirely* to the advantage of the employee.
 Apportioning Leave. - Bromptonaut
>> The sort of people who would die in a ditch also walked out of the
>> door bang on finish time day in day out.

County Courts were like that but you couldn't leave until the Cash EO had balanced the books for the day. As soon as the balance was struck they'd be off like a shot; one Chief Clerk likened it to the Keystone Kops.

If it got to ten minutes past and their was a discrepancy they'd be standing round in their coats muttering.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 28 Jan 21 at 15:44
 Apportioning Leave. - tyrednemotional
>>
>> County Courts were like that but you couldn't leave until the Cash EO had balanced
>> the books for the day. As soon as the balance was struck they'd be off
>> like a shot;

...my late cousin was in banking, eventually rising to be a senior manager.

He regularly told stories of the end of day balance, and the fact that, if they were out on cashing up, and the amount was between the bank's agreed "write off" (minimal) and a threshold agreed between the staff, then there would be a whip round to allow them to head off home.

Any daily surplus, of course, went into a kitty to set off against potential future shortfalls.
 Apportioning Leave. - sooty123
.
>>
>> Any daily surplus, of course, went into a kitty to set off against potential future
>> shortfalls.
>>

A 'floating reserve' used that a few times, not for cash though, can be pretty handy.
 Apportioning Leave. - Manatee
I worked in a bank for a while, including as a cashier. The kitty or 'float' as we called it was strictly not allowed but everybody had one because it was rare to balance to the penny. But most days everybody balanced by home time, with only a few shillings of adjustment.

For a while I worked in a really busy branch, with 13 tills and another 6 in the basement that received cash via Securicor from e.g supermarkets and the bus company. It was horrendously busy at the end of the week when the local council employees were paid, most of them by cheque. The council had its account with us and because the council's cheques were from Nat West, that was where they opened their accounts when they had been obliged to convert from cash payment. We were the biggest and busiest branch in town by miles.

There was a lot of swapping cash between tills, either change or bundles of notes, and occasionally the debit and credit slips didn't get written out and exchanged. The result was that you'd have one cashier say £500 up, and another £500 down. The smart thing to do at that point is to count the tills again rather than make an assumption. Only once did I make an immediate swap with another cashier. Sure enough I then found my error. By then I was £500 up and it was confession time. I never did it again.

I took myself off after being transferred to small branch in the boondocks - career death - as punishment for arguing about my annual appraisal.
 Apportioning Leave. - sooty123
>> The sort of people who would die in a ditch also walked out of the
>> door bang on finish time day in day out. Fidgeting and looking at their watches.
>> I don't know how they did it. I often 'gave a bit for the queen'
>> just to finish off or prep for the next day. I don't think my time
>> management was bad more of pride in what I did and having things sorted to
>> start the next day with a clean slate.
>> Certainly working part time did not reduce schedules and planning pro rata.
>>

I think for some they feel (right or wrong) that their employer would give them nothing for free so why should they give something in return for nothing?

For some/many work is something just to pay the bills nothing more nothing less.
 Apportioning Leave. - No FM2R
>>I think for some they feel (right or wrong) that their employer would give them nothing for free so why should they give something in return for nothing?

I think that is quite right.

The thing is, I was always looking for the next job up so doing a little bit more was going to help that.

The difference between a career and a job, I guess. Mostly, and eventually, I was lucky enough to have a career.

I remember my [mostly undeserved] promotion was from general worker to welder. To this day I remember how happy I was.
 Apportioning Leave. - No FM2R
Apropos of not much, thinking back about the days of flexi time I remember having to call those more senior to me "Mister [name]". Probably we'd have had to call senior women "Mrs [name]" but there weren't any.

I don't think I've even been called Mr. [name] by anyone who worked for me though at the MOD they referred to me as Mr. SO many years ago now though.
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