Holiday entitlement for part-time and casual staff

Q: How do I work out holiday entitlement for part-time and casual staff?

Working out holiday entitlement for a full-time employee is easy enough, but what about if they’re part time or a casual worker? Our team receives so many calls from salon owners regarding holiday allowances for part-time staff during the lead up to summer.

The vast majority of employees are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year – known as statutory annual leave entitlement. A part-time member of staff is also entitled to this but, because the hours worked are part time, the actual number of days they can take off is different.

You can work it out as follows. A full-time member of staff working a five-day week must receive 28 days’ annual leave per year (five days multiplied by 5.6). A part-time member of staff working three days a week will be entitled to 16.8 days of annual paid leave (three days multiplied by 5.6). In practical terms, this means rounding up the number of days to 17.

One common area of confusion is whether bank holidays should be included as part of the 28 days. The answer is that it’s most common for employers to include bank holidays as part of their calculations so that they do not inadvertently give the entitlement of 28 days in addition to the eight bank holidays (nine in Scotland).

Either way, it’s at the employer’s discretion. But, however you decide to stand on bank holidays and annual leave entitlement, it will need to be clearly outlined within a contract of employment so that the employee is fully aware.

Hilary Hall is chief executive of trade association the National Hairdressers’ Federation (NHF), which provides members with free access to business advice and employment law.