Easily Work Out Pro-Rata Annual Leave and Bank Holiday Entitlement

Planning ahead is vital, and with nearly a full month of 2023 in the rear-view mirror, now is the time to get on top of your calendar. We all need something to look forward to, so get in early and make the most of your leave this year.

When it comes to managing staff, tracking their annual leave can be stressful, especially when it comes to the intricacies of each individual member of staff. Every employee will be entitled to ‘X’ number of days of annual leave, as stated in their contract. The statutory minimum entitlement is 5.6 weeks (including bank holidays), which works out to 28 days paid leave for employees who work a 5-day week.

Although, running a business isn’t quite that simple. What about part time staff, or those who work flexible hours? Bank holidays tend to always fall on a Monday, so keep in mind any employees who don’t typically work on Monday’s, and ones who always do.

You can make things a lot easier for yourself by simply converting entitled days off into hours. This makes it much more straightforward to input and track on a spreadsheet for each employee. Not only does this help you, but it helps your employee by clearly showing them how many days annual leave they have remaining.

Take into consideration whether or not employees automatically have bank holidays off. Some offices may have a necessary close down over the Christmas period – if this applies to you, make sure this is also included. The final column in the spreadsheet should show a running total of the hours remaining that each employee has to take.

Remember to convert the fractions of hours to decimal. (ie 15 mins = 0.25 hours, 30 mins = 0.5 hours and 45 mins = 0.75 hours).

Subscribe to our newsletter to download your own copy of our annual leave tracker spreadsheet, which is pre-formatted to work the calculations out for you.

Formula: Pro-rata annual leave entitlement = PT weekly hours/5 (days per week) x FTE annual leave entitlement (in days) FTE bank holiday entitlement = Number of bank holidays x average daily hours Pro-rata bank holiday leave = FTE bank holiday entitlement x (PT weekly hours/FTE weekly hours)

Example One – Employee works 22.5 hours over 3 equal days (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday)   Pro-rata annual leave entitlement = 22.5 weekly hours x 5 weeks annual leave entitlement = 112.5 hours annual leave. FTE bank holiday entitlement = 8 bank holidays x 7.5 hours per day = 60 hours Pro-rata bank holiday leave = FTE bank holiday entitlement (60 hours) x (22.5 weekly hours/37.5 FTE weekly hours) = 60 x 0.6 = 36 hours of bank holiday leave.

Example Two – Employee works 17.5 hours over 3 unequal days (Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday) Pro-rata annual leave entitlement = 17.5 weekly hours x 5 weeks annual leave entitlement = 87.5 hours annual leave. FTE bank holiday entitlement = 8 bank holidays x 7.5 hours per day = 60 hours Pro-rata bank holiday leave = FTE bank holiday entitlement (60 hours) x (17.5 weekly hours/37.5 FTE weekly hours) = 60 x 0.4667 = 28 hours of bank holiday leave (rounded up).

2023 Bank Holidays:

• Friday 7^th April – Good Friday
• Monday 10^th April – Easter Monday
• Monday 1^st May – Early May bank holiday
• Monday 8^th May – Bank Holiday for the coronation of King Charles III
• Monday 29^th May – Spring bank holiday
• Monday 28^th August – Summer bank holiday
• Monday 25^th December – Christmas Day
• Tuesday 26^th December – Boxing Day