Annual leave for variable hours staff

Variable hours staff accrue annual leave instead of being paid in lieu of leave as they would do if they were on a casual contract. However the issue then arises how can this possibly be calculated?

It can be calculated retrospectively based on the number of hours worked by a member of staff over a finite period of time and taking this as a proportion of an equivalent full time, annual leave entitlement for a position on the same job evaluation grade and length of continuous service. To do this line managers need to keep up-to-date and accurate records of the on-going number of hours claimed by their staff and over what precise time periods.

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Calculation formula

Examine over the contract period completed to date the time (in hours) that a person has worked. Annual leave allocation for support staff, for example, with less than 3 years continuous service is 25 days per annum which is 185 hours plus 13 bank holidays and concessionary days which is 96 hours. The total leave allocation in hours for a full time member of staff working 52 weeks per year is 185 hours + 96 hours = 281 hours. This means for each hour of work performed a person will earn 281/52weeks/37 hours = 0.1460498 hours of annual leave which is 8.8 minutes of annual leave for each hour worked.

	Up to 3 years service	3 to 5 years service	6 to 8 years service	9 or more years service
AL in hours	185	192	200	207
BH and Concessionary days in hours	96	96	96	96
Total AL, BH and Concessionary Days in hours	281	288	296	303
Proportion of hours earned as AL for each hour worked	0.146	0.150	0.154	0.157
No of minutes earned for each hour worked	8.8	9.0	9.2	9.4

Up to 3 years continuous service: Multiply 8.8 by the number of hours worked to find out how many minutes of annual leave have been earned.
3 to 5 years continuous service: Multiply 9.0 by the number of hours worked to find out how many minutes of annual leave have been earned.
6 to 8 years continuous service: Multiply 9.2 by the number of hours worked to find out how many minutes of annual leave have been earned.
9 or more years continuous service: Multiply 9.4 by the number of hours worked to find out how many minutes of annual leave have been earned.

Scenario 1

A Student Ambassador (SA) works 12 weeks of the forthcoming semester. And during that time, does 150 hours work. This SA then asks for annual leave with pay over Xmas and wants to know how much they have?

Leave earned per hour * no. of hours worked = leave entitlement

8.8 minutes * 150 = 1320 minutes = 22 hours leave.

Scenario 2

A Support Worker has worked part way through the semester and worked over 6 weeks; and during that time they have worked a lot less than was originally intended (only 25 hours). This worker then informs you that they want to know if they have accrued any paid leave at all as they’d like to attend an event?

Leave earned per hour * no. of hours worked = leave entitlement

8.8 minutes * 25 = 220 minutes = 3.66 hours leave.

Scenario 3

A Student Ambassador (SA) was given a seven and a half month fixed term, variable hours contract for the period 25/09/2006 – 18/05/2007 (the 2006/07 academic year) which equates to 33 weeks. This SA has done a lot of hours worked - 330. This SA then asks for all the annual leave with pay that they have accrued to pay for their summer holiday and wants to know how much they have?

Leave earned per hour * no. of hours worked = leave entitlement

8.8 minutes * 330 = 2904 minutes = 48.4 hours leave.

N.B. the length of the contract and the number of weeks do not influence the calculation, all you need to know is how many hours have been worked. Leave should only be taken once it has been accrued to ensure that staff are not in the position of owing the University money.

In conclusion

In the Excel spreadsheet annual leave calculation for variable hours staff, you will find all three of the above scenarios calculated and the formulas that are in place will enable you to calculate all leave entitlements simply by inputting the requisite data. For all these scenarios, the staff concerned would submit their usual claim form for the hours they wish to claim and line managers would sign them off and submit as normal. This seems the best practical approach to paying staff for accrued leave.

An Excel spreadsheet has been developed for those who wish to use it to record the hours and calculate the annual leave accrued for staff on variable hours contracts.