Know how much holiday to give your staff

Calculating the increased holiday entitlement for different leave years and new starters

On 1 April 2009, workers became entitled to an extra 0.8 weeks' holiday.

Therefore, if their current leave year began before 1 April 2009, you will have to recalculate your workers' statutory holiday entitlement based on the number of months in the leave year falling after 1 April.

For example, if their leave year runs from 1 January to 31 December 2009, your staff are entitled to nine months worth of the additional entitlement - an extra 0.6 weeks:

(0.8 ÷ 12) x 9 = 0.6

If their leave year runs from 1 October 2008 to 30 September 2009, your staff are entitled to six months' worth of the additional entitlement - an extra 0.4 weeks:

(0.8 ÷ 12) x 6 = 0.4

New starters

Workers whose leave year is tied to your business' leave year and who start working for you part-way through it are entitled to paid leave proportionate to the rest of that leave year.

If a worker started before 1 April 2009, their holiday entitlement for the first year will be the proportion of a full year they worked before 1 April 2009, multiplied by 4.8 weeks, plus the proportion of a full year that they will work after 1 April 2009, multiplied by 5.6 weeks.

For example, a worker started on 1 March 2009 and their leave year ends on 31 December 2009. Their holiday entitlement is (4 weeks ÷ 52) x 4.8 weeks = 0.37 weeks, plus (39 weeks ÷ 52) x 5.6 weeks = 4.2 weeks. This gives a total holiday entitlement of 4.57 weeks.

The whole of a worker's statutory leave entitlement exists from the beginning of each leave year. However, in their first year of their employment, you may restrict your workers to accruing leave monthly at the rate of one twelfth of the annual entitlement.

When leave years may start

You may decide to have one date when your business' leave year starts or have different start dates for individual workers (or groups of workers).

In the absence of written leave arrangements, a leave year will start:

on the date a worker's employment begins - if the worker started work after 1 October 1998
on 1 October - if the worker started work on or before 1 October 1998

Informing your staff of the changes

As the increase in holiday on 1 April 2009 is a beneficial change in the terms and conditions of employment for the worker, there is no need to reissue contracts. However, you do need to let staff know about the increased entitlement in writing, eg through a staff letter.

Using the links below, you can download a template letter, example staff notice and model paragraph for an employment contract that can be edited and used to inform workers.

Subjects covered in this guide

Introduction
Statutory paid holiday entitlement
Payment for holiday
Calculating the increased holiday entitlement for different leave years and new starters
Calculating holiday entitlement for atypical workers
Holiday entitlement for employees on other statutory leave
Pay and time off on public and bank holidays
Taking holiday - notice periods, restrictions and sickness
Holiday pay on termination of employment
Here's how I manage staff annual leave

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