---
title: "Set up part-time employees"
slug: "how-to-set-up-part-time-employees"
description: "Learn how to configure Part Time employees' leave and work profiles in Cintra People HR for accurate annual leave and rota management."
updated: 2026-07-24T09:10:01Z
published: 2026-07-24T09:10:01Z
canonical: "help.cintra.co.uk/how-to-set-up-part-time-employees"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.cintra.co.uk/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Set up part-time employees

Who can do this:

**HR Manager**

**Administrator**

### Introduction

If you have part-time employees in your organisation, you'll need to configure them differently than full-time ones. This is so that they are given the correct amount of annual leave & their work pattern is configured correctly.

The calculations and information within this article are all guidelines for how you could set up your part-time employees within Cintra People HR.

### **Work patterns**

Part-time employees are normally offered a pro-rata amount of the full-time allowance. You should create a new work pattern for each part-time scenario you have in your organisation.

For example:

A company of 50 employees:

- 20 employees are full-time
- 10 employees work 3 days per week: Monday, Wednesday & Friday
- Five employees work 3 days per week: Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday
- Three employees work five days per week but reduced hours
- Two employees work two days per week

Work patterns now allow you to cater for more complex shift patterns, e.g.

- Employees who work a multi-week pattern (that repeats every four weeks)
- Employees who work a rolling shift pattern (e.g. 10 days on, 10 days off)

This would result in five work patterns: one for the full-time employees, and four different ones for the part-timers.

To ensure that part-time employee don’t automatically receive public holidays they’re not entitled to, you should create a suitable public holiday profile and assign it to them.

For more information, see [Guide: work patterns](/docs/guide-work-patterns) and [Public holiday profiles](/docs/managing-public-holidays)

### **Calculations**

To calculate the part-time equivalent Leave Allowance, there are 2 calculations that can be used.

**Calculation 1**: This can be used if your Part Time employees work the same number of hours in a day as full time employees, but a reduced number of days per week.

Using the examples above:

- 10 work 3 days per week: Monday, Wednesday & Friday
- 5 work 3 days per week: Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday
- 2 work 2 days per week

**Steps:**

1. Add Full Time allowance and Public Holidays together
2. Divide this by 5 (number of FT days per week) / 40 (number of FT hours per week)
3. Multiply this number by the number of days / hours the PT employees work

**Example**

Let's use an example of 22 days/176 hours FT annual leave & 8 days/64 hours Public Holidays, along with the 10 employees who work Monday, Wednesday & Fridays.

`22 + 8 = 30                                 176 + 64 = 240`

`30 / 5 = 6                                     240 / 40 = 6`

`6 x 3 = 18                                    6 x 24 = 144`

The Part Time employees should be granted 18 days / 144 hours annual leave, inclusive of their Public Holidays.

**Calculation 2**: This can be used for all Part Time employees, including those on reduced hours.

Where Part Time employees work the same number of days in a week as Full Time employees, but a reduced number of hours, you'll need to use above calculation, but change the days to hours.

**Steps:**

1. Add Full Time allowance and Public Holidays together
2. Multiply this by the number of hours in a day for Full Time
3. Divide this by 5 (the number of FT days per week)
4. Multiply this by hours in a day that the Part Time employees work - this will give you the allowance in hours

Optional - 5. Divide this by the hours in a day that the Full Time employees work - this will give you the allowance in days

**Example**

Still using the example of 22 days FT annual leave & 8 Public Holidays, let's say our employees work 8 hours a day, while our Part Time employees work 10 hours across the week.

- `22 + 8 = 30`
- `30 * 8 = 240`
- `240 / 5 = 48`
- `48 x 2 = 96`
- `Optional - 96 / 8 = 12`

The part time employees should be granted 96 hours / 12 days annual leave, inclusive of their Public Holidays.