Within your organisation, there may be different terms and conditions between groups of employees for annual leave. Therefore, you may need to have multiple holiday entitlement schemes to establish full time entitlement. A particular scheme can then be applied to an individual employee.
Note: Although the starting point of an entitlement is the full time, full year entitlement for all employees, a pro rata calculation may then be applied to this full entitlement for part time employees and starters and leavers within an entitlement period.
When the holiday period does not encompass a full year (ie. when an employee starts or leaves mid-year), then the allowance needs to have a pro rata calculation applied. This will be based on calendar days and is not related to the employee’s work pattern.
Example: The holiday year runs from 01/01/2019 to 31/12/2019. A new employee starts on 10/05/2019. The full time entitlement is entered as 35 days, with a start date of 01/05/2019 and an end date of 31/12/2019, and then calculated. The period pro rata takes the calendar days in the period (236) divided by the calendar days in the year beginning with the start of the allowance. This gives a factor of 0.65.
Legislative basis
Cintra iQ calculates your holiday entitlement based on the proportion of days you work compared to the total days in a holiday year. This means if your employment starts after the holiday year begins, your entitlement is adjusted to reflect the remaining days. Similarly, if you leave mid-year, your entitlement is based on the days you worked up to your leave date.
An example is included in this article: How are holiday entitlements calculated for starters and leavers?
This approach follows the guidelines set out in the Working Time Regulations 1998 (“WTR”), specifically Provision 13A(5) Where the date on which a worker’s employment begins is later than the date on which his first leave year begins, the additional leave to which he is entitled in that leave year is a proportion of the period applicable under paragraph (2) equal to the proportion of that leave year remaining on the date on which his employment begins.
(Paragraph (2) referenced above relates to entitlement prior to 2009)
The Working Time Regulations 1998 (legislation.gov.uk)
According to this provision, if you start or leave partway through a holiday year, your entitlement is calculated as a proportion of the full year's leave, corresponding to the time you were employed and this is how Cintra iQ calculates holiday entitlement.
Leave during the first year of employment
The WTR includes Provision 15A which relates to the amount of leave a worker make take during their first year of employment. This is different from their holiday entitlement.
It is important to note that Cintra iQ does not calculate this accrual of holiday (i.e., the 1/12th of holiday allowance that a worker make take each month). This is not the focus of our system which calculates holiday entitlement for the relevant holiday year based on the proportion of the year worked.
The Working Time Regulations 1998, under Regulation 13A, confirm that if your employment starts later in the year, you are entitled to a proportionate amount of holiday based on the remaining days in the holiday year. Regulation 15A governs how holiday accrues monthly to inform how much holiday a worker is able to take at any time during their first year of employment. Cintra iQ does not implement this calculation.
15A.—(1) During the first year of his employment, the amount of leave a worker may take at any time in exercise of his entitlement under regulation 13 [F2 or regulation 13A] is limited to the amount which is deemed to have accrued in his case at that time under paragraph (2) [F3 or (2A)], as modified under paragraph (3) in a case where that paragraph applies, less the amount of leave (if any) that he has already taken during that year.
The Working Time Regulations 1998 (legislation.gov.uk)
Note: Company policy may differ from the approach used by Cintra iQ. Cintra iQ's system is designed to calculate your entitlement based on the time worked, not to manage the accrual in the first year of employment.