I run a 4 week rolling roster for my staff, with each 4 week block adding up to 160hrs worked (which over a year works out to be 173.33hrs a month, which is what we’re paid on each payday). I base it on hours worked rather than days worked as we’re a 7-day trading store with different hours on weekends then during the week, makes sense to me?

Anyhoo, my question is, how am I meant to account for Bank Holidays within this framework:

1) I can’t just put them down as days off as this would mean that staff would have to make up those hours at some point in the 160hr 4-week cycle, which isn’t correct, is it?

2)If I put them in as a normal working day and treat it as an ‘annual leave day’ (so the hours count towards the 160hr 4-week cycle but you don’t actually work them as it’s a day off!) then this means that in April/May I need to give everyone another 4 days off (in addition to the Bank Holidays)?

Which means we get not only the 4 Bank Holidays but also 35hrs (4 days) of time off as well (as each Bank Holiday is 8.5hrs work in my roster)? Is this right??

Help me make sense of this, I’m confused! 😕

Does your company holiday quota include bank holidays or not, is the first question?

If the answer is yes then I’d say that you just put the days down as annual leave.

If the answer is no, then there should be a separate code for bank holiday absences.

You should still have the normal rest days each week, as the bank holidays are holidays rather than rest days. If the holiday quota includes bank holidays, then the bank holiday can be treated as a rest day so the employee uses the holiday at another point, but I don’t think you can insist that they do that…

Any less confused?

I don’t see the problem. ignore that its a rota and just give it as a bank holiday like it is for anyone on a standard rota.

If its a 24 7 operation the standard seems to be that bank holidays are ignored as a holiday, but time worked on those days are paid double time.