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Holiday Entitlements

Getting holiday entitlements right is a legal obligation, and getting them wrong can result in costly tribunal claims. StaffBrik handles the calculations automatically - including pro-rata adjustments for part-time workers and mid-year starters - so you can be confident your team is getting what they are owed.

UK Statutory Holiday Entitlement​

Under UK law, all workers are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday per year. For a full-time employee working 5 days a week, this equates to 28 days (including bank holidays).

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The 28-day figure includes bank holidays. There is no separate statutory right to bank holidays on top of the 5.6-week entitlement - though many employers choose to offer them in addition. StaffBrik lets you configure whether bank holidays are included in or added to the base entitlement.

Pro-Rata Calculation​

Part-Time Workers​

Part-time employees receive holiday entitlement proportionate to their hours. StaffBrik calculates this automatically.

Full time means five working days of your Hours per day (set in StaffBrik Settings). If your working day is 7.5 hours, someone contracted for 37.5 hours a week is full time and gets the full 28 days (210 hours). With an 8-hour working day, full time is 40 hours a week.

Example: A cafe assistant works 3 days a week.

  • Full-time entitlement: 28 days
  • Pro-rata: 28 x (3 ÷ 5) = 16.8 days

Changing only Hours per day keeps your default allowance and your carry-over cap the same number of days: 28 days stays 28 days, and the hours behind it move with the new day length. Allowances StaffBrik works out are then recalculated from the new figures, and allowances you have set by hand stay as they are.

Zero-hours and casual staff work irregular hours, so they have no fixed allowance. Their holiday builds up at 12.07% of the hours they work instead, and StaffBrik adds it to their hourly cost (see Zero-Hours and Casual Staff).

Six or Seven Days a Week​

Statutory holiday is 5.6 weeks, capped at 28 days. StaffBrik counts at most five days a week towards it, so someone who works six or seven days a week gets 28 days rather than more, each at their own day length.

Example: A kitchen assistant works 48 hours over 6 days a week.

  • Without the cap: 48 ÷ 40 x 28 days of 8 hours = 268.8 hours.
  • With the cap: 28 days of 8 hours (48 ÷ 6) = 224 hours.

Qualifying days set the number of days a week, so keep them accurate on the employee's profile.

Mid-Year Starters​

Employees who join partway through your holiday year receive a proportionate entitlement for the remainder of the year.

Example: Your holiday year runs January to December. A new waitress starts on 1st April.

  • Remaining months: 9 out of 12
  • Full-time entitlement: 28 days
  • Pro-rata: 28 x (9 ÷ 12) = 21 days for the remainder of the year

The month they start in counts in full, even if they join partway through it, and the result is rounded up to the nearest half day. You can round holiday up, but never down. This matches the GOV.UK holiday entitlement calculator.

Example: A barista on 38 hours over 5 days starts on 14th September, with a January to December holiday year.

  • Remaining months: September to December, 4 out of 12
  • Pro-rata: 28 x (4 ÷ 12) = 9.33 days, rounded up to 9.5 days
  • In hours: 9.5 x 7.6 hours a day = 72.2 hours

StaffBrik calculates this automatically based on the employee's start date and your configured holiday year. When you add a new employee, the current year balance is pre-filled with this figure, and you can change it if they have already taken holiday or are bringing some over.

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StaffBrik picks the method from the employment type: contracted staff get a fixed allowance, and zero-hours and casual staff build up holiday at 12.07% of the hours they work. For seasonal staff or those on short or irregular hours, the 12.07% method is usually simpler and fairer.

When Someone's Hours Change​

Allowances follow the employee's terms. When someone's contracted hours, working days, employment type or start date change, whether you edit them in StaffBrik or the change arrives from a Xero payroll sync, their allowance for the current holiday year and any later years is updated straight away.

  • Hours or employment type change part way through the year. Holiday already built up at the old hours is kept, and the rest of the year is worked out at the new hours, as GOV.UK and Acas advise. This applies whether or not the working days change too.
  • A correction. A corrected start date, new working days on their own, or contracted hours entered for the first time are treated as fixing the record, so the whole year is worked out again on the new details.
  • Later holiday years are always worked out again in full on the new terms.

Example: A barista goes from 40 to 20 hours a week a quarter of the way into the holiday year. Their allowance was 224 hours. They keep the quarter built up at 40 hours (56 hours) and the remaining three quarters are worked out at 20 hours (84 hours), so their allowance becomes 140 hours.

Allowances you have set by hand for someone are never changed, and nor are past holiday years, where the holiday has already been taken and settled.

Changing the default allowance in StaffBrik Settings works the same way: every allowance StaffBrik has worked out moves to the new default, from the current holiday year on, and allowances set by hand stay as they are.

Holiday Year Configuration​

Your holiday year does not have to follow the calendar year. Many hospitality businesses align it with their financial year or a quieter trading period.

You can configure the holiday year start date in StaffBrik Settings:

  • Start month and start day (e.g. 1st April, 6th April, 1st September).
  • Entitlement in days for a full-time employee (default: 28).
  • Hours per day used for converting between days and hours (e.g. 8 hours).

Changing the holiday year start​

You can change the start date at any time. Before it is saved, StaffBrik asks "Change the holiday year start?" and shows the dates the holiday year you are in now will run between, and what happens to balances:

  • Approved holiday is recounted in the holiday year each day falls in under the new dates, so holiday booked ahead can move to next year's balance.
  • Holiday already taken this year stays taken. Where days move to or from a year that has already ended, the difference shows as an adjustment on that person's balance. You can change the adjustment if you want to give the part-year its own allowance.
  • Allowances StaffBrik works out are recalculated for the new dates. Carry-over and allowances you have set by hand stay as they are.
  • The next carry-over date is shown, so you know when untaken holiday will next roll over.

Click Change holiday year to go ahead, or Cancel to keep the current dates.

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Changing the start date is simplest just before a new holiday year begins, when there is little booked ahead to move. Check a few balances afterwards, especially for anyone with holiday booked around the old or new start date.

Used vs Remaining Days​

StaffBrik tracks holiday usage in real time. For each employee, you can see:

  • Total entitlement - their full annual allowance (pro-rated if applicable).
  • Used - days/hours already taken.
  • Pending - days/hours in requests still waiting for approval.
  • Remaining - what is left for the rest of the year.

Holiday that crosses the start of your holiday year is split by day: the days before the start count against the old year, and the days from the start against the new one. Pending only counts days in the year you are looking at, here and in the Team App, so a booking that runs into next year does not eat into this year's balance.

In the Team App, staff see how much they have "available after pending requests", and how many hours are "waiting for approval", so they know what is really left before they ask for more.

This information is visible on:

  • The employee's profile page.
  • The Time Off section when reviewing requests (so you can see at a glance whether someone has enough days left).
  • The Time Off Report.

Carryover​

UK law does not require employers to allow holiday carryover, but many do - and in some circumstances (e.g. long-term sickness preventing an employee from taking holiday), you may be legally required to permit it.

StaffBrik supports configurable carryover:

  • Maximum carryover days - set a cap on how many unused days can roll into the next year (e.g. 5 days).
  • Carryover expiry - optionally set a deadline by which carried-over days must be used (e.g. within 3 months of the new holiday year).

Untaken holiday carries over automatically on your own holiday year start date, whatever that date is (1 January, 1 April, 1 September or any other). There is nothing to run at year-end. If the carry-over cannot run on the day for any reason, it catches up the next day.

Carried-over days appear separately in the entitlement breakdown so you can distinguish between current-year and rolled-over entitlement.

Adjusting a Balance​

Owners, admins and members can change someone's balance from the Time Off tab on their profile with Edit (viewers do not see it). The Adjust Balance dialog works in that person's own working day and says how long it is, so a day for someone on 3 days of 6 hours is 6 hours. It shows the stored adjustment exactly, and saving without changing anything keeps it as it was. There is no reason field.

If someone is archived before the start date and you restore them afterwards, they keep their carry-over.

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Under the Working Time Regulations, the first 4 weeks of entitlement (20 days for full-time) have stronger carryover protections than the additional 1.6 weeks (8 days). If an employee is unable to take holiday due to sickness or maternity leave, those 20 days must be allowed to carry over regardless of your normal policy.

Zero-Hours and Casual Staff​

Zero-hours and casual staff work irregular hours. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, holiday for irregular-hours workers builds up at 12.07% of the hours they work, rather than as a fixed yearly allowance.

Where does 12.07% come from?

  • 5.6 weeks of holiday ÷ 46.4 working weeks (52 weeks minus 5.6 weeks) = 12.07%.

Example: A casual kitchen assistant has worked 200 hours so far this holiday year.

  • Holiday built up: 200 x 12.07% = 24.14 hours

StaffBrik handles this through their pay rather than an allowance:

  • No fixed allowance. They have no yearly allowance and no balance to carry over into the next year. Their Time Off tab explains that their holiday is handled via payroll, and the Time Off Report shows "Holiday paid in hourly rate" instead of an allowance. In the Team App they see "Your holiday pay is included in your hourly rate, so there's no allowance to count down." instead of a balance, and the Holiday option when they request time off says the same.
  • Holiday pay is in their hourly cost. By default, 12.07% is added to the cost of every shift they work (Include holiday accrual in shift cost on the Pay & Tax step), together with the employer NI and pension on it. The rota, budgets and reports include their holiday pay as they work.
  • Booking holiday. Their holiday pay has already been counted in their shift costs, so holiday they book is costed as unpaid, however it is booked, and is never counted twice. If you switch the option off for someone, their holiday is costed when they take it instead. A new pay rate keeps their choice when the form does not set it, so a pay rise never quietly drops holiday from their cost.
  • Changing employment type. Moving someone between contracted and zero-hours or casual changes how their holiday is paid from that day. Holiday pay stops or starts being added to their hourly cost from today, and their allowance is worked out from the change (see When Someone's Hours Change). The employee form says so before you save.
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Paying holiday as it builds up is the simplest approach for variable-hours staff, because their holiday grows in direct proportion to the hours they actually work.