Dealing with increase to employee's working hours

If you agree to a part-time employee permanently increasing their hours of work, you must ensure you properly address any changes to their employment terms that are consequent on that increase. What do you need to do?

Written confirmation of increase

Sometimes part-time staff ask to increase their working hours. If you agree to this request, you will wish to treat it as a request of this nature. You could use a statutory flexible working request to apply (to increase their hours). It's relevant to explain that part-time staff have protections, but legally they are unlikely to do this as they probably won't view their request as for flexible working. Whatever their wording, you will be agreeing to their request. You should confirm your agreement in writing.

Tip. Issuing a letter confirming the hours increase will also ensure you comply with the Employment Rights Act 1996. This requires that if there's a written statement of change where any change is made to an employee's written statement of employment particulars, this must be given no later than one month after the change in question.

Impact on salary and benefits

Where an employee's hours of work increase, so will their annual salary if they are a salaried worker. This should rise proportionately. If they are an hourly paid rate, that rate should stay the same, but should you alter any other benefits that are tied to working hours or salary, such as an annual bonus, pension scheme contributions, life assurance, etc.

Tip. Check if the new hours affect how any overtime pay is calculated e.g. if overtime rates only apply once an employee has worked full-time hours.

Increasing annual leave

One of the key benefits that needs recalculating is annual leave. Any annual leave that has already accrued as at the date of the hours change doesn't need to be recalculated retrospectively. Take account of the increase in hours going forward. Future annual leave entitlement from that point must be recalculated to reflect the increased hours.

Tip. The employee's annual leave should be calculated pro rata for each period separately and then the totals combined.

An example

Let's suppose Kat increases her working hours with effect from 1 July from 21 hours to 35 hours per week (her employer's full-time hours). Her entitlement is to 5.6 weeks' annual leave and her holiday year is the calendar year. When her hours increase, she will have worked 128 days (21/5 x 28) in the year. Her full-time leave entitlement will rise to 28 days, and he will get this full amount from the start of the next holiday year. For the current holiday year, her leave entitlement must be adjusted from the point his hours increased. As this is exactly halfway through the holiday year, it means he will have accrued 14 days before that point and he will accrue a further 14 days after that point, totalling 22.4 days. His employer can round this up to 22.5 days, but does not have to do so.

Tip. If the employee has already taken any annual leave, deduct that from the total adjusted leave entitlement.

Tip. You can apply this calculation to bank holidays too, if those are part of annual leave entitlement.

In addition to changes to salary, bonus, pension contributions, etc, you will need to recalculate annual leave entitlement. This should be recalculated to reflect the increased hours of work from the point of increase, but you don't have to retrospectively recalculate annual leave that accrued before the point of increase. Confirm all changes in writing.

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