Irregular hours

Workers on irregular hours calculate holiday pay by adding up their pay over the previous 12 weeks and dividing it by 12 (adding in pay from the week before the 12th week if they didn’t earn anything in one of those weeks).

Two drivers received enhanced pay for hours in excess of 40 hours a week, which included a payment for loading/unloading based on a predetermined time rather than the actual time taken. They could not be said to have normal working hours, the EAT concluded, and their drivers’ bonuses should be included in holiday pay (Sanderson and Griffin v Exel Management Services Ltd UKEAT/0194/06).

Annualised hours contracts can complicate the calculation of holiday pay. In a case involving railway workers, the EAT concluded that they had agreed to work 1,930 hours a year but, for some of those hours, were on holiday and not attending work. They were not entitled to holiday pay on top of their annual salary (Cook and others v C2C Rail Ltd EAT/0604/05).

However, holiday pay could be averaged over only 48 weeks of the year if this method of calculation ensures workers received the same pay on holiday as they did when they were working (British Airways plc v and Noble and another [2006] EWCA Civ 537 ([2006] IRLR 533).