Employers frequently grapple with the problem of calculating the length of holiday leave for an employee whose working time has been reduced during a year.  

The regulations of the Labor Code do not directly regulate how holiday leave should be calculated in such a situation. It seems that it would be expedient to draw on the rule for pro rata holiday leave referred to in Article 155(1) of the Labor Code. This regulation defines the rules for splitting holiday leave between a current and new employer in the event of termination of employment during a calendar year. 

Similarly, the application of the pro rata rule means that holiday leave should be calculated separately for individual parts of the year and then the results should be totaled. The number of days of holiday leave to which an employee has obtained the right by working for a given portion of a full-time equivalent (FTE) should be calculated in this way. The calendar month corresponds to 1/12 of the portion of the holiday leave due to an employee. Another problem emerges when the portion of an FTE changes in the course of a month. In that case employers should give consideration to embracing one of three solutions: 

• setting the amount of holiday leave for that month pro rata to the portion of the FTE according to which the employee works for the bulk of that month;
• counting the month in which the portion of an FTE changes as belonging to the period from prior to the change of the portion of the FTE;
• using the portion of an employee’s FTE in force on the first day of the month in which the portion of that employee’s FTE is changed.

Find more in the PRO HR August 2021.