Did you know that if you take time off on an 8-hour working day, it counts just as much in your holiday accounts as if you take time off on a 5-hour working day? This is because holiday must be taken as it is earned, but this rule is not entirely unproblematic for employers. Understand why here.
It's important for both the company and the employee to know the value of a day's holiday and the rules related to holiday entitlement. For the employee because it affects the right to take paid time off, and for the company because it affects the amounts they have to pay out to employees.
However, when you look at the new holiday law, not all rules seem equally logical. For example, there is no value distinction between a holiday day where the employee would normally work for 8 hours versus a holiday day where the employee would work for 5 hours. This means that the employee can get much more out of their holiday days by taking them on the longer working days rather than the shorter ones. This all relates to the rule that holidays should be taken as they are earned - in days - but with this rule, holiday accounting becomes imprecise and can ultimately result in it being significantly more expensive for the company to let an employee take time off than originally anticipated. But if the employee often chooses to take Fridays off, the employer can also win.
The employee wins while the employer loses
According to the new Holiday Act, an employee earns the right to 2.08 days of paid holiday for each month of employment during the holiday year, which runs from 1 September to 31 August the following year. Because the holiday is earned in days, it must generally also be taken in whole days. This is stated in section 6(2) of the Holiday Act, which states that holidays are taken 5 days a week and in the same way as the work is organised in terms of time. Therefore, there is no difference in terms of value between employees taking holiday on a Monday, for example, when they normally work for 8 hours, compared to a Friday when they work for 5 hours. If the employee systematically chooses to place their days off on the longer working days, the employer will lose significantly more working hours than if the employee chooses to take their holidays on the shorter days. All it takes is for the employee to take their holiday 3 times on a long Monday instead of a short Friday, and then the employee has scored over 1 whole free holiday day more than everyone else - without it being noted in the holiday accounts. You might wonder why the holiday law doesn't require holidays to be taken in hours instead of days? Then this problem would never exist.
Is it not possible to take holidays in hours at all?
The only possible way to deviate from the rule of earning holiday in days is to agree in a collective agreement that holiday is earned in hours. In that case, the holiday must also be taken in hours.
Are you a part-time employee?
As a part-time employee, you earn 2.08 days of holiday per month, just like a full-time employee.
If you work every day of the week, but only fewer hours than a full-time employee, your holidays are also taken in the same way as a full-time employee.
However, if you have days off work, different rules apply to your holiday entitlement. According to the Danish Holiday Act, work-free days are included in the holiday with a proportional number. In practice, this means that if an employee has, for example, 1 day off work per week, then for each week of holiday, 4 working days and 1 day off must be taken.
If you are a part-time employee and need to take a week's holiday, you need to register 5 days of holiday, even if you are only employed to work 4 days a week. But how does this make sense? Why do you have to register a holiday on a day you're not employed to work? You could instead change it so that the employee earns fewer holiday days per month, e.g. 1.8 holiday days instead of 2.08, but many payroll systems can't handle this because the holiday law states that you must earn 2.08.
If you were employed to work 4 days a week, you could also change the value of a holiday day to 1.25 instead of 1, so that the total in a week would be 5. This would avoid the employee having to register a holiday day on the last day they normally have off. However, if the employee works different hours on each of the 4 working days, there would still be an issue with the fact that there is no value distinction between the days, and it would therefore be an advantage for the employee to take time off on one of the longer days. Again, this problem could be solved if you settled in hours instead of days.
Keep track of your holiday days
With a time tracking system from Intempus, you can get a customised solution that suits your way of earning and taking holiday. For example, we can set your holiday entitlement to the value that suits you, and we can set up the system to calculate holiday in hours instead of days.
The system makes it easy for both employees and employers to keep track of used and accrued holiday - regardless of whether the employee roster includes full-time or part-time employees, or whether you want to settle in days or hours.Interested in learning more about how Intempus can make the working day easier for your company? Then give us a call at: +45 26390400 or book a free and non-binding demo here:
Source: Visma.com, Holiday law
