OK, so I landed a great job at 80% which is exactly what I wanted. Conditions are good, work atmosphere great. One issue: as the company makes systems for working-time control systems (among other things), they have implemented time-control across the board ("use what we make"). That means clocking in and clocking out.

Fine, except their time-tracking system is only able to manage part-time workers by spreading their hours out evenly through the week, meaning my 80% of 40 hours is tracked as 6.4 hours per day, 5 days a week. I work 8 hours on Mon-Tues, Thurs-Fri with Wednesdays off, so at the end of the week it all works out.

Exception: if a public holiday or sick day occurs on one of my working days, I am only credited 6.4 hours, and not the full 8 I would have worked otherwise.

Is this fair? Can anyone link me to a legal clause that regulates this situations? Thanks for any advice!

Important to know: is your work schedule defined in your contract?

Good point... I just checked it, no, it only specifies 80% and not how it's broken down.

In that case, your employer is probably right.
It would have been a different situation if you would have worked 4 full days per week.

As I read it, he does work 4 full days per week (32 hours) but the system breaks down those hours across 5 days (6.4 hours per day).

I think you might have discovered a potential improvement in your company's product, don't you think?

Anyway, isn't this something you would have discussed at some point with your hierarchy? I don't think there is a clear regulation in law about the distribution of time across the week, as this is usually agreed mutually. But why do you question the legal aspects of this rather than talk it through with your boss?

He does, but what matters is the contract, so the system might be correct. If he has a contract which says 4x8hours and Fridays off, than the system is wrong, now since nothing has been agreed upon the employer might be correct and could just say, sure work 5 times 6.4 if you want it to be fair.

I will discuss with my boss, from my perspective I am being screwed out of 1.6 hours (1 hour, 36 minutes) for every public holiday, and the same for ever day I am sick. If I don't like his answer i will go to RAV and ask for an official statement.

If you like the job, conditions and work atmosphere, is it really worth rocking the boat for 1.6 hours x maybe a couple, if that, public holidays that fall on a Wednesday, plus (probably very few, hopes your boss) sick days?

Do you also get 6.4 hours paid if a public holiday is on a Wednesday?

If the employee is working 4/5 days, and that's what was agreed verbally, then THAT is part of the contract, regardless that the written contract is more general.

But it all works out in the end, and the employer is right. Nobody is losing or gaining anything. Imagine that the OP was working 20% for another employer doing the same system. No matter how you divide up the working time, you end up with the right amount of working and the right amount of holiday.

Let's say your company gives you 100 days holiday a year, and that there are 10 public holidays as well, all M-Th. A full-time worker will get 110 days holiday a year. If the OP's calculation was correct, they'd get
80 days holiday + 10. 90 days in total, instead of 88 days. That's 82% of the holidays a full time employee gets, instead of 80%.

@OP - you're not being ripped off.

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I have a similar schedule (60% though) with similar hour based calculation (4:57 hrs per day). I calculated through a few cases and they all came up fair and equal.

What you have to keep in mind is that taking a free day only costs (in your case) 6.4 hours. So by not working on Easter monday you effectively don't work for about 1 and a quarter day (of 6.4 hrs) as you loose 8:15 hrs of working time.

My schedule is more complex though, i work 8:15 per day for 4 days a week. The overtime this generates I can take as holiday (need 4:57 hrs per free day). Roughly 2 weeks of 4 days (of 8:15 hrs) followed by a week off.... am thinking about getting a house in Ticino for spending my free weeks.

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Same at my company. It is a bit annoying but it had been that way for years so probably ok legally

I work 80%: Mondays off and four full days at 8 hours.

Although it was never spelled out in my contract, this is how HR had set it up and what I wanted. Then during some weird HR *blip*, it shifted to the 6.4 hours per day. I didn't like this at all, complained, and they moved it back to 4 x 8 hours.

This may or may not be of interest to you

before you decide you are being ripped off, this works for holidays as well - so you get 4 weeks holidays at 6.4 hours, not 16 days at 8 hours...



In my experience it's just a payroll calculation situation - it's not intended to rip anyone off, just to simplify the accounts.

Nice. I have a very flexible schedule. (i'm with one employer 50%). January to April is our busiest time, so I often work 4 days in a week. Come autumn, and it's not unusual for me to be on 1 day a week or less.

OK, let's look at an example. Let's say I am working a 100% job paying 100K per year, working 8 hours a day, with 20 days paid vacation days plus 10 paid public holidays:

- Annual salary: 100K
- Paid vacation: 20 8-hour days
- Paid public holidays: 10 8-hour days = 80 hours

Now I want to work only Tues-Fridays, and my employer agrees, but "for easier accounting purposes" considers it as working Mon-Fri at 6.4 hours per day:

- Annual salary: 80K (all good, simply scaled by 80%)
- Paid vacation: 16 days (all good, scaled by 80%)
- Paid public holidays: 10 6.4-hour days = 64 hours (scaled by 80%, not fair!)

The implication here is that the employer has decided to reduce my salary and paid vacations according to 80% (which is clearly fair), but also reduce my public holidays time-off by the same amount (this, IMHO, is not fair or legal). In essence I am being screwed out of 16 hours, or 2 days of public holiday compensation based on an accounting trick.

The same applies to any days taken off sick.

I realize there is a caveat if a public holiday happens to fall on my day off, in which case I would be credited with 6.4 hours for a day I don't work, but this is dumb luck... the day I take off is actually Wednesdays and I believe if I'm lucky maybe one such day per year would take place.

Essentially the question is does an employer have the right to reduce what an employee is paid during public holidays if the employee chooses to work less than 100%?

Does this make sense?

Karl, I think you're inadvertently mixing something up. You're translating the "days" into "hours", and on the surface that looks reasonable, but it is not the same currency. This is because your "days" (of vacation or of public holidays) are "calendar days", whereas your "hours" are "working hours".

Let's just say you and, say, Marcello, both work on Mondays, and have identical levels of earnings, in proportion to your % appointment.
You are employed for 1/2 day per week.
Marcello is employed for 1 day per week.

A public holiday falls on Monday.
You get one whole work shift off work.
Marcello also gets one whole shift off work.

But Marcello's day feels like more of a benefit to him, because he doesn't have to work in the morning, and also doesn't have to work in the afternoon, whereas you feel this benefit only for the morning, as you'd have been free in the afternoon anyway.

The remuneration works similarly.

Having said this, I'd follow DantesDame's example, and try to get the arrangement formalised.

This answer (English translation) might be of help to this situation. Agreeably, it is really annoying that software somehow does not support such simple time management.

No, it doesn't.

If you are working less than 100%, public holdays are also discounted by the same amount.

Tom