How does Holiday Pay work?
Holiday Pay ensures that you are paid for your time off in an effective way. With our new system, you will be able to make time for yourself - and make sure you get your holiday money when it suits you.
You need to be able to take time off to spend with your family, see friends and catch up on important stuff (like your favourite TV show), and this way you know how much holiday pay you have earned and can claim it when you have the amount you want to take.
How do I withdraw money?
Go to your Profile
Choose "Book Holiday".
Here, you can see how much time off you have earned and book this in instalments of 0.5 days (note, 1 day = 8 hours).
You do not need to book a specific day on the app - we know that plans can change, so we want to ensure that taking your holidays is flexible and stress-free. Rather than picking a specific day to take off, you can just choose the number of days you want to take off - we only ask you to ensure that you honour the shifts you are accepted for on the app, and do not take holidays on these days. If you have been accepted, please work the shift.
Example:
10:00-22:00 shift
£10.93 p/h total wage = £9.75 p/h base rate, £1.18 p/h holiday pay
£10.93 x 12 hours (10:00-22:00 shift is 12 hours) = £131.16
Therefore, you are paid £117.00 (£9.75 x 12) as the basic pay, and then you gain £1.18 x 12 = £14.16 in holiday pay, giving you a total of £131.16.
For the holiday pay, you can withdraw it in instalments of 0.5 days (1 day being 8 hours), and we calculate this as 12.07% of hours per shift.
For example here, as it's a 12-hour shift, we do:
12 hours x 0.1207 = 1.448 hours, which is what is added to your holiday pay for this shift specifically.
When it reaches 0.5 days (4 hours), you can 'book' holiday which means the amount will be added to your next Payslip, and then you can take a day off of your choosing (you don't need to book a specific day on the app), knowing that you will be receiving pay, and so you can truly relax! 😁
The cut-off dates for withdrawing holiday pay are just the same as your regular pay, for example, holiday booked between July 25th - August 28th will be paid on September 7th. Holiday booked between August 29th - September 25th will be paid on October 5th. 🗓
Why can't I withdraw the remaining balance if it has less than four hours less?
You are entitled to a break away from work, and we have a responsibility to make sure you have regular breaks.
For this reason, you can only withdraw your holiday in chunks of eight hours - or half days. No one enjoys a 15 minute day off!
What if I don't use my Holiday Pay?
While we encourage you to take your holiday allowance and give yourself a rest, your holiday pay is something you are entitled to.
You cannot carry holiday over in to the new year.
How is my holiday allowance calculated?
There are no set rules on how to calculate holiday hours for workers with irregular hours. So we have worked to make it as fair as possible:
We have taken the total amount of hours a full-time worker would be contracted for the year.
We've subtracted the total number of hours of holiday allowance, and divided these to create a percentage of holiday you accrue for each hour you work.
This means that for every shift you work, you will add 12.07% of those hours to your Holiday Pot.
E.g. for a 12-hour shift, you would get 1.448 hours added to your holiday allowance.
How is my Holiday Pay calculated?
There are specific rules for how your Holiday Pay is calculated.
This is your average weekly pay for the last 52 weeks. If you haven't worked every week for the past 52 weeks, this goes back for every week you have worked in the last two calendar years.
Other Questions
When does the holiday year run from?
Orka's holiday year is January to December, meaning your holiday balance resets every calendar year.
If I have taken statutory time off, will this contribute to my holiday?
Statutory time off does contribute to your total holiday time allowance, but statutory pay does not.
For example:
If you were unwell and received statutory sick pay for a week, in that week you would be earning time off, but when we calculate your average weekly pay, that week would not be taken into account.
What if my shift runs over?
Your holiday allowance will be calculated based on your final approved timesheet rather than the listed shift times in the app - this will account for any situations where you may need to work overtime.
Want to see how workers have made use of our Holiday Pay feature?