work schedule and long weekends

May 19, 2015 3:27 PM

I work Sunday-Thursday. This is a relatively new schedule for me and something just came up that made me curious about how people handle this kind of schedule. In the US many holidays are set so they happen on Mondays. This gives most people a three day weekend. But as someone who works Sunday-Thursday, it just gives me a single day off during my work week. I've been told that Friday holidays can be shifted to the Thursday or the Sunday that bracket the holiday. A coworker works Tuesday-Saturday and when there's a Monday holiday, he takes it on Tuesday. If you've had a similar schedule, how were holidays handled?
posted by sciencegeek to Work & Money (16 answers total)

I'm not sure if you're asking about general work policy or general individual preference.

In my experience, my employers have allowed moving holidays forward in time at the convenience of the employee, whether or not they work a Monday-Friday schedule. So, for the Saturday, 4th of July 2015 holiday, the company would officially take off 3rd of July (the nearest working day), but you could instead take off Monday, July 6, Tuesday, July 7, etc.

In general, there are no legal protections associated with employer-provided holidays because in general, employers are not required to offer holiday time off. Your specific locale or job may change that answer.
posted by saeculorum at 3:37 PM on May 19, 2015

My situation is a little weird since I work for myself, and my work best fits into a Sunday-Thursday schedule. I end up working many Monday holidays, but sometimes my Sunday clients cancel so they can travel over the three day weekend, and then I also have a three or four day weekend. (I also make less money in this case, but so it goes with hourly work.)

If your employer lets you shift Friday holidays, it seems likely they'd be flexible on Monday holidays as well.
posted by ktkt at 3:41 PM on May 19, 2015

I think it varies by employer and isn't encased in law, though I could be mistaken as I'm not sure if that's true for every state. Certainly for my partner in CA she doesn't get any special dispensation if the holiday is on a Monday. She works Tuesday through Sunday as well.
posted by Carillon at 3:42 PM on May 19, 2015

I was allowed to 'save' the holiday and use it when I wished, like adding it to a vacation span.
posted by donaken at 3:43 PM on May 19, 2015

At my workplace, if you're not normally scheduled on the holiday day, you can choose to take it any other day during the same pay period.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 3:55 PM on May 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Depending on your work place you may qualify for holiday pay if you work during the holiday, so take that into account for any shifting you plan.
posted by lineofsight at 3:59 PM on May 19, 2015

My bosses have always been willing to let me shift holidays off around within reason as long as the work still got done, but my work is mostly stuff that is solo technology work that can be done at any time. If you're doing a job that requires *someone* to be working shifts every day and your moving your day off around would require having to find someone to cover for you, they might be less accommodating.
posted by Candleman at 4:11 PM on May 19, 2015

I worked a compressed schedule for a while with alternating Fridays off. Any time the official holiday (or observed day) fell on my Friday, I used 'holiday leave' on Thursday instead.
posted by bookdragoness at 4:15 PM on May 19, 2015

Special circumstance but I just end up working all stat holidays that fall into my rotation except Labour Day which I have off. For which I'm paid both double time for hours worked and a percentage of pay on every cheque throughout the year as "Stat" pay.
posted by Mitheral at 4:18 PM on May 19, 2015

A former coworker of mine regularly volunteered to work Christmas Day and in exchange took off Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashana (depending on when they fell). This was at a state government institution and that holiday shifting was permitted under the holiday policies.
posted by devinemissk at 5:13 PM on May 19, 2015

Seconding rabbitrabbit, but with caveat that I was a supervisor in CA when dealing with this issue and not NY. Also, technically supervisors had approval over when the make-up day could be taken, but I was really liberal in this respect. (We were a small community institution who often had to work official holidays so I would schedule us all to work, say, Memorial Day, and let people pick an alternate holiday in the same pay period with notice to ensure there was adequate coverage.)
posted by smirkette at 5:29 PM on May 19, 2015

Response by poster: My workplace tends to not be flexible about things once a decision is made and I'm really not in a position to make a fuss about this. Changing from M-F to Su-Th was not simple - figuring out an alternate holiday schedule would not likely be worth the bother.

I'm asking more because I'm curious about workplace policy in similar situations rather than hoping that I'll be able to use your answers as arguments on why I should get long weekends. It strikes me as something that should be codified in some way, but it seems like every workplace has a slightly different policy.
posted by sciencegeek at 5:38 PM on May 19, 2015

I'm also on a sun-thurs schedule and have just had a Monday holiday taken on a Sunday (Canadian, Victoria Day). But it makes sense for us because part of my work is preparing reports that go out at the start of business and need to be prepared the day before. Working Sunday to prepare a report would just mean no one would be in the office to read it on Monday.
posted by juv3nal at 6:33 PM on May 19, 2015

A useful term to search with is "in lieu of" or "in lieu holiday."
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 7:06 PM on May 19, 2015

I work Monday-Saturday. My employers have always required me (and my colleagues) to work holidays. Then we are assigned 8 hours (regardless of the fact that we usually work 10) as a floating holiday to take as we please. This is better than being assigned PTO, since floating holidays transfer year-to-year.

I never assume I have a holiday off automatically. Definitely something to clarify ahead of time.
posted by none of these will bring disaster at 7:50 PM on May 19, 2015

My (unionized) workplace allows all employees to receive holiday comp time equivalent to one days worth of their normal weekday schedule (e.g., if I work a 40 hour week, I'm entitled to 8 hours holiday comp time, but if you work a 30 hour week, you're entitled to 6 hours). If you have the holiday off, you just have the holiday off and use the time on the holiday as it were. If you work on the holiday, then you get the comp time to use any time you want just like vacation time.
posted by epanalepsis at 6:43 AM on May 20, 2015