What is 9 day fortnight working pattern? – meaning and example

If you’re an employee or candidate looking for flexible working solutions, this article explores 9 day fortnight working pattern, which you may want to consider.

You may have heard about the working pattern but you may not be familiar with what it entails, so we will explain the meaning, and give you examples of how it can work. Here, you will know more about how you can account for bank holidays in your working arrangement – so you don’t miss out if you will no longer work on the days when bank holidays fall.

What is 9 day fortnight working pattern?

OK, so you may be wondering about the 9 day fortnight meaning – what is it and how can it benefit you?

Well, all employees have the legal right to request flexible working, and a nine day fortnight working pattern is one of the types of flexible working arrangements that can be requested. It is a form of compressed hours, which allows people to work their contracted hours over a shorter number of days.

So, you would work a 9 day fortnight meaning you accrue sufficient hours across the 9 days, to take the 10th day off.

The arrangement must obviously benefit the organisation as well as the individual, so line managers need to assess each request individually, to iron out any potential organisational challenges, and work out which day(s) can be taken off to ensure adequate cover in the team. And generally, for most organisations, the pattern requires hours to be worked before the day off is taken.

Overall, it’s a really nice opportunity to flex your hours and bring about a better work-life balance. However, we must be clear that there is no guarantee that your employer will grant you the working arrangement, it’s just a flexible working request you have the legal right to make.

9 day fortnight working pattern example

So, to understand a little more about how this type of flexible working arrangement might work for you, let’s now look at a 9 day fortnight working pattern example.

Example 1

35 hour, 5 day week:

• Calculate the number of hours you will need to work across the 2 weeks, by multiplying the total weekly hours (in this case 35) by 2 weeks: which comes to 70 hours across 10 working days.
• Divide the 70 hours by 9 days, which equals 7.78 hours per day, which is the number of hours you will need to work for each of the nine days in order to take off the 10th day.

So, your based on the above example, you might start at 8am and finish at 5pm, with an hour’s break during the day. Or, you might negotiate a 9am start and a 6pm finish.

To successfully implement this scheme, your line manager will need to discuss and agree working patterns and hours with you, to ensure that you can still carry out your duties within the framework.

Example 2

Allowing for bank holiday entitlement:

Bank holiday entitlement brings slight complexity in a nine day fortnight working pattern. However, this is easily accounted for, by adding the total number of bank holidays in a year, to employees’ annual leave entitlement.

Then, if a bank holiday occurs on a ‘normal working day’, the staff member wishing to take it as holiday, must book the bank holiday day off as leave, in the way they would normally, for any leave request.

A final point to note is that the working arrangement is intended to benefit work-life balance and therefore wellbeing. So, employees should not work more than 9 hours a day, and will be required to take sufficient breaks during their new working pattern. Similarly, arranging cover for the individual taking their day off, must not increase the workload of or put pressure on other staff.

Hopefully this article has given you a good feel for how a nine day fortnight working pattern can work for you. We think it’s a fantastic way of bringing about a better balance, and earning an extra day off every other week – brilliant!