Zero Hour Contracts

Moobag

Any advice on using Zero hour contracts as I haven't come across them before.

payrollpro

Hi Moobag,

I assume you mean employment contracts and they are quite common, though problematic.

My problem with them is that many employers think they can get round the working time regs with zero hours which is not true, in fact it is more difficult.

Another name for them is "as and when", in other words a pool of casual labour to be called upon when needed and many organisations would struggle to achieve their aims and objectives without such a pool and the biggest of such arrangements is in the NHS.

The contract is still an employment contract, the person is still an employee and covered by all employment law and their rights under the various regs usually depend on the hours they actually work. The danger is that if the organisation uses the person regularly then they can eventually claim to be a regular employee and derive a right to having work offered to them or compensation in lieu. The other side to that is that when they have worked regularly they usually lose their right to pick and choose.

If you are involved in them, make sure they are identical to all the other employment contracts with rights to terms and conditions which are in keeping with everyone else, rights to facilities geared to the hours worked, holidays and sick pay for example, right to join the pension scheme the same and that their actual hours are monitored closely.

Payrollpro