The recruitment industry has now had 8 weeks of getting to grips with the Agency Workers Regulations. With the 12 week qualifying period for ‘enhanced’ rights fast approaching we thought it appropriate to remind the hirers of agency workers how we will be guiding our clients through the festive season.
After coming into force on 1st October 2011, the provision of ’day one’ rights has proved to be straightforward to implement, mainly due to the fact that in the vast majority of cases these were already provided. Otherwise, clients have found that with a few changes to the way that internal jobs are advertised, compliance is not a problem.
Moving forward, for any agency workers that were on assignment with you in the first week of October and who are still with you at the end of December, they may qualify for enhanced rights in respect of ‘equal treatment’. Remember that the right only extends to basic working and employment conditions, specifically the elements of pay, working hours and holiday entitlement. The responsibility for ensuring these rights are provided lies primarily with us, Thorn Baker.
The impact on our clients of this 12 week milestone varies from company to company, but you can rest assured the team at Thorn Baker will keep you compliant and competitive. Many workers are outside the scope of AWR, and in many cases the agency workers are actually paid more than their permanently employed equivalent.
In managing each client account accordingly we will therefore need your help in ensuring we have all the relevant information. Typically this includes information on your permanent workers in comparable positions such as pay rates, holiday entitlement and break patterns. With your co-operation we can be confident of supporting your business with agency workers throughout the festive season in the usual manner.
Click here to join our AWR discussion group
Many clients have already provided this information earlier in the year, but if you are yet to do so, don’t worry. We know exactly how many qualifying weeks every agency worker has accrued and will speak to all our clients accordingly.
Clients can be reassured that agency workers are still ‘temps’ and will continue to be able to be hired and off hired at a days notice. Agency workers will still be excluded from many employment rights such as Unfair Dismissal, Redundancy Pay, Notice Pay, Parental Leave, Parental working, Flexible working, Collective Consultation and TUPE protection. In practical cost terms, a recent CIPD survey demonstrated that much fewer agency workers than expected (13%) could actually cost clients more.
April 16, 2012
April 13, 2012
“Employment Dynamics” – Ready to hire? Or ready to move? – Paul Jackman Director Comments
March 19, 2012
February 17, 2012