Basic rules for agency workers
From talking to a number of smaller businesses and their HR Advisors there is clearly uncertainty around the new agency workers regulations that came into force in October 2011. The rules seem clear but few know how to implement them.
As ever, large organisations have been able to throw money at a solution - I recently read about Jaguar Landrover who have 4500 agency workers and took 6 months to make 'minor tweaks' and now reckon that they comply. What chance does a small business have?
The first part of compliance with any legislation has to be to know the basic rules so here goes (note the highlight):
The Agency Worker Regulations 2010, in force since 1 October, entitle agency workers who spend 12 weeks in one job to the same basic pay and conditions they would get if they had been recruited directly. This covers, for example, annual leave, rest breaks and paid time off work for antenatal appointments for pregnant workers.
The 12-week period need not be an unbroken period of service so a break of up to six weeks taken by the worker for any reason simply pauses the clock.
The regulations also give agency workers a number of “day one” rights. From the start of an assignment they must have the same access to benefits such as car parking, lockers and canteen facilities as their permanent peers, and the same access to information about job vacancies.
Employers who use agency workers are responsible for ensuring they get these day-one access rights, and that any agency they use has up-to-date information about their terms and conditions so that workers receive the correct equal treatment. Source: bis.gov.uk
There is plenty of advice on the web but you might want to take a look at the site of one of our partners - Agency Worker Regulations - Top 10 questions