The Employment Rights Bill, currently passing through Parliament, is designed to make work pay by fortifying the rights of workers, particularly those on low, or zero, hours contracts and agency workers. These proposals include a new right to guaranteed hours, reflecting the number of hours regularly worked across a 12-week period of employment, as well as a right to reasonable notice of shifts – with payment for shifts cancelled or curtailed at short notice.
The Department for Business and Trade published a consultation in Autumn 2024 to seek feedback on these proposals. As a sector highly dependent on short-term, flexible work and agency workers, it is vital that warehousing makes its voice heard on this critical issue.
.
In our response, we pushed back on the proposal of guaranteed hours for workers after just 12 weeks. As a sector, warehousing experiences natural peaks and troughs, such as during the festive period, during which agency and short-term work is vital. Due to the volatile nature of demand, it is almost impossible to predict or guarantee hours beyond current work requirements. We argue that the period after which guaranteed hours must be offered should be extended to 9 or 12 months, allowing for the seasonal peaks and troughs, as well as unforeseen changes in demand, to average out the number of hours worked by the employee over the year. This would provide a much more accurate reflection in any offer of guaranteed hours and protect businesses against having to offer more hours than necessary.
We have made the case to the Department that most of the policy behind the proposed reforms, such as the reasonable notice and payment upon curtailment of shifts, is already in place within contractual agreements between agencies and warehouse operators. Industry norms, such as minimum charges per booking, exist to mitigate the impact on workers and employers for short notice cancellation. Adding an additional layer of bureaucracy to this relationship will only increase administrative and financial burden on a sector that delivers crucial support to the economy whilst operating at a very thin margin.
As our CEO, Clare Bottle, put it: “The Government consultation, which comes after the publication of its Employment Rights Bill in October, recognises that ‘for a lot of businesses, using agencies is vital for remaining agile and flexible in a competitive market’.
For our sector, agility and flexibility is exactly the point. Warehousing operations are subject to peaks, driven by customer demand, and must be able to react to changing situations at short notice. Our response makes this position abundantly clear”.
Read our response to this consultation here.