Managing working time: Resources/jargon buster
Section eleven of the Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide to managing working time. Other sections.
Resources
RESEARCH
About Time: A New Agenda for Shaping Working Hours
February 2002, TUC
Nearly four million employees are now working more than 48 hours a week compared to 3.3 million in the early 1990s and as many as 1.5 million people say they work more than 55 hours per week. UK employees work the longest week in the EU.
Annual Hours
February 2004, IDS HR Studies
Examines the use of annual hours in the UK to match staff to variations in demand and the change process towards system design and implementation.
BCC Employment Survey
November 2004, British Chambers of Commerce
Received responses from more than 1,200 businesses. Two-thirds opposed an extension of the right to request flexible working, with 80% against increasing maternity leave to 12 months.
Changing Times
August 2001, TUC
Cranet survey on international strategic HR management
2003, Cranfield School of Management's Network on Comparative Human Resource Management
Reported that 36% of organisations said more than a fifth of their workforce did shifts although shiftwork has declined.
Developing Positive Flexibility for Employees: the British trade union approach
2004, by Jo Morris, senior equality and employment rights officer, TUC
Extract from: Working Time for Working Families: Europe and the United States; Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung Washington Office; 2005, ISBN 0-9740429-4-3
Examines how trade unions in the UK are developing new worker-friendly definitions of flexibility in response to far-reaching labour market and social changes. Included is case material from the Bristol 'Time of Our Lives' project with reference to cases from Bristol City Council services.
Living to Work
September 2003, CIPD
This 2003 report found that the number of people working more than 48 hours a week in the UK has more than doubled since 1998, from 10% to 26%.
Overtime
April 2002, IDS HR Studies
Overtime statistics, compensation for overtime working, the Working Time regulations and company practice.
Report on UK Employment Regulation
2005, DTI select committee
The Select Committee said it was not convinced by the arguments for retaining the opt-out to the Working Time Regulations. It also said the right to request flexible working should be extended to all those with caring responsibilities.
Special report: Working Time opt-out
January 2003, Personnel Today and the Employment Lawyers' Association
Reveals that two-thirds of employers had asked workers to opt out of 48-hour weekly limit, with 70% of those employers using the opt-out believing the UK's competitiveness would be damaged by the removal of the opt-out.
Still at Work? An empirical test of competing theories of the long-hours culture
By Marc Cowling, chief economist and researcher Natalie Turner from the Work Foundation.
Finds that Britons are still working longer hours than almost all European counterparts, looking not only at the extent of long-hours worked across Europe, but at how Britons compare to other members of the EU. It examines who is working the longest hours in Europe, testing competing hypotheses that seek to identify potential causes and providing a country by country comparison across the EU.
The Flexible Working Employee Survey
2005, DTI
This report, the second of its kind, found that nearly 65% of UK workers are aware of their right to request flexible working, compared to 41% in 2003.
The impact of the Working Time Regulations
July 1999, CIPD
This survey investigates the impact of the Working Time Regulations on employers' behaviours and attitudes.
The shape of things to come
August 2003, Future Foundation for the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lansons PR
This report draws on Office of National Statistics data, qualitative research commissioned especially on ICM Omnibus and Future Foundation's own research to establish that the 24/7 culture is alive and kicking.
Working hours in the UK
December 2004, CIPD
The average working week has fallen by more than an hour since 1998, according to this report.
Working time regulations: Calling time on working time?
May 2004, CIPD
This survey of 752 people from a range of sectors and occupations found that 10% of workers working more than 48 hours a week have suffered a physical problem due to working long-hours, with 17% suffering from mental health problems, 22% making mistakes at work and 36% report performing less efficiently because of long hours.
BOOKS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
The Seven-Day Weekend-Finding the Work-life Balance
By Ricardo Semler. Published by Century (Random House Group), 2003, ISBN 0712677909
Semler describes how a radical new paradigm of working in his Semco business, respects the individual and the need for balance in working time while in business terms providing an environment which has transformed a small family concern into a highly profitable manufacturing and services organisation.
Willing slaves - How the overwork culture is ruining our lives
By Madeline Bunting. Published by Harper Collins, 2004, ISBN 0007163711
Based on first-hand research and hundreds of interviews, this book explores the paradox of how we allow ourselves to be exploited and how we look to work to give our lives meaning and purpose. Bunting describes how long hours working is damaging the physical and psychological health of our nation and how working harder and working smarter can be the solution.
Family Friendly Rights
By Hammonds, 2003, ISBN 1843980045
This book offers in depth guidance to employers on implementing governmental in April 2003 to family friendly areas such as maternity leave and time off for dependants.
Leading your People to Success - by guiding corporate culture change
By Nick Kitchin. Published by McGraw Hill, 2002, ISBN 0077098692
Provides a strategic and practical guide to the culture change process with references to working time change programmes at a number of UK plants including Colman's of Norwich and Shell Chemicals Carrington
Jargon buster
Annual schedules: the detailed working pattern of an individual projected over a 12-month period.
Bank hours arrangement: this allows unused hours to be transferred from seasonal periods of low to higher demand and vice-versa.
Committed or supplementary hours: hours bought in addition to a basic annual hours contract, maybe on an individual or group basis.
Consent levels: the maximum number of people permitted to be on leave at a given time.
Continuous systems: also known as 24/7, "continentals", 4-on-4-off, 4 Team. Providing full seven-day, 168 hours of cover, can be based upon eight- and/or 12-hour shifts.
Critical manning level: the level of labour supply below which the operation cannot function effectively.
Equalised pay: across-the-year pay by equal monthly instalments regardless of weekly hours worked, smoothing out the highs and lows of a seasonal or complex working pattern.
Flying shift change: this is where an operation or process continues uninterrupted as incoming and outgoing shifts change.
Gross hours: the number of hours represented by a working time contract before any account is taken of holidays, eg, 52 weeks x 39 hours = 2,028 hours gross.
Net hours: The number of hours which remain to be worked in a year once annual and public holiday absence has been accounted for, eg 45.4 weeks x 39 hours = 1,771 hours net
Reserve hours: an element of agreed or contractual time which is initially unscheduled and is held in reserve to cover contingencies such as sickness or demand fluctuation.
Rostered leisure time: Periods of time-off formally included in a working pattern. The hours scheduled to be worked represent the net element of the contract, the balance by definition being leisure time.
Running light: deliberate under-manning to accommodate holiday or other labour shortage with consequential reduced output capability.
Seasonal scheduling: accommodates variations of demand through the year within the supply model.
Shift lag: The temporary but disorientating physiological effect inherent in progressing from dayshift to nightshift and vice-versa while following a rotating working pattern.
Stock build: Formal increase in stocks of finished goods in anticipation of a period of shutdown.
Usable or net hours: available contractual hours, net of holiday absence (ignoring sickness).
Write-off: a mechanism for periodically clearing down unused reserve or banked hours, providing an incentive to staff to reduce or minimize the need for contingency cover and to meet or exceed performance targets.
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Section one: Why
employers must tackle working time |
