Do you use Agency Workers? The Good Work Plan, what will it mean to you ??

In the ‘Good work plan’, published in December 2018, the government made a commitment to abolish a legal loophole known as the ‘Swedish derogation’ in the rules governing the use of agency workers. This allowed agencies to opt out of equalising the pay of agency staff with the permanent workforce when they had been with the same employer for more than 12 weeks, provided they paid the agency workers between assignments.

We work with various organisations & candidates facilitating both Permanent and Temporary Placements and find this a really interesting topic, when working in the Permanent recruitment field we find the way in which employers manage pay structures, reviews and bonus schemes massively varies from one organisation to another.

When considering the permanent employees of an organisation you may find more than one employee in the same job role, carrying out the same duties yet they aren't always on the same contract terms of annual pay, holiday entitlement and bonus structures, why is this we ask? the feedback we are given is that an employer will base the package on 360 approach considering various different factors like the level of experience, length of service, previous employment package the list goes on ....... could you say all your employees that are doing the same job role are on the same employment contract ??

So the question is, is it reasonable to measure any new recruit whether temporary or permanent after 12 weeks to a comparative employee that may have been in post for several years ?? I would hazard a guess the answer would be no, would employers want to have an open policy whereby employees know what pay structures colleagues are on I would guess again no.

Now on refection, looking at the bigger picture, what do you think of this change and how it will affect you ?