What are your thoughts on 'Zero Hours' Contracts?

I came across the article today: "Can UK emulate New Zealand and ban zero-hours contracts?" It highlights what was seen as a major victory in making 'Zero-Hours' contracts illegal and by law, all employees must receive a minimum contract of 12 hours where they will be entitled to paid holiday and illness.

Sources from the articles believe that; "hundreds of thousands of Kiwis were employed on zero-hours contracts, which demanded availability for seven days a week with no guaranteed hours. As in the UK, the contracts were especially insidious in the fast-food, cinema, hotel and casino industries."

Like with the majority of employment approaches, there are scenarios where 'zero-hours' contracts actually have significant merit. These tend to be with stsudents who are juggling a part-time job with their studies and parents who want to fit their employment around an ever changing schedule that a young family can cause.

That said, the article goes on to say; "zero-hours contracts demanding 24/7 availability from employees were evidence of poor management – and using modern technology most companies had been able to accurately pinpoint the busiest times, when extra workers may be needed, to a 10-hour window each week."

So how does this apply to us here at Thinking Software?

For those of you not familiar with us here at Thinking Software, we have developed and support our Enterprise Time & Attendance solution, Rota Horizon.

It provides you with the perfect Workforce Management tool to accurately record and monitor employee attendance. Our solution also seamlessly integrates with the majority of Access Control Manufacturers hardware, more information on those we currently integrate with can be found Here.

The solution allows you to: Electronically plan your staff rotas more efficiently, produce over 150 Time & Attendance reports, Monitor lateness, absence & break times, Calculate employee work and overtime hours as well as exporting accumulated hours to any payroll system or excel spreadsheet to match these up against the relevant pay rates.

With reference to the article discussed, Rota Horizon presents you with teh software to plan your workforce with optimum efficiency. Where the article discusses poor management and using modern technology to identify where more staff are required this is exactly where Rota Horizon could be an invaluable asset. Below highlights how the Department Rota would look when planning staff.

It's within this section that you can ensure that you have devoted the necessary resource to meet the business requirements in each department, at each point of the day. Against each employee you can specify their contracted hours, which Rota Horizon will use to highlight whether an employee has fallen short of or exceeded their contractual obligation.

In the case of a 'Zero-Hours' contract employee, you will prioritise your contracted staff to ensure they get the hours they are supposed to, before using 'Best Choice' to automate the allocation of the remaining shifts to those on Zero-Hours contracts. It is here you can also assign rota rules, so once all the shifts have been assigned, you can check these to ensure the rota completed complies with all company regulations (ie Managers with correct levels of seniority on at the correct times, First Aiders on at all times, those opting into the Working Time Directive are not exceeding 48 hours in a week).

So if you feel you could benefit from a Time & Attendance solution then please do call us on 0800 854 471 or Click Here. Please also feel free to request a software web demonstration by Clicking Here and providing the details requested.

To read the article discussed please Click Here.