Zero hours/guaranteed hours

The Department of Business & Trade has launched a further consultation on zero hours contracts. This includes low hours contracts, where workers have a small number of guaranteed hours but regularly work substantially more.

The consultation asks for evidence on a number of implementation issues, including:

• the threshold below which workers qualify for guaranteed hours;
• the length of the reference period used to calculate average hours (12 weeks is being proposed, which may not work for industries with seasonal fluctuations)
• record-keeping requirements for employers;
• how the rules should apply to agency workers;

Please send any views, comments, thoughts and experiences to the BOSS Team at hello@bossfederation.co.uk by 15 August. We’ll respond to the consultation and anonymise any contributions.