Are You Ready For the Upcoming Changes Regarding Agency Workers?

Did you know that over 1.3 million agency workers make up about 4% of the UK workforce: the highest proportion in Europe?

Well, in October of this year there are some new EU Regulations coming into force which may affect your business dramatically. These Regulations provide that from October 2011 all agency staff who have worked for at least 12 consecutive weeks in a company shall be entitled to the same pay, overtime and breaks as the existing permanent staff doing the same job. This includes all agency workers, regardless of whether their contract with the particular company is a contract for employment or services.

This covers things like basic hourly pay, working conditions, overtime and shift allocations, unsocial hour's bonuses, break times, annual leave allowances, and any bonuses that might be given as a result of the quality and quantity of work done. Similarly, this also includes access to, if provided, creche, childcare, canteen and transport facilities and access to information regarding company vacancies.

For more detailed information download the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's guide on Agency Workers Regulations, to see how it will affect your company and how to be prepared when the regulations come into force. Recent research has shown that 37% of employers are completely in the dark about the upcoming changes with the enforcement of these new EU regulations, with only 7% of employers actually looking into the changes that are going to be made and how it will affect them as a business.

Therefore, the impact of these Regulations will vary across different industries, obviously depending on how heavily they use or rely on agency staff. Consequently, industries such as construction, cleaning services, security, home care, education and healthcare are likely to incur some of the biggest challenges, as they are known for their considerable use of agency workers.

So if you work in one of the above areas or have a number of agency staff on your payroll, then the more proactive you can be the better. Start making detailed plans for future supply arrangements, as time is of the essence. Although, you may want to wait until the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has produced clear guidelines on how to interpret the Regulations before you then start to decide on how to address these changes, it is better to act now and have a plan of action in place now, rather than wait, as it maybe by that time too late.

However, by having a modern time and attendance system in place within your company, it would allow you to adapt to changing law regulations more quickly and effectively. Systems of this nature provide an accurate cost analysis of individual tasks, proposals and jobs that are currently being carried out, therefore enabling you to plan ahead and make early cost projections and also make allowances for agency staff, if still required, earlier.

Therefore, by detailed and careful planning of your workforce and the projected workload to be carried out, it will help you to diminish your costs that are likely to be incurred through the employment of temporary staff. Consequently, having a time and attendance system which stores and provides you with one central base of information on all your employees' skills and availability, allows you to assess at the earliest possible stages and more accurately whether or not you require extra members of staff at any given time.

So, the moral of the story is prepare, for if you don't prepare, then it could end in failure.

Unique IQ have developed IQTimecard, iqtimecard.uniqueiq.co.uk Time and Attendance solutions for companies across the UK. Please visit iqtimecard.uniqueiq.co.uk iqtimecard.uniqueiq.co.uk for more information.