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Whether, and to what extent, the precise hours of work

20th February 1997
Page 59
Page 59, 20th February 1997 — Whether, and to what extent, the precise hours of work
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are important is a decision for the employer. The smart employer will have made this decision when entering into a contract with the employee. The contract might have said: "You shall work from 8.00am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday with one hour for lunch at 12 noon", or "You shall work eight hours each day, between 8am and 8pm; the precise hours being up to you." There are, of course, countless other permutations but they all deal with two things: duration and start/finish times.

Historically (and at the risk of over-simplifying), shop floor workers were closely supervised in both areas, while managerial staff were monitored for duration, with much less emphasis on precise start and finish times. But logically, if you want to be accurate about duration you must also be accurate about start and finish times. Clocking on or signing in are the customary ways of doing this, and can also enforce the precise start and finish time if that is important. Would an employer be in breach of contract by introducing clocking, or signing in? No, as long as it is not being done in a discriminatory fashion by race, gender, or disability. If the employer has a contractual right to particular hours, or a particular duration of hours, then he is entitled to see that it is being done. How it is done is largely up to the employer. However, if the employer has previously been lax about this, some warning of change would be reasonable. Although we should have had some law by last November, the UK has yet to get around to implementing the notorious EU Working Time Directive. There are plenty of exceptions, but in general, under the directive employees do not have to work for more than 48 hours average each week— and unless the employer knows precisely how many hours are worked each week, he cannot regulate them. Without records, the employer certainly has no chance of calculating an average over a six or 12-month period. In some cases, where the employ

ee works for more than 48 hours, then the employer is required to keep a record. These provisions may

inspire employers to rethink their time-recording practices, but be cautious about using the directive as an excuse for (re)introducing or upgrading your monitoring. For example, you may wish to argue that some of your employees are not covered by the directive. If you do this, then hasty introduction of time monitoring could weaken your argument.

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Organisations: European Union

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