Change of working hours - Notice period?

[rizel23]

As the above.

Is there a minimum written notice period needed to change an employees working hours? I'm struggling to find one.

Ultimately i know they can terminate your employment on current contract conditions and then simple offer you the new terms of contract, but its the notice period I'm concerned with, as I presume if you reject the changes (via writing) you would be working in protest on current hours of contract till the issue was sorted?

Thanks

[miliitant]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

28 days is the norm but no legal minimum requirement

[miliitant]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

to change to a worker's working hours amounts to a change to their terms and conditions of employment. As such, the employee needs to agree to it.

family friendly policies would be investigated now it is part of the employment rights act but any change

the employeer would need to do a consultation period

Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations

If yo still refuses to agree to your proposed change in hours, the employeer could terminate the whole contract and offer employment on the revised terms.

To terminate, the employer must give the employee their contractual notice period, or in the absence of that – the statutory notice period which is a week’s notice for every full year of employment up to a max of 12 weeks.

If the employer changes an employee’s contract of employment and the employee does not agree with the change, they have a number of options:

• stay and work 'under protest' and bring a claim for unlawful deductions from wages or breach of contract
• in the case of a fundamental breach of contract, resign and claim constructive dismissal
• if the changes to the contract fundamentally alters their role, they can continue to work under the new contract and claim unfair dismissal in relation to the old one
• refuse to work under the new terms. However, bear in mind, this is likely to lead to a dismissal which may or may not be unfair depending on all the circumstances

does your employeer have 50 or more staff

[rizel23]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

many hanks.

we have had informal discussions on change of working hours for a few months, and have involed our union who quite frankly have been utter rubbish so far.

date of changes is 28th May yet a meeting has been placed for the 23rd May, which in reality gives us 2 working days to look which i think is pretty bad.

[miliitant]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

has their been a discussion on family friendly hours or equality impact assessmeants

[rizel23]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

has their been a discussion on family friendly hours or equality impact assessmeants

none what so ever, certainly no impact assessments, and at the moment no H&S assessment either as will be be open to the general public now untill 11.30PM 6 dya a week instead of 7.30pm. I work for a county council btw so I'm a little shocked at how this has/is being handled.

[miliitant]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

as its a fundemental change to your contract of employment and you have more that 50 employees, the minimum 90 day consultation period is needed

have you had the 90 days

[rizel23]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

as its a fundemental change to your contract of employment and you have more that 50 employees, the minimum 90 day consultation period is needed

have you had the 90 days

Thanks, but the team it will effect is only 4 staff members, so i presume the rules are different? We have had no official paper work at all, just a few meetings and e-mails (my boss was hopfuly i would do the rota for her and the team just agree) but been issued with written confirmation at all via postal mail.

[rizel23]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

anyone with any futher advise/pointers? We have a meeting this Wednesday! Thanks

[leclerc]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

Rizel, I am currently subject to a change of hours where there are 3 options on the table: 1) Take redundancy, 2) accept the hours or 3) apply for other shifts. The notice period for me is within my contract for a change in shift depending on length of service so for me it's 4 weeks but for others it will be up to 12 weeks. Is it within your contract of employment? It might be under the section to do with "notice" ie notice periods to resign.....
For myself there is a loss of monetary amount above 15% of the yearly amount which is why they have given option 1.
Is there any changes to the monetary amount you would receive or not?

[rizel23]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

Rizel, I am currently subject to a change of hours where there are 3 options on the table: 1) Take redundancy, 2) accept the hours or 3) apply for other shifts. The notice period for me is within my contract for a change in shift depending on length of service so for me it's 4 weeks but for others it will be up to 12 weeks. Is it within your contract of employment? It might be under the section to do with "notice" ie notice periods to resign.....
For myself there is a loss of monetary amount above 15% of the yearly amount which is why they have given option 1.
Is there any changes to the monetary amount you would receive or not?

Thanks, from what i can see notice period would be one month, we are again in a further poor position as we transferred over from a private company under TUPE and were never given a 'proper' contract as such but have been working under same conditions for over 18 months now,

Along with a change of hours they are removing the lap over period of us working together during busy periods from 4.5 hours to just 0.5 hours, which we will struggle to provide service especially in busy periods.

I have not seen the new rota, but from informal conversations it appears there will be a monetary drop due to less working hours on a Sunday which are paid at an enhanced rate. We currently claim O.T for Bank Holiday work, but i think they will now be building this into our basic salary, which might cover a drop in basic salary, but ultimately could make us worse off.

We would be willing to negotiate and sort this out amicably, but being presented with it 2 working days before its due to come in leaves us in a difficult situation and i think there hoping for us to just agree.

I suppose the sensible option would be to listen to what they say and give not commitment at the time, provide a written letter of working 'under protest' (if we feel necessary) and provide written reasons why (if necessary) after we have had time to analyse what has been presented and further involve our Union if needed.

[miliitant]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

even when the transfer is under TUPE, they cant lower your exsisting terms and conditions, they have to bring the other exsisting work force up to your level and harmonise the two sets of workers pay and terms and conditions.

what they are doing to circumvent this is making your job role redundant in the new company and wanting to re-employ you under a different contract of employment with lower t&c

they can quote social or economic reasons for doing the change and as long as a minimum 28 days notice on the change has been given, their is not a lot that can be done and yes,

IT STINKS

redundency may be the only option if you do not agree with the employers motives

[leclerc]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

http://www.lge.gov.uk/lge/core/page.do?pageId=124301

The above link might help with regards to TUPE. They should have given notice that they were in a consultation period realistically. Have they issued you with a formal notice stating that they are changing the terms and conditions in writing giving you your options, ie accept or sod off?

[rizel23]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

http://www.lge.gov.uk/lge/core/page.do?pageId=124301

The above link might help with regards to TUPE. They should have given notice that they were in a consultation period realistically. Have they issued you with a formal notice stating that they are changing the terms and conditions in writing giving you your options, ie accept or sod off?

Thank you to all the above posters.

We transferred over under TUPE late 2010, and to be fair conditions and pay improved and had access to more holiday and pension scheme.

Our issues is that we have not been formally given anything in writing in regards to change of hours. We have a meeting tomorrow when a working rota should be presented to us with effect literally from the following Monday (28th).

My calculations appear that we will be worse off financially (there appears to be no enhancements for evening working at councils now during the week) and it will obviously have a big social impact from finishing at 11.30PM from our current 07.30PM finish.

Why this has been left so late is beyond me, and i would obviously like some time to think of the change of hours and question any pay related changes, but given that there will be 2 working days till they appear to be implemented this is going to prove difficult.

[rizel23]

Re: Change of working hours - Notice period?

Well i thought i would update this to those whom took the time to offer advise.

We had our meeting yesterday. The jist of it was it went very well really all things considered.

1) Our safety concerns were addressed adequately with reasonable measures put in place with a risk assessment produced to us which covered points raised.
2) No getting away from later working hours, however;
3) We managed to negotiate no drop in enhanced payment hours at weekends and busy periods.
4) Overall all staff should see a pay rise from further enhancements/changes that were agreed.

So not a bad result.