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Hi there, I will try and be as detailed as I can which may result in a long winded block of text unfortunately but more details the better I suppose.
I am an employee to one of the biggest Supermarkets in the U.K. and recently they have agreed with our Union terms and agreements about 'Labour Matching'. Which is essentially moving colleagues shifts around in terms of time and day (and sometimes department, but that's not the issue) making sure the optimum number of colleagues are contracted to be in at peak times. The amount of hours the colleague is currently contracted to is not being changed (unless they want to). This is for the 'needs of the business'. Aside from a small amount of stubborn colleagues set in their ways we understand and accept this. We're not happy about it, but we know why this is being done.
Now each department manager has gone away with the facts and figures showing where the hours they currently have allocated to their department are spread over each day of the week and by morning/afternoon/evening against how much they actually need in those time frames. The manager then plans the best way to move colleagues around to cover all areas optimally.
Now this is where it gets tricky because I'm not based on a department with critical issues surrounding labour so I've not been involved too much.
The manager having come up with alterations to each of the colleagues schedule then has a private, one to one discussion with the colleague explaining what he or she would like the colleague to agree to changing and why. There is no two way discussion in this first meeting, just the proposal. A time period is then given to the colleague (one or two weeks, I'm unsure unfortunately) to mull over the proposal before a second meeting takes place. During the second meeting the colleague can either accept the proposal, reject it or try and negotiate a change to the managers proposal. We haven't reached this stage yet as it's just come in to place so details of how a second meeting has gone between a colleague and manager is not yet known.
If things do not go well in the second meeting there will then be a third and final meeting between the colleague and the Deputy Manager. At this point Union representation is now permitted. Again, we haven't got quite this far but it's essentially the same principal, getting the colleague to change schedule to suit the store. But by this stage what being offered will probably be 'poor' in terms of sociable hours and days (due to other colleagues agreeing at first propposal to shift changes, removing those shifts from the available slots) and will become a 'take it or leave it' scenario.
Now one of my colleague has been asked to work every Sunday in exchange for taking Tuesday as a day off (he is not contracted to work Sunday). This would mean he would then be working M,W,F,S,S. We accept working in retail we sacrifice the weekend the majority of the time. But being asked to work every Friday, Saturday and Sunday is very unreasonable. Even more so when no manager in the store is expected to do this and usually get one full weekend (Saturday and Sunday) off in every four weeks. If my colleague and his manager fail to negotiate a compromise because for example he would only be willing to work every other Sunday or wanted one weekend off in four it would then go to the final meeting.
But is asking (telling really) a colleague to work every Friday, Saturday and Sunday a reasonable request? Virtually no one would be happy at that prospect so would be looking to negotiate it. If the manager says no to changing the F,S,S 'request' and then it goes further then any manager in the store could request all their colleagues work F,S,S and reject any negotiation because of 'needs of the business' which basically means work F,S,S (or what other shift plan they have put together) or find another job. If a colleague was told their contract was going to be terminated in X amount of weeks because they had failed to agree a new working schedule with the management I would accept that. But if that was because the management refused to budge on a proposal of contracting someone to every F,S,S I think that is incredibly unreasonable.
I'm sorry for the 'if's and but's' scenario but that's due to that part of the process has yet to be arrived at. I know 'reasonable' to some is not the same to others, it's a linear concept. But are there any scenarios or situations in which a contract proposal could be rejected because what they offered wasn't reasonable/fair/acceptable? Can we be forced to work a (every) Sunday? Is there any piece of legal information we should be aware of when going in to these meetings?
Kind regards,
Wayne.
I am an employee to one of the biggest Supermarkets in the U.K. and recently they have agreed with our Union terms and agreements about 'Labour Matching'. Which is essentially moving colleagues shifts around in terms of time and day (and sometimes department, but that's not the issue) making sure the optimum number of colleagues are contracted to be in at peak times. The amount of hours the colleague is currently contracted to is not being changed (unless they want to). This is for the 'needs of the business'. Aside from a small amount of stubborn colleagues set in their ways we understand and accept this. We're not happy about it, but we know why this is being done.
Now each department manager has gone away with the facts and figures showing where the hours they currently have allocated to their department are spread over each day of the week and by morning/afternoon/evening against how much they actually need in those time frames. The manager then plans the best way to move colleagues around to cover all areas optimally.
Now this is where it gets tricky because I'm not based on a department with critical issues surrounding labour so I've not been involved too much.
The manager having come up with alterations to each of the colleagues schedule then has a private, one to one discussion with the colleague explaining what he or she would like the colleague to agree to changing and why. There is no two way discussion in this first meeting, just the proposal. A time period is then given to the colleague (one or two weeks, I'm unsure unfortunately) to mull over the proposal before a second meeting takes place. During the second meeting the colleague can either accept the proposal, reject it or try and negotiate a change to the managers proposal. We haven't reached this stage yet as it's just come in to place so details of how a second meeting has gone between a colleague and manager is not yet known.
If things do not go well in the second meeting there will then be a third and final meeting between the colleague and the Deputy Manager. At this point Union representation is now permitted. Again, we haven't got quite this far but it's essentially the same principal, getting the colleague to change schedule to suit the store. But by this stage what being offered will probably be 'poor' in terms of sociable hours and days (due to other colleagues agreeing at first propposal to shift changes, removing those shifts from the available slots) and will become a 'take it or leave it' scenario.
Now one of my colleague has been asked to work every Sunday in exchange for taking Tuesday as a day off (he is not contracted to work Sunday). This would mean he would then be working M,W,F,S,S. We accept working in retail we sacrifice the weekend the majority of the time. But being asked to work every Friday, Saturday and Sunday is very unreasonable. Even more so when no manager in the store is expected to do this and usually get one full weekend (Saturday and Sunday) off in every four weeks. If my colleague and his manager fail to negotiate a compromise because for example he would only be willing to work every other Sunday or wanted one weekend off in four it would then go to the final meeting.
But is asking (telling really) a colleague to work every Friday, Saturday and Sunday a reasonable request? Virtually no one would be happy at that prospect so would be looking to negotiate it. If the manager says no to changing the F,S,S 'request' and then it goes further then any manager in the store could request all their colleagues work F,S,S and reject any negotiation because of 'needs of the business' which basically means work F,S,S (or what other shift plan they have put together) or find another job. If a colleague was told their contract was going to be terminated in X amount of weeks because they had failed to agree a new working schedule with the management I would accept that. But if that was because the management refused to budge on a proposal of contracting someone to every F,S,S I think that is incredibly unreasonable.
I'm sorry for the 'if's and but's' scenario but that's due to that part of the process has yet to be arrived at. I know 'reasonable' to some is not the same to others, it's a linear concept. But are there any scenarios or situations in which a contract proposal could be rejected because what they offered wasn't reasonable/fair/acceptable? Can we be forced to work a (every) Sunday? Is there any piece of legal information we should be aware of when going in to these meetings?
Kind regards,
Wayne.
