Zero Hours Policy

We have recently drawn the Zero Hours Policy to cover all the relevant legislative changes.

Employees who are working under the zero hours contract can refuse to accept work from the employer, but the refusal must not be regular and it must be based on reasonable grounds. However, when work has been accepted, the employee has an obligation to complete the work within the timeframe assigned by the employer.

This policy:

• provides the necessary procedures when assigning work to all employees who are working under the zero hours contract.
• must be read in conjunction with the zero hours contract.
• does not restrict the employee to work for other employers. 
• is flexible and can be edited to fulfil your business requirements.

‘Zero Contracts’ are contracts of employment that do not specify any number of hours that the employee will be required to work. The contract says that instead of working a specific number of hours per week, employees must be ready to work whenever they are asked, and with zero contracts employees are only paid for the time they work.

A Zero Hours Contract (or nil hours contract) is a type of Employment Contract under which an employer does not guarantee to provide work for the employee and pays only for work actually done. Thus, the employee is expected to be on-call and receive compensation only for hours worked.

Workers under zero hours contracts qualify for the same statutory employment rights as are enjoyed by full time workers, on a pro rata basis.
 

This Zero Hours Employment Contract template does not set in stone the hours and days to be worked, it is flexible and allows for hours to be offered to an Employee on an ad hoc basis. The Employee is paid for any hours they do work and they accrue holiday entitlement on a pro rate basis according to the number of hours worked.

The Zero Hours Employment Contract is designed to create an ‘on call’ arrangement between Employer and Employee. The most important aspect of a Zero Hours Contract is that it does not oblige the employer to provide work for the employee, or the employee to accept the work offered.

The Zero Hours Employment Contract is most commonly used by Employment Agencies. Also, this type of contract allows employers to retain a pool of workers to fill temporary positions as they arise.

 It is a requirement under the Employment Rights Act 1996 for Employers to provide their Employees with a written statement of their main terms and conditions of employment. This must be provided within 8 weeks starting from the commencement of Employment. This Zero Hours Employment Contract contains all the main terms and conditions required under the Act.

 This Zero Hours Employment Contract is in accordance with the statutory minimum requirements and complies with the Employment Equality (Repeal of Retirement Age Provisions) Regulations 2011. From 6 April 2011, it is no longer possible to retire employees once they reach the age of 65 unless their retirement can be objectively justified. Thus, this Employment Contract contains a clause stating that there is no default retirement age in operation and employees are free to retire at any time they wish.

This Zero Hours Policy is in Microsoft Word format, written in plain English, easy to use and edit.