On 18 September 2023, the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act received Royal Assent. Due to come into force in around a year’s time, the Act will amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 to give certain workers, agency workers and employees a new statutory right to request a predictable work pattern if they meet the following criteria:
- The minimum length of service is to be determined in separate regulations, but the intention is that it be 26 weeks’ continuous service.
- The worker must have a lack of predictability in their working pattern, such as if they are on a zero hours’ contract or do not have a guaranteed number of hours. The Act states that fixed-term contracts for less than 12 months will be deemed to lack predictability.
- The requested change must relate to the workers “work pattern”, for example the number of hours they work, the days of the week and time of day they work, and the length of the contract.
- The purpose of the request must be to get a more predictable work pattern.
- The Act permits workers to make no more than two applications in a 12 month period.
The form of applications and the potential compensation for a breach of the rules will be contained in separate regulations. The government press release states that Acas will publish a new statutory Code of Practice to help workers and employers understand the law and to provide practical guidance on how requests should be made and handled. A draft code of practice will be launched for public consultation this autumn.
The Act is likely to have the greatest impact on workers who have varying shift patterns and where work is very casual. However, the “lack of predictability” criterion could extend to any worker whose working hours or days vary in a way that makes their work pattern uncertain.
There is some overlap with flexible working requests. The new Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023, which will make relatively minor changes to the existing provisions, received Royal Assent in July and it isn’t yet clear how the two statutory rights will operate alongside each other. It may be that a request for flexible working also falls within the scope of the predictable work regime if the purpose of the flexible working request is to have a “more predictable work pattern”. This has potential to cause confusion when considering the number of requests an employee has made in a 12 month period and in relation to the amount of time the employer has to provide a decision on a request – a predictable work pattern request must be dealt with in one month rather than the two month timeframe under the flexible working rules.
Much like flexible working requests, it is important to remember that this is a new right to request more predictable hours, not a right to automatic change of a working pattern. In a similar approach to the flexible working regime, businesses can also reject the worker’s application on one of six statutory grounds: additional cost; ability to meet customer demand; impact on recruitment; impact on other areas of the business; insufficiency of work during the proposed periods; and planned structural changes. Employers should ensure that any reason for refusal is not discriminatory.
Although the rules won’t be in force until later next year, employers may want to start preparing for the changes now to put procedures in place to ensure that any reasonable requests are handled within the required timescale of one month.
If you are an employer and would like support with implementing new procedures and policies to ensure compliance with the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act, please feel free to get in touch with the team.
Jones Chase is a specialist employment law firm based in the centre of London with an excellent track record of looking after those that we assist.
Do contact us should you require further information on this topic or need any assistance with an employment matter. We are always happy to speak to people and point them in the right direction.
Tel: +44 (0) 203 837 9914
Email: info@joneschase.com