Survey reveals that there is still confusion over the Agency Workers Directive which is force from 1st October.
Employers are unsure as to which groups of workers will be affected by the legislation, with 47 percent of respondents erroneously thinking that temporary workers employed direct by the company will be affected and 26 percent of respondents believing that the legislation also covers the self-employed, a group unaffected by the legislation. In the survey, which polled 1500 employers across all industry sectors, 89 percent of respondents stated that they employ temporary workers on agency contracts at some point during the year. For the majority of these organisations, 70 percent, agency workers typically make up less than five percent of the workforce. Approximately 15 percent of respondents however state that agency workers make up more than 20 percent of their workforce.
The Agency Workers Directive will affect employers to varying degrees, depending on the number of agency workers typically employed and their average length of employment. One of the areas for concern has been the additional administration for employers who need to closely monitor the contract lengths of agency staff. Currently 63 percent of respondents do not use an automated system to alert them to staff reaching the 12 week milestone, relying on manual record keeping. With 40 percent of respondents stating that over 30 percent of their workforce will generally be employed for 12 weeks or more, employers need to make some tough decisions on the length of agency contracts if they plan to avoid giving agency workers the same basic rights as those on permanent contracts.
The survey also revealed that agency workers are not currently enjoying the same benefits as permanent employees. Fifty-five percent of agency workers do not receive the same holiday entitlement; 55 percent do not have access to the same training and 58 percent do not have the same rates of pay. Survey respondents generally think that the directive will have a negative impact on their organization by increasing bureaucracy and cost base. Commenting on the survey findings, Simon Macpherson, Operations Director, Kronos®, says: “It’s worrying that, with only a few days to go before the Oct 1 deadline, there is still a significant amount of confusion over which groups of workers will be affected by the legislation.
There will undoubtedly be an increase in workload for organisations who plan to carefully monitor agency workers heading towards a 12-week work period, and with a large and disparate agency workforce this may be difficult to achieve with the manual employee tracking systems that many organisations are still relying on.”
