The cost of living crisis appears to be a never-ending story.
As employers, you may be wondering if you can reduce business hours as a way of continuing to trade or you may have an influx of flexible working requests as staff seek to reduce their working hours as they look to take the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a shorter working week.
Reducing working hours not only has an impact on your customers but also impacts on staff too. For employers with staff on fixed contractual hours, obtaining their agreement will be beneficial and be the least problematic route in the long run. Reducing employees’ hours without their consent will leave you open to potential claims such as unlawful deduction of wages or unfair dismissal.
The fairest approach outside of accepting flexible working requests is to consider the option of redundancies. However, to use this route there must be a genuine redundancy situation, meaning there is a reduced requirement for employees to carry out a role of a particular kind. There must also be a consultation process with employees, especially where the proposal is to dismiss more than 20 employees.
Of course, employees may be reluctant to accept a reduction in pay, however, a reduction in hours does not have to be seen as a negative.
Recent events have seen employers take the opportunity to redistribute their workforce in such a way that fits with a reduced working week.
Given the challenging times we are currently facing, it will be those employers which handle these times most effectively and sensitively whose workforce will be best equipped to thrive when the future is bright.
Here at Lawgistics, we are here to assist and support you whatever the climate!
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