Keeping track of regulations like the Working Time Directive (WTD) is time consuming but necessary when it comes to staying compliant. Re-flow improves this process further.
Small changes can make a significant impact – especially in regards to employee wellbeing. Keeping your teams happy builds loyalty, encourages them to work harder, and boosts operations. Re-flow's fatigue tracking feature is an additional boost to a suite of tools that put compliance and safety first.
Overview
When employees work over the weekly limit, and the employee has opted out of the WTD, employers have no requirement to offer a higher overtime rate.
The guidance states that:
Normally ‘on call’ conditions2 would be included in the terms of the contract.
In these cases, the advice of Acas (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service – an independent public body that provides ‘free, impartial advice on employment rights and workplace disputes’ with funding from the government) is to be open.
Give the prospective employee information about the Working Time Directive, so the employee is clear about what they’re expected to do.
Important notes on potential conflicts and grey areas:
A complicated situation can arise if the following happens:
In this situation, if the employer thinks the employee doesn’t have the capability to do the role it can lead to a conflict.
The recommendation is to investigate the situation, analyse options, and then try to find a way forward. Flexible working might be an option, but the employer also has the right to refuse it. If the worker is no longer capable of carrying out their contracted work then this can lead to a dismissal.
It’s important to note that in a worst-case scenario, an employment tribunal and a judge would decide.
As with most situations with complicated grey areas, it’s best to speak to Acas with the aim of making an informed decision.
Getting on top of the working time directive for businesses operating across multiple sites and multiple jobs, often with hundreds or thousands of employees, is a significant task with multiple opportunities for compliance-breaking errors.
The flexible nature of work – at the mercy of the weather, the whims of clients, and so on – merits special attention on the topic of the WTD.
This becomes more critical when health and safety risks and regulations are considered.
Employers have a legal duty to manage the risks of fatigued workers.
Fatigue has also been implicated in 20% of accidents on major roads and is said to cost the UK £115 - £240 million per year in terms of work accidents alone4.
Having peace of mind that workers are being scheduled correctly can be difficult, especially for larger companies.
For those managing companies in dangerous industries across UK infrastructure – from construction to highways, landscaping to utilities – compliance with the WTD has very dramatic and immediate importance due to the risks listed in the previous section – that fatigue causes accidents.
Keeping compliant is always important, but when the risks are (1) serious injury to operatives or the public, (2) death, (3) career ending incidents, or (4) huge fines, then the consequences are impossible to ignore.
Advice from the HSE website suggests treating fatigue like any other hazard (see the full list on managing risks here5):
Field management software truly capable of meeting your needs will come with fatigue tracking features.
Options like Re-flow Field Management7 automate time-wasting and resource-heavy scheduling tasks.
By taking responsibility for cross referencing and monitoring operatives’ working hours, the software frees up time in the business and ensures compliance via:
These conditions can be set up to trigger notifications to relevant managers, or (as mentioned above) restrict the scheduling of non-compliant workers to jobs.
With the power of management software, a complicated process that leaves companies vulnerable to serious repercussions from human error is completely automated.
1 https://www.gov.uk/maximum-wee...;
2 https://www.acas.org.uk/workin...;
3 https://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfa...;
4 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7eeca340f0b6230268c658/B22_Fatigue_March_2014.pdf;
5 https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/more-detail-on-managing-risk.htm
6 https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/index.htm;
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Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) is an independent public body that provides free, impartial advice on employment rights and workplace disputes. Acas's goal is to improve working conditions by helping employers and employees resolve conflicts and create better employment relations.