Looking for information on people who work unsocial hours, i.e. evenings, nights, weekends and bank holidays.
Person works an unsocial or out of hours job, evenings, nights and weekends, basically everything outside of monday - friday, 9 to 6. A rota is in place that gives the employee one weekend off a month, and evenings/nights off midweek other weeks in the month. It is a full time 39 hour a week job when averaged out over 4 weeks. This has been the position for some years now.
Now, the employer wants to change the out of hours rota to reduce the number of night shifts and increase the number of evening and weekend shifts. The end result of this proposed change is that the employee will be required to work every weekend of the year, and will have significantly less free days as employee will be working an increased number of shorter duration shifts.
This proposed change is significantly anti social and anti family. While it is obvious that any person working in an out of hours job can expect it to be anti family, the original system was more fair and allowed the employee have a realistic family life (3 small children).
Are there any regulations / guidelines in existence concerning people who work in an unsocial hours capacity?
Given the nature of the job, can they expect to have a rota in place that allows some semblance of normal family life? (as it is currently).
The main sticking point here is the proposal to work every weekend, by that I mean 12 hour shifts saturday and sunday, so the entire weekend would be spent at work, every weekend.
Any advice appreciated.
PCOCP.
Person works an unsocial or out of hours job, evenings, nights and weekends, basically everything outside of monday - friday, 9 to 6. A rota is in place that gives the employee one weekend off a month, and evenings/nights off midweek other weeks in the month. It is a full time 39 hour a week job when averaged out over 4 weeks. This has been the position for some years now.
Now, the employer wants to change the out of hours rota to reduce the number of night shifts and increase the number of evening and weekend shifts. The end result of this proposed change is that the employee will be required to work every weekend of the year, and will have significantly less free days as employee will be working an increased number of shorter duration shifts.
This proposed change is significantly anti social and anti family. While it is obvious that any person working in an out of hours job can expect it to be anti family, the original system was more fair and allowed the employee have a realistic family life (3 small children).
Are there any regulations / guidelines in existence concerning people who work in an unsocial hours capacity?
Given the nature of the job, can they expect to have a rota in place that allows some semblance of normal family life? (as it is currently).
The main sticking point here is the proposal to work every weekend, by that I mean 12 hour shifts saturday and sunday, so the entire weekend would be spent at work, every weekend.
Any advice appreciated.
PCOCP.