A part-time worker is someone who normally works fewer than 35 hours a week for you (they may work for other employers too). This is regardless of any option to work overtime. A part-time worker works fixed hours on set days of the week. Part-time employees must receive a written statement of terms (or a full part-time employment contract). This is the same as for full-time employees. This must be provided within two months of starting employment.
The rules on what you must include in an employment statement changed on 6 April 2020, so do contact us if your existing statements or contracts need updating.
The employer needs to consider these key points when engaging part-time employees:
- Will the employee be able to work elsewhere?
- Is a restrictive covenant appropriate?
- How are you to avoid conflicts of interest?
The employment law and HR team here at Forward Law are expert employment contract solicitors. We support start-up and growing businesses across their HR and employment law needs.
We can work with you to create an individual one-off, bespoke employment contract. Our team can also work with you to produce template employment contracts for use with your part-time employees and full-time employees.
We can also help you with fixed-term and zero-hours / casual workers employment contracts. We also advise on self-employment contracts and issues over avoiding breaching HMRC’s tax rules on IR35 (in April 2021, the UK government tightened up tax rules for the private sector, making end clients responsible for assessing whether their workers come within IR35 rules).
Avoid indirect sex discrimination in a part-time employment contract
Don’t forget that a part-time worker has all the same rights as a full-time one. For example, they have the same rights (in proportion to hours worked) as a full-time comparator to:
- pensions,
- holidays,
- training,
- sick pay,
- maternity leave,
- paternity leave,
- adoption leave and
- normal pay.
They must also be treated the same as a full-time comparator for career development opportunities and redundancy selection.
A key issue to bear in mind is the need to avoid any indirect sex discrimination creeping into any part-time employment contract. This is because a higher proportion of part-time workers are female than male. So any harsher terms or lack of equal benefits under a part-time contract, when compared to a full-time one, could be indirectly sex discrimination.
We can guide you on this.
Proportionate pensions and holidays
Don’t forget that you must offer all part-time employees:
- access to your business’s staff pension scheme and
- the same other benefits (proportionately) as their full-time colleagues.
For example, part-time employees still have a holiday entitlement, but you would offer it proportionate to their average working hours. This also applies to taking, and payment for, the statutory holidays during the year.
For a basic summary of the rights of both full and part-time employees, see the government’s website. The Working Time Regulations 1998 state that any worker working over a 6-hour shift is due a minimum of a 20-minute rest break during the shift.
If you have any queries relating to your part-time workers’ rights, do contact us.
