Ensuring HR compliance for atypical workers

Practices, regardless of size, that have diverse workforces face unique challenges in maintaining compliance with UK employment law and internal workplace standards. This is particularly true for those that rely on weekend, evening, or part-time staff who often work outside standard business hours, under varied contractual arrangements, or through third-party agencies.

While the legal framework aims to ensure fairness and protection for all workers, applying these standards in practice requires careful co-ordination, oversight and active engagement.

Given this landscape, what are the practical steps employers should take to ensure compliance with employment laws, contracts, workplace policies, and fair treatment for all staff, including those with varying working hours?

Consistency across working patterns

A fundamental starting point is recognising that part-time and weekend workers are entitled to the same core employment rights as their full-time counterparts. These include protection from unfair dismissal (after the qualifying period), statutory sick pay, national minimum wage, rest breaks, and pro-rata holiday entitlement.

Under the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, employers must not treat part-time workers less favourably than comparable full-time workers unless this can be objectively justified. This extends to pay, benefits, training opportunities and promotion.

Fair treatment and avoiding discrimination

Under the Equality Act 2010, employers must ensure that all employees are treated fairly, regardless of their working patterns. Employers should proactively identify and address practices that may disadvantage certain groups of staff – such as part-time, weekend or agency workers. Indirect discrimination may arise where a neutral policy (such as “all training sessions will be held at 10am on weekdays”) has a disproportionate impact on part-time or weekend staff, many of whom may have caring responsibilities or other protected characteristics. If an employer requires all employees to work weekends, this could disadvantage certain groups, such as those with religious observances or caring responsibilities. Equality impact assessments should be conducted on workplace policies.

Employers should regularly review:

• Grievance, disciplinary, and appraisal records – are part-time staff under or over-represented?
• Promotion and development data – are weekend workers being left behind?
• Allocation of shifts and overtime – are certain groups being excluded or preferred?

As well as being good practice, these reviews can be relied on if issues and fairness were challenged at a later date.

Employment contract

Compliance begins with accurate and legally compliant contracts. All employees and workers should receive a written statement of terms on day one of employment, including details of pay, hours, place of work, and other key provisions.

Where staff work irregular hours or weekend shifts, their contracts should set out expected working patterns or clarify whether the role is zero-hours or subject to flexible scheduling. Practices should be cautious not to default to overly generic contracts, particularly when working patterns differ significantly from standard office hours.

Rest and holidays

Employers must ensure that working hours and rest breaks comply with the Working Time Regulations 1998.

This may be more complex for employees working weekends or with irregular working patterns.

Practices must monitor working hours to ensure that appropriate rest breaks are received by employees.

Some key rights include a maximum working week of 48 hours, a minimum of 11 hours of consecutive rest in a 24-hour period, 20 minutes of rest for every 6 hours worked and at least one full day off per week.

These regulations also detail holiday entitlements for employees and workers. The entitlement is 5.6 weeks’ of paid leave per year, and this can be pro-rated for part-time workers.

Workplace policies

Ensuring that workplace policies are consistently applied across a practice that includes part-time and weekend staff is a practical compliance challenge.

A key risk is that these workers miss out on vital communications or training that occur during the standard working week.

Communication of policies should be done in a way that reaches all staff, including those who work evenings and weekends. Policies should be accessible online or in hard copy in work locations.

Managers should understand their role in cascading information to all team members, regardless of shift patterns.

As well as awareness of policies, the policies themselves will also need to be considered to ensure they are clear, consistent and compliant with UK employment law. Policies should be regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in legislation and workforce needs.

Specifically, grievance and disciplinary policies should be considered, to ensure they align with the ACAS Code of Practice. Health and safety policies should be considered, and unique risks posed to evening and weekend workers should be assessed.

Line management and supervision

HR compliance often depends on the actions of managers. In a workforce that spans different shifts and days of the week, some staff may have limited direct contact with HR or management. This makes it essential that weekend or evening managers are properly equipped to apply policies, manage conduct and handle issues fairly.

Ensuring that managers are competent will also support employers in meeting their duty of care towards the staff being managed.

Ensuring that weekend or shift workers are not marginalised or poorly supported is both a fairness and risk management issue.

Obligations in planned Employment Rights Bill

The Employment Rights Bill is proposing wide-ranging obligations for employers, particularly those managing varied workforces that include part-time, weekend or agency staff.

Among the most significant changes are new protections for agency workers – including locums, who will become entitled to guaranteed hours and compensation for short notice shift cancellations. Responsibility for offering those guaranteed hours will primarily rest with the end hirer, except where specific exceptions are introduced through secondary legislation.

Both hirers and agencies will be required to give reasonable notice of shifts, cancellations and changes, and agencies must compensate workers affected by cancellations – though they may recoup these costs from the hirer if contractually permitted.

Practices that rely on agency workers to manage fluctuating demand or weekend cover will need to review staffing contracts, improve rota planning, train managers on the new obligations, and prepare for the financial implications of greater shift security.

The bill is still evolving, with further Government-backed amendments affecting collective redundancy consultation, industrial relations, and statutory sick pay.

For evening and weekend workers, the removal of the lower earnings limit for statutory sick pay (SSP) is especially significant, ensuring all employees – regardless of their working hours or earnings – are entitled to SSP.

Conclusion

Employers face specific compliance challenges. Achieving this in practice requires deliberate effort, which means reviewing contracts, ensuring consistent line management, delivering accessible policies and preparing for legal reforms.

With the Employment Rights Bill coming down the line, now is a good time for practices to take stock of their arrangements – particularly where agency workers and shift-based staffing models are concerned.

• This article appeared in Vet Times (2025), Volume 55, Issue 39, Pages 21-22.