Can agency workers avail of flexible working
Posted in : Seamus Says - Employment Law Discussion on 18 October 2017 Issues covered:Q. Are agency workers entitled to available flex time? Fellow employees within the same office have this benefit. This is an external presumably agency worker who doesn't qualify as an employee.
Seamus: Certainly, the agency worker regulations here in Northern Ireland that apply, if there is flexible time available, certainly. Really, what should be agreed is that the working position is agreed at the outset. But then again, anything can happen. There would be an opportunity for them to make an application.
Again, if you're looking at our flexible working guidance that we have from government in terms of it, you must be an employee, but you can't be an agency worker and you have to have worked for your employer for 26 weeks continuously before applying and you can't have made the application if you've made another application in the past 12 months. The other exemption is if you're in the armed forces there as well that you can't make an application.
Scott: I think we’re at cross-purposes… we'll come back to it, but I think this is flexi-time as opposed to flexible working.
Seamus: Apologies.
Scott: I think it's just that in civil service, you can start at 8:00 or 10:00, it's a condition that's applied to an employee, does it have to be applied to the worker who's an agency worker as well?
Seamus: I think in terms of fairness and reasonableness, absolutely. The employee should be able to benefit from that.
Scott: You have to justify it otherwise.
Seamus: Yes, my apologies.
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