AWR

The Legislation   Agency Worker Regulations, or AWR, which came in to force with effect 1st Oct 2011 is designed to protect Agency Workers from being treated unfairly by the End Clients (also referred to as “Hirers”). The legislation requires the End clients to offer comparable pay, facilities and rights to the Agency Workers as they would have given to their own employees. There are certain rights that are available to the Agency Workers from Day 1 of starting a new assignment, and there are other rights that will be available when the worker completes the 12 Week qualifying period on an assignment.   Your contractors should have access to the facilities (such as canteen, parking, childcare etc.) and job vacancies provided by the end client. Though the end client is primarily responsible for this, you may want to ask for this information from the end client via. your agency.   Your contractors will be entitled to pay and other working conditions (leave, breaks etc.) the same as if they had been directly employed by the end client. It will be your responsibility to request this information from the end clients and pass it on to your contractors.   Tracking the 12 week qualification is the most complex part of compliance. The legislation states that, when the contractor completes the 12 qualifying weeks on the same job with the same client, he/she must be treated equal to a permanent employee. However the 12 weeks do not have to be continuous. If the worker didn’t work in a week, depending on the reason the counter may pause or reset or continue. Hence the reason for break must be taken in to account and to add to the complexity, the 12 week qualification must be tracked for each placement (Job and Client) separately. Green Pelican makes it a simple task by allowing you to record the reason for not working quickly.  It then tracks the 12 week qualification automatically. Once the 12 week qualification is completed, it automatically applies the client specific holiday pay rates. Individual diaries are maintained for each contractor and reports produced that assist you in setting up new rates where necessary.    

Where the break is less than 6 weeks	Pauses
Where there is a break of 6 weeks or more	Resets
Sickness absence	Pauses
Annual leave	Pauses
Workplace shut downs (e.g. factory closure, school holidays)	Pauses
Jury service	Pauses
Industrial action	Pauses
Pregnancy and maternity related absence Maternity, paternity or adoption leave	Continues