17 02 2021 Insights Employment Law

Banded hours contracts

Reading time: 4 Minutes

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A piece of legislation with a mouthful of a name (Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2018) updated the Organisation of Working Time Act to provide employees with a statutory entitlement to a “banded hours” contract in certain circumstances. We look at how respond to a request for a banded hours contract, and the formula to calculate the correct band.

What is a banded hours contract?

It is contractual entitlement for employees to work within a set range of hours for the next 12 months, calculated by averaging out the hours worked during the previous 12 months.

There are certain sectors in which experience shows that employees’ contracts do not reflect the hours actually worked. By way of example, the hospitality sector would historically be seasonal in nature with employees potentially working full time during busy summer months, with limited hours during the winter months. Over the years, and prior to Covid, the “season” extended, and regularly employees would work full time on a year-round basis, but hold a contract requiring working hours at a much lower level.

The concept of a banded hours contract was introduced to provide stability and fairness to employees who wanted guaranteed weekly hours.

What are the bands?

There are eight different bands into which an employee’s average hours over the previous 12 months might be placed:

A.3-6 hours
B.6-11 hours
C.11-16 hours
D.16-21 hours
E.21-26 hours
F.26-31 hours
G.31-36 hours
H.36 hours and above