Employing part-time workers

Part-time workers' rights

By law you must not treat your part-time workers less favourably than comparable full-time workers, unless you can objectively justify this treatment. A comparable full-time worker is one who works for the same employer and does similar work under the same type of contract.

Pay for part-time workers 

Compared with full-time workers, part-time workers should receive equal:

• Hourly rates of pay - under a performance-related pay scheme, if you can show that part-time workers have a different level of performance to their full-time equivalents, you could possibly justify different rates of pay. However, you must use a fair and consistent appraisal system to measure this.
• Overtime pay - but only once they have worked more than the normal full-time hours of a comparable full-time worker, eg if a comparable full-time worker normally works 40 hours per week, a part-time worker working 20 hours per week would have to work another 20 hours before receiving overtime pay.
• Enhanced rates of pay - for working outside normal contractual hours, eg bonus pay, shift allowances, unsocial hours payments and weekend payments.

Equal treatment of part-time workers

Compared with full-time workers, part-time workers should receive equal:

• access to any company pension scheme
• access to training and career development - when scheduling training courses, you should do as much as possible to include part-time workers
• rights to career breaks
• rights to receive enhanced sick, maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay
• parental-leave rights
• consideration for promotion

Pro rata contractual benefits

Part-time workers have the right to receive contractual benefits pro rata, ie in proportion to the hours they work.

This applies to benefits such as:

• annual leave above the statutory minimum
• company cars
• staff discounts
• health insurance
• subsidised mortgages
• profit-sharing and share-option schemes

For example if you allow your full-time workers 30 days' paid annual leave, a part-time worker working three days a week would be entitled to 18 days.

If you cannot easily divide a benefit, eg health insurance or a car, you could withhold it from part-time workers. However, you must justify this decision on objective grounds.

The best thing to do is to work out the cash value of the benefit and give the appropriate pro rata amount to the part-time worker. For example, you could calculate the financial benefit of a company car and pay half that amount to part-time workers who work half the number of hours of full-time workers.

Justifying unequal treatment

Although you should generally treat full and part-time workers equally, you may be able to justify unequal treatment on objective grounds if it can be shown that it is necessary and appropriate to achieve a legitimate business objective.

For example, you may be justified in withholding a health insurance scheme from a part-time worker because of the disproportionate cost.

In the case of share option schemes, you may be able to justify the exclusion of a part-time worker where the value of the share options is so small that the potential benefit to the part-timer of the options is less than the likely cost of realising them.

Complaints of unequal treatment

Part-time workers who believe you have treated them less favourably can ask you for a written statement of reasons for this. You have 21 days in which to respond.

Part-time workers who still believe you are treating them unfavourably, and don't believe you have objectively justified this, can make a complaint to an employment tribunal. A tribunal can make you pay compensation if they find in the part-time worker's favour.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Pros and cons of employing part-time workers
• Approaches to part-time working
• Part-time workers' rights
• Introducing job-sharing
• Considering requests to change working hours
• Asking workers to change their working hours

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