Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the CIPD, considers proposed new rights for zero hours and short hours workers and the changes needed to make the reforms workable.

Complex new rights for zero hours and low-hours staff risk increasing employment costs for organisations, while reducing workforce flexibility and job opportunities, particularly for young people.

These are among the points CIPD has made to the Government, responding to its consultation Ending one-sided flexibility – reforms of zero hours and similar contracts. The consultation sets out details of proposed new rules which will give zero hours and low hours contract workers the right to move to minimum guaranteed hours contracts as measured over a new reference period. They will also require employers to provide advance notice of work schedules for variable hours workers and the right for these workers to be compensated if shifts are cancelled at short notice.

Our response to the Government - based on a survey of 2,000 organisations and discussions with our members from a range of sectors - highlights significant concerns about the reforms and areas where employers want to see changes if they are to work in practice.

Increase in employment costs and risks

Two thirds (65%) of employers that use zero hours contracts said they expect their HR and management costs to increase as a result of the proposed new rules, while almost a third (31%) expect to have to make redundancies. There was strong consensus among HR practitioners working across the NHS, hospitality, retail, leisure, tourism, agriculture and higher education sectors that the proposals risk disrupting vital workforce flexibility and further pushing up employment costs that many organisations are already struggling with.

Greater use of temporary fixed terms contracts and freelancers

A number of HR leaders we spoke to said that unless changes were made to the proposals, their organisation would no longer be able to use zero hours contracts. This would damage workforce flexibility for employers and individuals, and force employers to use other forms of atypical employment. This point also came through in our survey data, with a third (33%) of employers that use zero hours arrangements expecting to increase their use of self-employed contractors or other temporary and casual staff as a result of the planned reforms.

Reduction in flexible job opportunities, particularly for young people

As well as the negative impact on employers, the planned reforms risk reducing flexible job opportunities for those who can’t or don’t want to commit to working the same hours every week. The reforms risk reducing job opportunities for the nearly half a million young people currently on zero hours contracts, including a quarter of a million students. This would undermine any positive steps the Government announces in the budget to boost youth employment. And it’s not just young people who would lose out. Zero hours contracts play a valuable role in helping people work who may not, for a range of reasons, want a regular working pattern, such as carers, people with fluctuating health conditions and older workers wanting to work more flexibly.

Indeed, CIPD’s recent Labour Market Outlook survey found the top reason employers provide zero hours contracts is to provide flexibility for the individual.

Our recommendations to the Government
In order to address employer concerns, the CIPD has made a range of recommendations to the Government. These include:
Setting both the initial reference and the subsequent reference period at 12 months to better reflect fluctuations in demand and reduce the cost and complexity of compliance
Setting the hours threshold at the lowest level of eight hours
Setting the minimum advance notice of work schedules at seven days, while allowing for flexibility to ensure employers are not penalised for having to contact staff at short notice for reasons beyond their control such as sickness absence
Provide clarity on the issue of employment status
Exempting students, agency workers and agricultural workers from the regulations

Further tripartite discussions needed to resolve problems
Taken together, these are highly complex regulations, which introduce new concepts that will be unfamiliar to HR practitioners and employers more widely. Our discussions with members made clear that implementing these new rules will prove extremely challenging for HR professionals let alone for the UK’s 1.4 million micro and small employers, which typically have no access to professional HR or legal advice. They present significant implementation challenges, including unresolved questions around employment status.

In order to help further refine these proposed regulations and ensure they are workable, CIPD believes there’s a need for new tripartite discussions, involving ministers, key employer-side bodies and trade unions. This would help avoid damaging unintended consequences and signal the Government is serious when it says it is seeking to build a pro-business culture to support growth.

What HR and employers can do now

While the final regulations remain uncertain, there are steps employers and HR teams can take to prepare. HR practitioners can begin assessing their organisation's requirements for workforce flexibility and exploring the different ways these needs could be met. This might include reviewing the use of freelancers and self-employed contractors, considering alternatives such as annualised hours arrangements, and identifying opportunities to reduce reliance on atypical working arrangements where appropriate.

Taking these steps now will leave organisations better prepared once the final regulations are confirmed.



The CIPD is the professional body for HR, learning and development, and the wider people profession, established by Royal Charter to promote and develop the art and science of people management for the public benefit. When people management is done well, organisations perform better. Productivity improves. People have greater opportunity to develop, progress and participate. And stronger organisations contribute to greater prosperity and better economic and social outcomes. Its role is to set the standard for professional people practice, help our members reach it, and make the profession's impact impossible to ignore
With more than 160,000 members globally, it is an independent, practitioner-focused and evidence-led voice for the people profession.