Introduction to Human Resources Management

This article provides an introduction to human resources management, including the concept of zero hour contracts, their legal regulation, and the cost and benefits to companies. It also offers recommendations for managing zero hour contracts.

Introduction to Human
Resources Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Zero Hour contract is the very small part in the labour market of UK, but now it has
across range of occupations and sectors in different organisation. It is a type of atypical
working arrangements in the companies which have typically increases in used 5 years
(Allmer, 2019). There is much greater public awareness of their existence. It is become
difficult to maintain its value as because of no fixed definition in the industry and having very
less information in the public. The chosen company for this assignment is McDonald,
founded in 1955. The Headquarter in Chicago, United States, and CEO is Chis Kempczinski.
In this assignment the included the overall management report of Zero contract Hour which
basically includes the aim of the assignment, its legal regulation, cost and benefit to the
company and in last the recommendation is provided to outline the cost, timescale and
prioritisation of the management report.
MAIN BODY
Zero hour contract is not a recognised legal term, so there is no particular definition of
the Zero hour contract. It is defined as that the employer is not bonded to provide to any
minimum working hours. And the workers are not obliged to accept the working hour’s
offers of the respected company. It has comes under the national minimum wages act, 1988,
UK workers operating under stand by time, on- call time and downtime, all these works are
paid the minimum wages for hours worked. Traditionally, they were used to employ seasonal,
agriculture and hospitality workers as their working hours is not fixed and their permanent
hours are might be not available.
Aim of the report
 The main aim of this report is to investigate the profile of the workers who are worked
on the basis of Zero Hours Contracts.
 To evaluate the nature of the contract in terms of length, permanency and legal rules
of the contract.
 Identifying the cost and benefit for the respected company while dealing with the
issues in the company.
 Identify the impacts of Zero Hours Contracts mainly in terms of the accommodation
and health effects.
 To identify the outline of the cost, timescale and priority based recommendation to the
company.
Why Use Zero Hour Contract
Organisation like McDonald are using Zero hours contract, as because of the working
hours are most suited to the different situations where work changes unexpectedly and also in
the organisation like McDonald where employees cannot gives guarantee on work (Dalal,
2018). The main reason for doing this contract is in respect on employers, they got the
flexibility to manage the fluctuation in demand, whereas the two-third of the employers are
citing this contract on the different basis of criteria. And for the employees they used for
getting the flexibility for individuals. Another important reason is using this contract in the
respected organisation it help in reducing the cost and avoiding the specific costs with the
reference of company.

Employment status
Employment status is the main issue that an employee need to consider while using
Zero Hours Contract. The three type of employment in the industry are employee, worker and
self-employed. The correct status category depends to what the contract says about the
employee and what kind of relationship in between them and their employers (Hadland,
Lambert and Campbell, 2016). Most of the time the Zero Hours Contract employees are the
workers of the company as there are no mutuality of obligation. In the company the employer
must need to be clear about the category of Zero- Hours workers and what are the actual
rights and conditions they are entitled to.
Regulatory framework
Here the legal framework of the employees in Zero Hours Contract in UK as well as
their entitlement to welfare are discussed
 An undertaking is given to the employees to do or perform the work or services is a
practices by the employers making the work and services by the workers.
 There is no certainty that the work which is allotted to the worker is actually available
to the workers or not.
Since June 2015, an employer may not be able to prevent individual basis of working
under the Zero Hour Contract from another employer working. That law is now become
enforceable in term of law of contract and as the form of January 2016, any workers who
are suffering from the result of any work taken outside of their Zero Hour Contract and
they can take the employer to the employment tribunal in case of any misrepresentation of
the employee within the organisation.
Here the individual have amazing level of employment protection depending on the
classified employment status of the single worker in the company as an employee, a
worker or any other legal status of the industry. Their rights and status are depend on their
own individual contracts and the all employees have minimum rights which are described
under the law of UK:
 Right for not to be discriminated against under the equality act, 2010. Which help
the employees to not faced discrimination within the organisation with the same
level of other employees.
 Right to get the pro-rata holidays pay and other benefits of working time rights
which are majorly based on the working time regulation, 1998.this help the
employees to not to get the extra time in the organisation against the contract.
 Right to receive the statuary sick pay, just they have to get the level where they
got the minimum earning limit of the employees (Kowalski and Loretto, 2017).
 Every employee get the automatic enrolment in the pension scheme which help
the employees and workers to get some extra relief in the future.
 Also provides the protection from unlawful deduction from the wages of the
workers in the organisation of the UK.
 And in last every employee have the right to receive the minimum wages
according to the national minimum wages.

Cost and benefits on Zero Hours Contracts
There are very divergent ways in the case of Zero Hours contract and also multiple views of
the advantage of the Zero Hours contract. Their actual opinion depends on the weather they
are worked as an employer or employee or as a workers. And even also depends on the
individual position like their age, stage of working lives, pay and bargaining power
(Neckermann, 2015). The Zero Hours Contracts affect the workers of the company as it affect
the bargaining power of the workers and it will take down the pay levels of the company. The
advantage and disadvantage of Zero Hours Contract are explained below:
Advantages Disadvantages
It help the workers who want the flexibility
in their working style.
Intermittent the nature of work as ZHC’s
didn’t support the fixed income and healthy
status in the company.
The workers can get the extra hours
alongside of the particular job for the more
and more experience in their lives.
Workers get discrimination on the ground of
age, status, salary and other aspect within
the organisation.
Employers get this as a beneficial resources
as they can change and modify the
workforce according to the needs and skills.
For example in the McDonald the
employees are not fixed they can shift their
work according to their need and demand.
It leads to difficult lifestyle of the
employees as it is not fixed in budget,
secure credit. Also they are not able to
maintain the lifestyle at the time of outside
of work.
It can deprive the workers in their rights and
prevail ages.
Difficulties in claiming the work benefits as
no guarantee of the work as compare to
other employees of the organisation.
The company must have to protect the reputation as the Zero hours contracts are
getting a bad image in the industry. And in the McDonald, faced legal issues related to the
zero hours contracts as excluded the workers from bonus schemes, other major rights like
pension and minimum wages. McDonald have been questioned and heavily criticised for
using the contracts and it will decrease the image of the company in the market. Also it have
the benefits the employers to reduce the cost in term of paying staff on a full time staff basis.
And also it reduced the burden of permanent staff and help them to work effectively when
they have less pressure due to the increased in the numbers of staff. So there are lots of cost
and benefits to the company like McDonald which uses the zero hour’s contract in the
industry.
Outline the timescale, costs and prioritization
Government banned various clauses in zero hour contract, and in reference with that
measures need to be taken which deals with the avoidance of the ban clauses in zero hour
contract. These new regulation tackling the avoidance of these issues and considered as the
small business bill, which is not come in force right now. Any individual can file the case
against the company in employee’s tribunal if they find any misbehaviour and discrimination
issues done by the company with the particular worker (Zheltoukhova, 2015). The employees

who work under the contract of zero hour, they are not bonded to suffer from the various
discrimination and unauthorized behaviour of the employer with reference to the worker.
The simple amendment of the law will be helpful in the UK to make an equality in
between the permanent and contractual workers. Also this will encourage the employee and
workers to work effectively in the organisation if the employers give the all rights and
benefits which actually belongs to the worker accordance with their work and contribution in
the company. Furthermore if the fees of employment tribunal will introduce than it will help
in preventing the meritorious cases of being perused and it will allow the employers to get
back from his liabilities for doing illegal employment practices.
All these recommendation will be helpful for the company like McDonald and other
more companies which are losing their brand image in the market by improving the
information in between the employees and employers, proper guidelines is made for the
reference of the zero hours contractual employees and workers (Kuddo, Robalino and Weber,
2015). The government of the nation also encourages the company to make the unions to
develop the industry, industry owned, and sector specific code of practice on the fair use of
zero hours contracts.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that zero hour contract are the polarised
term. And it shows the main concern of the zero hour contractual employees particularly for
those who have no or little bargaining skills and who work in the lowest paid sectors. The
government should make an eye to continuously monitor the reports of the companies which
are followed the zero hours contract, in order to prevent the rights of that workers and also
ensure the future laws and policy which respond easily and effectively the contracts which
exploits the workers. Such a system would tackle the various exploitative arrangements that
are using by the companies that operate the zero hour contracts.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Allmer, T., 2019. Academic labour, digital media and capitalism. Critical Sociology, 45(4-5),
pp.599-615.
Dalal, F., 2018. CBT: The Cognitive Behavioural Tsunami: Managerialism, Politics and the
Corruptions of Science. Routledge.
Hadland, A., Lambert, P. and Campbell, D., 2016. The future of professional
photojournalism: Perceptions of risk. Journalism Practice. 10(7). pp.820-832.
Kowalski, T.H. and Loretto, W., 2017. Well-being and HRM in the changing workplace.
Kuddo, A., Robalino, D. and Weber, M., 2015. Balancing regulations to promote jobs.
Neckermann, L., 2015. The mobility revolution: zero emissions, zero accidents, zero
ownership. Troubador Publishing Ltd.
Zheltoukhova, K., 2015. New ways of working: what is the real impact on the HR
profession?. Strategic HR Review.