{"id":1916,"date":"2016-06-06T09:29:19","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T09:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2016-06-06T09:29:19","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T09:29:19","slug":"zero-hours-contracts-friend-or-foe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/zero-hours-contracts-friend-or-foe\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero-hours contracts \u2013 friend or foe?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What is the development?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Our May <a title=\"Appraisals - an outdated institution?\" href=\"http:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/appraisals-an-outdated-institution\/\" target=\"_blank\">post<\/a>\u00a0featured the first in a series of articles for HR Zone in which we\u2019re collaborating with our friends at <a title=\"The House\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thehouse.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">The House<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The second of these, on the subject of \u2018Zero-hours contracts \u2013 friend or foe?\u2019 has just been published on HR Zone, which you can read <a title=\"HR Zone - Zero hours contracts - friedn of foe?\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hrzone.com\/perform\/business\/zero-hours-contracts-friend-or-foe\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Zero-hours contracts have received a lot of attention in the press over the past couple of years, including some high profile cases of businesses using (and \u2018abusing\u2019) zero-hours contracts. This publicity has resulted in some businesses fearing similar criticism if they use these type of arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>In this article, we try to redress the balance in the debate about zero-hours contracts and look at some practical considerations to help businesses to\u00a0achieve a balanced approach.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What does this mean in practice for employers?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If you have a genuine need in your organisation for flexible arrangements to meet the ebb and flow of demand, perhaps you need to look again at zero-hours arrangements. Avoiding them completely, when there is a genuine need, can push employers to other options which could be even worse for everyone concerned.<\/p>\n<p>Just make sure you ask a few key questions first, which we highlight in our article. The recent <a title=\"Zero hours contracts: guidance for employers\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/zero-hours-contracts-guidance-for-employers\/zero-hours-contracts-guidance-for-employers\" target=\"_blank\">government guidance<\/a>\u00a0on the use of zero-hours contracts is particularly useful in highlighting some practical issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the development? Our May post\u00a0featured the first in a series of articles for HR Zone in which we\u2019re collaborating with our friends at The House. The second of these, on the subject of \u2018Zero-hours contracts \u2013 friend or foe?\u2019 has just been published on HR Zone, which you can read here. Zero-hours contracts &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/zero-hours-contracts-friend-or-foe\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Zero-hours contracts \u2013 friend or foe?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1920,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions\/1920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}