Employing part-time workers

Employing part-time workers can be an efficient way to keep costs down in areas where you don’t need full-time cover. It can also mean that you are able to attract a wide range of people to fill vacancies and build in flexibility so that you can respond to changes in demand and develop your business.

This guide will explain the different types of part-time work, the statutory rights of part-time workers and ways in which your business could benefit from recruiting part-time staff and/or allowing existing full-time staff to change to part-time working.

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Benefits and considerations when employing part-time workers

Benefits of employing part-time workers

Employing part-time workers has a range of potential business benefits, such as:

• being an efficient way to keep costs down in areas where you don’t yet need full-time cover
• increasing recruitment and retention of staff by offering family-friendly working practices
• being able to show potential clients and customers that you value having a diverse workforce and ethical employment practices
• allowing you to bring in highly skilled and experienced staff members even when you have a fixed budget and can’t afford to bring someone in on a full-time basis
• expanding the pool of potential recruits – part-time work tends to attract parents with younger children and older people, who may not want to work full time but can bring a wealth of skills, experience and expertise
• increasing the ability of your business to respond to change and peaks of demands – for example, you can use more workers at peak times and extend your operating hours by using part-time workers in the evening or at weekends
• helping to reduce the workloads of other workers, eg when you don’t have enough work for a new full-time position but are regularly using overtime to meet demands – this can reduce your overtime costs and help prevent the negative effects of stress and fatigue

Costs associated with employing part-time workers

It costs more or less the same to employ a part-time worker as a full-time one. For instance, recruitment, induction and training costs are generally the same for a worker regardless of the number of hours they work.

However, if you recruit two individuals to fill one full-time vacancy, ie a job share:

• recruitment costs may be greater than if you were taking on a single full-time worker
• there could be additional costs in terms of pension provision, benefits and training
• the job-sharers’ manager may spend more time supervising two workers instead of one

See the page in this guide on introducing job sharing.

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Approaches to part-time working

The most obvious form of part-time working is where the worker simply works fewer than the normal basic full-time hours. For example, they could work:

• every weekday morning, afternoon or evening
• a full day every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday
• weekend shifts and the occasional evening shift in the week

However, there are other part-time working options that may suit your business needs:

• term-time-only workers tend to be parents who work during term time and take paid or unpaid leave during school holidays
• job-sharing is where two or more people share the responsibilities, pay and benefits of a full-time job – see the page in this guide on introducing job-sharing 

Alternatives to part-time working

If you feel that part-time working doesn’t suit a particular job or your business as a whole, you could consider other types of flexible working.

Download information about flexible working and work/life balance [opens in a new window]

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Recruiting and managing part-time workers

If you decide to employ part-time workers, you should ensure that:

• the roles suit part-time working arrangements 
• your recruitment process is convenient for potential candidates
• you can effectively communicate with and manage part-time workers

Designing part-time jobs

When designing a job for a part-time worker, you first need to specify what you want the jobholder to achieve.

Think carefully about the tasks that they need to do to achieve these objectives. These will determine how much flexibility there is around the hours the jobholder must work.

When determining working hours, consider:

• how much time is needed to do each task
• whether the tasks require someone to work at a specific time or can be done at any time
• how the jobholder will fit into the existing structure of your business

It is important to consider the skills and personal attributes needed to perform the role effectively and specify these in the person specification.

Do not include any requirements that are not necessary to succeed in the post and that might exclude some candidates.

Recruiting for part-time jobs

When advertising for jobs, make it clear whether the job is either purely part-time or part of a job-share – see the page in this guide on introducing job-sharing.

Think creatively about how to reach experienced workers who may be looking for part-time work, eg parents with young children, carers and older people.

Try to arrange interviews and other stages of the recruitment process at times that are convenient for those applying for the job, eg if the job is for part-time evening work, hold interviews during the evening.

Managing part-time workers

Make sure that:

• your part-time workers receive all staff communications
• you inform them of all major decisions affecting their jobs

This may require you to contact – by phone, email or text message – those part-time workers who are not in the workplace when you send out messages for the first time.

You could consider setting core hours during the week when all staff will be present. This is a time when you can hold meetings and make important decisions.

If there isn’t a time when all workers are in the workplace, vary the times of key meetings so everyone can attend at least some of the time. Ensure that the outcomes of meetings are shared with workers who were not there.

To help you manage your part-time workers more easily, try to find out if they:

• have any flexibility to work additional hours on major projects or to attend meetings outside their scheduled hours
• are happy for you to contact them outside of their normal working hours

Make sure that any part-time staff have opportunities to attend training courses offered to full-time staff.

This might mean you have to offer training courses that can be delivered more flexibly. For example, a course could:

• have an element of home study time
• be condensed into two days instead of three
• be made up of short units that the worker can complete whenever they are at work

External help for introducing part-time working

There are a number of organisations that can advise you on introducing part-time employment in your business.

Acas provides free advice, guidance and online tools. It can also provide training that is tailored to the needs of your particular business.

Jobcentre Plus can help you fill both part-time and full-time vacancies. Support varies from recruitment planning right through to practical vacancy filling, including matching and sorting of application forms.

You could also try picking up tips from other employers that have already employed part-time workers successfully.

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Part-time workers’ rights

All workers have basic employment protection rights – regardless of whether they work full or part time.

Part-time workers must be treated equally to comparable full-time workers who work for the same employer and do similar work under the same type of employment contract.

Pay for part-time workers 

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

• Rates of pay – part-time workers must receive the same rate of pay as full-time workers carrying out work of equal value. However, 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. 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 occupational 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:

• paid 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 less favourable treatment

You should generally treat full-time and part-time workers equally. You will only be able to justify less favourable treatment if it can be shown objectively that it is necessary and appropriate to achieve a legitimate business objective.

For instance you may be justified in withholding health insurance if you can show that the cost of providing this benefit is disproportionate.

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 less favourable 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 less favourably, 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.

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Introducing job-sharing

Job-sharing is an increasingly popular way for people who used to work full time to move into part-time work.

What is job sharing?

Job-sharing is when two – or sometimes more – people share the responsibility, pay and benefits of a full-time job.

The job sharers share the pay and benefits in proportion to the hours each works. They may work split days, split weeks or alternate weeks, or their hours may overlap.

For example, one job sharer could work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, while the other works either the Thursday and Friday or the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, using the Wednesday as a handover period.

The benefits of job sharing

As an employer, the benefits of job-sharing include:

• retention of valued workers who can no longer work full time and may otherwise leave
• a wider range of skills, experience, views and ideas
• increased flexibility to meet peaks in demand
• greater continuity when one worker is sick or on holiday
• a wider pool from which to recruit
• increased commitment and loyalty
• a potential reduction in absenteeism, sickness and stress

The advantages of job-sharing for workers include:

• less stress, particularly if they are parents or carers
• a greater sense of responsibility and control of working life

Introducing job-sharing arrangements

Once you have decided that a job-sharing arrangement may be suitable, you may need to agree with workplace representatives on how it will work.

During the recruitment process, you should aim to choose candidates who you think can work together well, and have complementary skills and experience.

Managing job-sharing arrangements

Once the job sharers are in place, you need to ensure that:

• you divide the work fairly
• there are clear lines of responsibility
• the job sharers have clear lines of communication between themselves to ensure continuity – eg introducing a log to supplement face-to-face communication between the job sharers

Measure both job sharers’ performance against full-time members of staff. If there are performance issues, deal with them evenly rather than placing the responsibility on one job sharer rather than the other.

Don’t forget to plan ahead for hiring a replacement – it may take you longer to recruit a suitable individual who can work the required hours if one of the job sharers leaves.

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Considering requests to change working hours

Employees with caring responsibilities for children under the age of 17 (under 18 where the child is disabled and in receipt of disability living allowance) and those who are carers of certain adults, have the statutory right to request to work flexibly. This includes working part time or under some other form of flexible working arrangement, eg working from home.

You have a legal duty to consider any such request seriously – and you may only reject it on a limited number of specified business grounds.

For more information on statutory flexible working requests, see our guide on flexible working – the law and best practice.

Note that there is no reason why you cannot consider a flexible working request from a worker who does not have the statutory right to make such a request.

Considering whether part-time working is appropriate

Before taking a decision, you need to consider:

• if a job-share would be appropriate and whether there is a suitable candidate to work as the other job sharer – see the page in this guide on introducing job-sharing
• whether someone needs to be present in the post during all hours of work
• whether all the necessary work can be done in the number of hours the worker wants to work
• whether there is a similar type of job the worker could do part time
• the cost of recruiting and training a replacement if a compromise cannot be found
• the business benefits of a part-time arrangement
• the consequences on the business’ systems, procedures and resources
• reaching agreement with workers and/or their representatives before making changes
• any effects on other staff

Bear in mind that, once you agree to a part-time working arrangement, this is a permanent change to the worker’s terms and conditions of employment (unless you agree otherwise). You should notify the worker of this, pointing out in particular that they will receive less pay as result.

Requests from part-time workers to work full time

If a part-time worker requests a change to full-time hours, you have no legal duty to agree to – or even consider – such a request unless otherwise agreed.

However, it’s best practice to at least ask the worker to provide you with a good reason as to why this would help your business.

You could then consider whether or not:

• there is sufficient work for the increased hours
• you could use the extra hours to reorganise a number of jobs to make them more effective
• your business could afford the increase in pay, bearing in mind that you could offset any increase against saving money on recruitment

If you refuse the request, you should explain why and/or look for alternative ways of reshaping the job.

Flexible working policies

If you don’t have one already, consider putting together a policy for dealing with all flexible-working requests. This will help you deal with such requests consistently and fairly.

Your policy should also cover recruitment and part-time working, ie how you would consider requests to work part time from both internal and external job applicants applying for full-time positions.

You should, if possible, assess all the jobs in your business – including skilled and managerial ones – to determine which, if any, could be performed part time or under a job-sharing arrangement.

See our guide on how to set up employment policies for your business.

Practical measures to facilitate part-time working

If you are a larger employer, you could consider:

• offering a contribution towards childcare costs
• offering access to a childcare voucher scheme
• providing childcare facilities on site, eg a nursery

Read a factsheet on employer-supported childcare on the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website- Opens in a new window.

You might also consider introducing other flexible forms of working, such as term-time working, lunch-time working, flexi-time and home-working. See our guide on flexible working – the law and best practice.

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Asking workers to change their working hours

At some point, you may want to change the hours a worker works.

However, a change to a worker’s working hours amounts to a change to their terms and conditions of employment. As such, you need them to agree to it.

See our guide on how to change an employee’s terms of employment.

Before requesting such a change, you should look at the individual circumstances of the worker. For example, a change from part-time to full-time working may affect their caring arrangements, while a reduction in hours may cause them financial problems.

You should notify the worker of your proposed changes as soon as possible and explain to them why they are necessary. If you do this, they may be more willing to agree to your plans.

You should then consult with the worker and/or their representatives to reach an agreement. See our guide on how to inform and consult your employees.

If the worker still refuses to agree to your proposed change in hours, you could terminate the whole contract and offer employment on the revised terms.

However, this amounts to a dismissal – and could potentially be unfair. Therefore, you need to:

• follow a fair and reasonable procedure when dismissing the worker – see our guide on dismissal
• terminate the contract by giving the worker proper notice – see our guide on how to issue the correct periods of notice

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