Working patterns
- 2. SHIFT WORK Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of, or provide service across, all 24 hours of the clock each day of the week. The practice typically sees the day divided into "shifts", set periods of time during which dif ferent groups of workers take up their posts. The term "shift work" includes both long-term night shifts and work schedules in which employees change or rotate shifts.
- 3. FIXED TERM A fixed-term employment contract is an employment contract by which an employer (company, enterprise) recruits an employee for a limited period of time. these kinds of contracts are possible only to perform a specific, temporary task, and only in those cases set out by law. For example, a fixed-term employment contract may be used to replace an employee who is absent or provisionally working part time, or to replace an employee who has not yet taken up their position.
- 4. OFFICE HOURS Office hours refers to the time spent working during a normal business day, which is typically from 9am to 5pm. Meaning the employees are expected to work throughout the entire day (except during lunch) and receive a fixed pay per month or week.
- 5. FREELANCE A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is a person who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long-term. These workers are sometimes represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and labor contributed by its regular employees. Others are completely independent.
- 6. IRREGULAR PATTERNS This is when someone works but in non -consistent hours or days, which can be working on a contract that only requires you to come in twice a week, or at unusual hours.
- 7. HOURLY RATES The term “hourly wage” describes a rate an employer agrees to pay a worker per hour worked, such as £12 per hour or £17.50 per hour. The “average” or “mean” is an estimated hourly rate calculated using the varying hourly rates of a group of workers in a specific occupation. The source of the data used depends on the reason you want the average. For example, you might want to know the average for workers in the same company, dif ferent companies or dif ferent regions; or the average by worker gender or age.
- 8. PIECE WORK Paid by the piece is the number of things they make, or tasks they complete (known as „output work‟), paid in other ways. Piece work originated in the putting out system, and remains a valid way of paying workers subject to certain restrictions. Piece workers must be paid either at least the minimum wage for every hour worked or on the basis of a „fair rate‟ for each task or piece of work they do. Output work can only be used in limited situations when the employer doesn‟t know which hours the worker does (e.g. some home workers). If an employer sets the working hours and the workers have to clock in and out, this counts as time work, not as output work.