Staff Shortages in Manufacturing: Agency Workers, Contingency Planning & Retention Incentives

As production ramps up in the lead up to Christmas, many manufacturing and engineering businesses are struggling to operate efficiently on a skeleton workforce, leading to a heavy reliance on agency workers to plug staff shortages and meet demand.

Unfortunately, engaging agency workers can be a real grey area for employers and there are a number of tricky employment and health and safety issues to navigate, from understanding their 12-week rights and managing conflict with permanent staff, to getting them to wear correct PPE and buy into your health and safety culture. Plus, who’s liable if they cause an accident onsite?

Join our experts for an informative 45-minute webinar shedding light on the complex employer-agency relationship from an employment law and health and safety perspective, followed by a live Q&A.

11 November | 14:00 - 14:45

When taking on agency staff to provide support during busy periods, such as the run-up to Christmas or when absence levels are rocketing, there are some vital legal and safety obligations to be aware of, and processes you need to follow, to protect your business from claims, reduce the risk of an accident occurring and keep the peace between agency staff and your permanent workforce.

Technically, unlike temporary workers or permanent staff, agency workers are employed by the agency, which causes endless issues when they are working alongside your existing team. For example, if you receive a grievance regarding an agency worker, how are you expected to deal with this? Or where health and safety is concerned, how do you handle agency workers being supplied incorrect PPE (or in some cases no PPE) by the agency? And even though they’re not employed by you, what legal rights do they acquire after 12 weeks’ work at your business?

Of course, agency workers aren’t the only way to ensure you have a full workforce as we head into the festive season. As part of this session, we’ll explore methods of reducing staff absences and improving retention, such as introducing bonus schemes or other benefits, and the contractual changes you need to consider before rolling these out.

And with any staff shortages having possible safety implications, we’ll also cover the health and safety contingency plans you need to bring into play to cover you in the event of high levels of absence during the winter period due to isolation, winter bugs and bogus short-term absences.

What will I learn?

During this comprehensive 45-minute webinar, our Solicitor and Head of Team, Angela Carter, and Regional Health & Safety Manager, Oliver Williams, will walk you through:

The dos and don’ts of keeping everyone safe when it comes to managing agency staff;
How agency workers’ rights vary under the Agency Workers Directive if they’ve been engaged with you for more than 12 weeks;
Dealing with unacceptable behaviour from agency workers, such as inappropriate banter or bullying;
Health and safety contingency planning for loss of workforce, both in the short-term and long-term; and
What contractual changes you need to consider for your permanent workers when introducing bonus schemes or other benefits.

At the end of the session, our hosts will be taking your questions on the topics discussed. In recognition of the limited time we have available, we recommend submitting your specific queries in advance via the registration form. All questions submitted before or during the webinar will be answered in a helpful FAQ which we’ll share with all registrants after the session.

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