Agency work & contracting

Many Companies seek to employ temporary workers through recruitment agencies, whilst others will outsource particular work they need doing to contractors, and additional workers may not be directly employed by them. These temporary workers still have many of the legal rights which are afforded to permanent staff members of a particular employer.

There are differences between agency workers who are employed by the agency on a temporary basis and those on fixed-term contracts.
If you are employed by a recruitment agency, you have the same legal rights to the National Minimum Wage, Working Time Legislation and Health & Safety provisions, including Social Security. If you’re employed as a ‘temp’ by an agency, they are legally obliged to pay you even if they’ve not been paid by the Company for whom you are supplying your services. But, it is not the case for those who have signed a fixed-term contract directly with an employer; so it’s important to know exactly what your employment status is.

The attractions to both the agency worker and employer on a temporary contract is the flexibility of the arrangement. An agency worker can take up or leave the job with often little or no notice, and the agency can end up a temporary worker’s contract without having to pay redundancy pay, nor will they be liable for claims of unfair dismissal of workers.

The Agency Workers are entitled to:

• Holiday pay, rest breaks and limits on the amount of time they work under the Working time Regulations
• Be paid at least the minimum wage
• Not be discriminated against under any legislation relating to equality issues
• Maternity or paternity pay but not maternity/paternity leave
• Statutory sick pay (if they have been employed by the agency for over 3 months)

What Agency Workers might not get:

They are not legally entitled to the same amount of holidays or any of the perks that permanent staff employed by the company are entitled to.

Fixed Term Contractors:

They must receive the same pay and conditions as a company’s permanent employees, if they are performing the same job. When it comes to redundancy payments and dismissal procedures, fixed term contractors should have the same rights as permanent employees. They also must be given access to the Company’s pension scheme, unless their contract runs for less than two years.

However, when it comes to the minimum wage, discrimination legislation, working time regulations and holiday pay, both Contractors and Agency Workers almost have themselves the similar rights.