An Employer’s Guide To Shift Working: Your Legal Duties To Ensure Shift Workers’ Safety

All employers in the UK are required to ensure the health, safety and welfare of shift workers.

What is shift working?

According to the HSE:

“There is no specific definition of shift work in law, but it usually means a work activity scheduled outside standard daytime hours, where there may be a handover of duty from one individual or work group to another; a pattern of work where one employee replaces another on the same job within a 24-hour period.

Night work is defined within the working-time directive (WTD); typically, it involves work between the hours of 11 o’clock in the evening and 6 o’clock in the morning but can be agreed between employers and the work force to be any seven-hour period that includes the period from midnight until 5 o’clock in the morning. The Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) implemented the European Working Time Directive in the UK and they remain in force post-Brexit.”

An employer’s legal duties around shift workers

The main areas of health and safety law relevant to shift working are:

• Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (as amended)
• Working Time Regulations 1998 (as amended)
• Refer also to HSE Guidance HSG256 – ‘Managing Shift Work’

Steps employers can take to mitigate risks undertaken by shift workers

Here are some steps employers can take to mitigate the specific risks that apply when workers undertake shift work.

• Carry out a risk assessment as required by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Use the HSE Fatigue and Risk Index Calculator if required.
• Minimise back-to-back night shifts as far as possible.
• Take appropriate action if health risks are identified.
• Have a formal process so that employees can raise concerns about health at work and monitor the situation (introduce health surveillance where appropriate – there is a legal duty under Working Time Regulations to offer a free health assessment to night workers).
• Ensure hours are recorded and Working Time Regulations are observed.
• Include driving time needed to get to and from a place of work (e.g. site work).
• Allow sufficient rest between shifts and, where possible, allow compensatory rest when overtime has been worked.
• Identify any vulnerable groups such as expectant mothers and workers with pre-existing conditions and undertake specific risk assessments.
• Where it is medically certified that night work will affect the health of a new or expectant mother, then there is an obligation for the employer to offer suitable alternative work at a similar rate of pay or suspend on full pay.
• Allow for regular rest breaks.
• Communicate effectively with shift workers to be sure that they receive all necessary business communications
• Some people cope with shift working better than others and are naturally either ‘owls’ or ‘larks’, therefore, in the first instance allow workers to volunteer for shifts which suit their body clock.
• Where shifts are routinely longer than eight hours, ensure other risk assessments are adjusted to take account of the longer hours worked by employees, especially where these risk assessments set limits for exposure to hazards in the workplace.
• Recognise the contribution shift workers make to business performance.
• Monitor that employees are taking appropriate rest periods during the course of their shift and emphasise the importance of proper rest both pre- and post-shift working.
• Consult with workers when proposing the introduction of, or changes to working patterns.
• Control methods or risk reduction techniques must be used to:
  • provide a clear statement to workers that the risk of working shifts is taken seriously at all levels of the organisation
  • provide information on policy including implementation
  • properly understand what is involved in all areas of operation in order to implement appropriate and effective controls
  • monitor the measures put in place to protect against ill effects caused by shift working and review to ensure ongoing effectiveness

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