Employers need to be aware that the cost of failing to comply with employment legislation relates not just to the financial cost of the penalty. The effects in terms of the real cost to a business include the loss of management time in dealing with any cases that may be brought by employees, or the Health & Safety Executive, and also the effect on the image of the business as an employer, customer and supplier.
Policing of the Working Time Directive is not on its way, it's already here! There is a legal obligation for all companies small or large to comply. Companies are currently being prosecuted and ignorance of the act will not be accepted as a defence.
Respondents to a recent facetime on-line survey, which posed the question: "Would your company pass a Working Time Directive Audit?" revealed that over 50% of leading employers would not comply. The survey examined working time across industry wide sectors, with replies from Human Resources professionals representing 200 organisations, ranging in size from 100 to 10,000 employees.
Half of those surveyed, view the provisions of the directive as a bureaucratic nightmare and are choosing to ignore many of the constraints, while 33% of those surveyed have implemented a computerised system, which automatically monitors and records employees' hours worked, breaks, holidays, etc.
