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Night work can be an essential component of many businesses. If your employees work for a minimum of 3 hours between 11 pm and 6 am, there are different rules and minimum entitlements that you should provide them. These rules will apply regardless of whether your employees are permanent full-time, part-time or casual workers. If you fail to provide these minimum entitlements to your night workers, you could face a dispute in the employment tribunal. Therefore, this article explains your legal obligations as an employer to your night workers to ensure they receive their entitlements.
What is a Night Worker?
A night worker is any person who works:
- between 11 pm and 6 am (the ‘night period’); and
- for a minimum of 3 hours.
A night worker can include your full-time, part-time and casual workers. However, you might also have a collective agreement in place that defines some of your staff as night workers even if they do not work during the ‘night period’. For this reason, it is important to check any collective agreements you have in place to decide whether you owe your night work staff additional entitlements.
Working Hours for Night Work
Like your other staff, night workers are entitled to the standard limits on working hours and rest breaks. Therefore, night workers should:
- not work for more than 48 hours a week unless they have opted out of this limit by a written agreement;
- have a rest break of 20 minutes in any shift of 6 hours or more; and
- have a rest period between shifts, which is 24 hours on any 7 day work period and 48 hours on 14 day work period.
However, since your night workers are likely to undergo additional mental and physical strains than day workers, the working hours rules are slightly different. For example, night workers can only work a maximum of 8 hours on average within a 24 hour period. Unlike the other rules, your workers cannot opt out of this limit.
Exceptions to the Maximum Number of Night Work Hours
There are exceptions to the rule regarding the number of hours your nighttime staff can work. However, whether these exceptions apply depends on your particular industry. For example, for domestic staff in a private house and those in the emergency services, the rule that limits their maximum weekly work does not apply.
Also, there are some occasions where the rules will not apply, such as:
- where an emergency or accident has occurred;
- where a busy peak period arises which is standard in the industry;
- in a role where you require your staff to be onsite for 24 hours;
- where an agreement is in place which states otherwise; and
- for staff who work in varied places or travel far from home to work.
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Rest Breaks
As stated, most night workers are entitled to the same amount of rest breaks as other staff. Generally, your employees are entitled to 20 minutes rest break in any shift of 6 hours or more. However, there are exceptions depending on what industry you operate in. However, you might alternatively offer ‘compensatory rest’ to your night workers. Compensatory rest should be at least 90 minutes on average per week.
Health Assessments for Night Work
Additionally, you must offer your night workers a free health assessment before they perform nighttime work. A qualified professional should provide this health assessment regularly and could, for example, include a comprehensive questionnaire. You should keep a record of the date of each time you offer a health assessment.
If you are unsure whether your workers are fit enough for night work after completing a health assessment, you should offer them a follow-up examination with a health professional. If workers cannot work night shifts due to health problems, you must offer them suitable work where possible.
For example, this could apply to pregnant women already working at night. In this case, you should suspend them from their nighttime role and offer a suitable alternative role with the same terms and conditions. However, if you cannot provide a suitable alternative, the law states that you must give pregnant women full pay whilst suspended.
Paying Your Night Workers
Your night workers are entitled to the National Minimum Wage. However, employers will often pay their nighttime workers more to honour their efforts. Increased pay can increase employee satisfaction, particularly where nighttime work is more physically and mentally taxing than working during daytime hours.
Beyond monetary benefits, you should also consider offering a sleep-in shift. A sleep-in shift is where your staff spend time sleeping during their night shift with the sleeping facilities you provide. If they spend most of their time sleeping and only wake for specific tasks, you are obliged to pay them for the hours they are awake to perform them. However, you must pay them for all their shift hours where they spend most of the time working during a sleep-in shift but can sleep between tasks.
Younger Workers
Generally speaking, young people aged 16 and 17 years cannot work between 10 pm and 6 am. However, you can vary this period to 11 pm and 7 am if you state this in the employment contract.
However, specific industries are an exception to this. For example, you may require a young worker to work a night shift when no adult can, and you require them to either:
- help cover a sudden demand for a product or service; or
- ensure that the service or production can remain continuous such as where filming occurs.
The industries this applies to are:
- agriculture;
- activities concerned with culture, sport, art or advertising;
- catering and the hotel industry;
- retail;
- hospital work; and
- delivery of post or newspapers.
Where the exception applies, and you ask young workers to work as night workers, ensure you comply with any rest break entitlements.
Key Takeaways
If any of your staff are night workers, they enjoy many of the same entitlements as your daytime staff in terms of hours worked and breaks. However, different rules will apply. For example, within 24 hours, nighttime workers should not work for more than an average of 8 hours. While you are not obligated to pay your night workers more than the National Minimum Wage, their pay can vary if they are sleep-in shit night workers. In addition, the rules for night workers can vary depending on what industry they work in.
If you need help understanding nighttime work in England and Wales, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.
Frequently Asked Questions
A night worker is a person who works for a minimum of 3 hours between 11 pm and 6 am.
As an employer, you must offer all your night workers free health assessments which a qualified health professional should conduct. However, your staff are not obliged to take the assessment.
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