��Ī - Alex Wood

'Precarious scheduling' at work affects over four million people in UK – far more than just zero-hours

fpjl2 — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 01:44:50 +0000

A new analysis by ��Ī and Oxford sociologists indicates that some 4.6 million people in the UK regularly experience ‘precarious scheduling’: flexible working with limited hours dictated by management, often with little notice, and to the detriment of employees’ home lives and mental health.

Researchers say this damaging approach to flexible work is common among supermarket and care home workers, for example, with precarious scheduling affecting 3.9 million more than just those on zero-hours contracts.

In fact, they describe zero-hours as merely the “tip of the iceberg” of precarious employment practices – as any contract with minimal guaranteed hours subject to last minute changes and reductions offers very little security.

This can leave workers in a degrading relationship with managers: begging for schedule changes to accommodate commitments such as childcare, and competing to become management ‘favourites’ in the hope of additional hours – often hours originally promised to them.

Dr Alex Wood, now at Oxford University, embedded himself as a shelf-stacker at a UK supermarket while a researcher at ��Ī’s Department of Sociology. He experienced first-hand the toxic interactions between shop management and the insecure – at times desperate – workers whose lives are controlled through scheduling.

Together with ��Ī collaborator Dr Brendan Burchell, Wood has now interrogated data from three rounds of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) – undertaken across Europe every five years by EU agency EuroFound, most recently in 2015.

Using data from the last EWCS, the pair found that 14.7% of all surveyed UK workers routinely experienced manager-controlled alterations to their schedules – often at very short notice. They say that, when scaled up, this percentage equates to 4.6 million people experiencing some form of precarious scheduling in the UK.

The researchers’ EWCS analysis is published today (16 August) in a blog post, as is Wood’s latest ��Ī study of supermarket staff living with precarious scheduling, in the journal Work, Employment & Society.

“Manager-controlled flexible scheduling causes a huge amount of stress and anxiety for workers who are unable to plan their lives socially or financially as a result,” says Burchell, from ��Ī’s Department of Sociology.

“The practice is both toxic and endemic in many UK sectors such as care and retail. Government reviews need to look far beyond just zero-hours contracts.”

“The key issue is not simply the lack of any guaranteed hours. The employment contracts of millions offer little security around the hours they will be told to work in a given day, week or month, and how much notice they are given.”

The EWCS data includes surveys conducted in 2005, 2010 and 2015. The recent peak of precarious scheduling in the UK was 2010, with 18.4% of those surveyed. Wood suggests that reduced unemployment since 2010 may mean slightly less pressure to take precarious and unpredictable jobs with limited hours.

“The past decade has seen a fragmenting of working time, as firms have saved costs by increasing shift flexibility through a variety of mechanisms,” says Wood, now at Oxford’s Internet Institute.

“These mechanisms include short- and zero-hour contracts, the emergence of ‘gig economy’ platforms, and flexible contracts that guarantee a minimum number of hours but no fixed scheduling pattern.

“Seven years of austerity have placed the public sector under pressure to contain labour costs through shift flexibility. Those who have challenging schedules imposed on them at short notice are likely to experience worse mental health, typified by anxiety and feeling low,” says Wood.

During his supermarket fieldwork, Wood observed how workers were frequently expected to extend or change shifts with little or no notice – causing the majority to feel negatively about their jobs.

The latest study, out today, describes how control exerted by managers through flexible scheduling creates an environment where workers must constantly strive to maintain managers’ favour.

In one London store, he witnessed managers encouraging workers to “beg them for additional hours” by making vague promises that more hours would be available.

“Staff were told ‘I always have some overtime so let me know if you want any’. This was despite my entire work team being employed on less than nine hours a week and all desiring more hours or full time work,” says Wood.

One UK worker, Jackie, told Wood: “It’s strange because you speak to the staff and they say their department is short [of staff] but when you ask the manager they say ‘there isn’t any at the moment but keep putting your name down for overtime’. I’m just getting a few hours here and there.”

Wood also observed managers cutting hours – affecting worker income – at short notice and altering schedules to clash with childcare and education. Some staff would often work unpaid overtime just to stay in management good books.

“Managers plead innocence, and that staffing needs are set by head office. This was frequently disbelieved. Many workers felt punished, but it was impossible for them to know for sure – adding to the insecurity,” he says.

Analysis of EU survey data suggests millions in UK may suffer anxiety as a result of unpredictable management-imposed flexible working hours. Research in supermarkets finds workers ‘begging’ for extra hours, and feeling they are being punished with last minute shift changes.

Manager-controlled flexible scheduling causes a huge amount of stress and anxiety for workers who are unable to plan their lives socially or financially as a result

Brendan Burchell

Alex Barth

Eggs. Plenty of them.

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Flexible hours 'controlled by management' cause stress and damage home lives of low-paid workers

fpjl2 — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 09:37:31 +0000

A researcher who embedded himself in several London branches of one of the UK's largest supermarkets found that management used a combination of 'flexed-time' contracts and overtime to control worker shifts to meet times of anticipated demand, while ensuring costs are kept to a minimum.

Workers at the supermarket chain were frequently expected to extend or change shifts with little or no notice, often to the detriment of their home and family lives – causing the majority of workers interviewed to feel negatively about their jobs.

Low wages and lack of guaranteed hours, combined with convoluted contractual terms, weak union presence, and pressure from managers that at times bordered on coercion ("...there are plenty of people out there who need jobs") meant that many felt they had no choice but to work when ordered, despite the impact on childcare, work-life balance and, in some cases, health - both physical and mental.

Dr Alex Wood, who conducted the research while at ��Ī's Department of Sociology, has chosen not to name the retailer in the new study, published today in the journal Human Relations. Having spoken with union representatives from across the retail sector, however, Wood believes the practises he encountered are now endemic across major supermarkets in the UK.

The Government's website describes flexible working as something that "suits an employee's needs". However, Wood says there is a critical distinction – one overlooked by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) – between workers controlling their own schedules, and management imposing control.

"Control over flexible working enables a better work-life balance. However, such control is the privilege of high-end workers. When low-paid, vulnerable workers experience flexible working time, it is at the whim of managers who alter schedules in order to maximise profits, with little consideration for the work-life balance of employees," said Wood.

The practice of low core-hour contracts that can be 'flexed up' are most notoriously embodied in zero-hour contracts – recently reported to affect over 800,000 British workers. Last year, then DWP Minister Iain Duncan Smith held up a survey claiming to show "most" workers on such contracts find them to be beneficial.

Wood says this is an example of conflating low-end, hourly-paid workers who have schedules dictated by management - those in supermarkets, for example - with highly paid professionals such as consultants who control their own hours of work. While all are technically on zero-hours contracts, their experiences of work are dramatically different.

"It is misleading to claim that flexibility provided by zero-hour contracts is beneficial for 'most' workers' work-life balance, and it is simply implausible to suggest this is the case for low-paid, vulnerable workers who by definition lack the power to control their working time," said Wood, who contributed evidence to the coalition government's zero-hours policy review in 2014.

For the study, Wood conducted interviews with a number of workers from across four of the UK retailer's stores, ranging from check-out operators to online delivery drivers, as well as interviewing union reps and officials. He also conducted two months of "participatory observation": working as a shelf stacker in one of the larger supermarket stores.

His findings have led Wood to conclude that the problem of precarious contracts goes far beyond just zero-hours, encompassing most management-controlled flexible contracts.

At the time of the research, the UK retailer had a policy of new stores reserving 20% of all payroll costs for short-term changes in shifts, which requires around 45% of all staff to be on flexible contracts, says Wood, although interviews with union representatives indicated this was likely higher.

While contracted for as little as 7.5 core hours, all flexible workers had to provide 48 hours of availability per week at the point of application – with greater availability increasing the chances of being hired.

Officially, 'flexed' hours were not to exceed 60% of workers' core hours. However, despite being contracted for a weekly average of just nine core hours, Wood found that standard flexible workers were working an average of 36 hour weeks.

Management used combinations of 'overtime' – additional hours that are voluntary but can be offered on-the-spot – with 'flexed time' – additional hours that are compulsory but require 24 hours' notice – to ensure staffing levels could be manipulated at short notice to meet expected demand.

Both overtime and flexed time were paid at standard rates, keeping payroll costs down, and Wood found distinctions between the two were frequently blurred - disregarding what little contractual protection existed.

"In reality, the nature of low pay and low hours contracts means these workers can't afford to turn down hours," said Wood.

"Whether zero core hours, or seven, or nine - none provide enough to live on. This precarious situation of not having enough hours to make ends meet is heightened by a perception that refusal to work additional hours meant they would not be offered them again in future, something most workers simply couldn't afford."

The stress caused by management-controlled flexed time of low hour contracts, and the impact on home and family lives, were frequently raised by the workers that Wood spoke to.

One worker provided what Wood describes as a "characteristic experience". Sara co-habited with her partner Paul, also employed at the UK retailer. "[W]e've set aside Saturday as a day to do something – me, Paul and my son – as a family... She [Sara's manager] now wants me to work Saturdays... it's all up in the air."

Colin, another worker, described the impact of dramatic schedule alterations to his wellbeing: "I had to change hours, or accept another position, or try another store... I felt really sick, it just hit me, it hit all of us..."

Asim, a union rep, made it clear that management bullying occurred: "People have been told, wrongly, that they can be sacked for it if they don't change their hours."

Under Duncan-Smith, the UK government legislated to ban 'exclusive' zero-hours contracts – those that have no guaranteed hours but restrict workers from getting another job – but Wood says this is simply a straw man, and new DWP Minister Stephen Crabb must go much further.

'It's imperative that Stephen Crabb breaks from his predecessor and recognises the damage which wider manager-controlled flexible scheduling practices, including all zero hours contracts, do to work-life balance," Wood said.

"Policies are needed which strengthen low-end workers' voice. When alterations to schedules are made solely by managers and driven by cost containment, flexibility is only beneficial for the employer not the employees."

Researcher Alex Wood calls on new DWP Minister Stephen Crabb to acknowledge distinction between flexible scheduling controlled by managers to maximise profit, damaging lives of the low-paid in the process, and high-end professionals who set their own schedules – an issue he says was publicly fudged by Ian Duncan-Smith to justify zero-hour contracts.

I had to change hours, or accept another position, or try another store... I felt really sick, it just hit me, it hit all of us...

Colin, worker at the unnamed supermarket

Tesco PLC

Tesco Linwood

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Zero-hours contracts are ‘tip of the iceberg’ of damaging shift work, say researchers

fpjl2 — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 00:12:03 +0000

New research on two supermarket chains, one UK and one US, shows that a range of flexible employment practices – extending far beyond just zero-hours contracts – cause widespread anxiety, stress and ‘depressed mental states’ in workers as a result of financial and social uncertainty, and can block worker access to education as well as much-needed additional income.

The findings are included in a report submitted to the government consultation on zero-hours contracts at the request of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

The report’s authors, from the University’s Department of Sociology, say the UK government should widen the net in reviewing damaging employment practices, arguing that employees be granted the right to make statutory claims to work additional core hours and have a say in the scheduling of their hours.

“Zero-hours contracts are the tip of the iceberg; just one small manifestation of this much wider problem in our workplaces,” said Dr Brendan Burchell, Head of Department and co-author on the report, compiled with his PhD candidate Alex Wood.

“Workplace flexibility is thought of as helping employees, but it has become completely subverted across much of the service sector to suit the employer – and huge numbers of workers are suffering as a consequence.

“So-called ‘flexi-contracts’, whether that’s zero, eight or ten hours – none of which can provide a living – allow low-level management unaccountable power to dictate workers’ hours and consequent income to a damaging extent that is open to incompetency and abuse.”

The research – based on interviews with UK and US supermarket workers and union officials, as well as months of shop-floor observation – found that strategies such as extreme part-time contracts, key-time contracts and frequent labour matching, as well as ‘at will’ zero-hours employment, are all experienced as a form of job insecurity that causes untold stress for thousands of employees and their families.

Extreme part-time contracts guarantee such low hours of work that many workers must work overtime as a matter of necessity. Labour matching involves management rearranging shifts to meet predicted future shopping demand.

With key-time contracts, workers are given limited core hours and asked to state additional times they can work. Managers can demand they work any hours falling during these times with just 24 hours’ notice.

Previously, these contracts were reserved for roles where matching demand was most critical – such as fulfilling online orders. The UK supermarket’s policy is now that all new stores aim for 45 per cent of staff to be on ‘key-time’.

As one UK worker interviewed by the researchers put it: “I’ve got two kids and a mortgage and I’m gonna be out of a job because I can’t do these hours”. Another said: “They put a lot of stress on people… I used to be in tears”.

It’s not just financial insecurities, psychological well-being and blocks to additional earning that impact workers, say researchers. These contracts also reduce access to education and training programmes, and mean that those with children and other caring responsibilities are often forced to put the burden on others with very little notice. Burchell describes the problem as a “combination of individual and social impact”.

In the report, the authors note that even informal employee input into work schedules has been shown to significantly reduce negative consequences of unpredictable working hours. They write that there is a need for the policy debate surrounding zero-hours contracts to be better informed by evidence.

Previous research cited by the government doesn’t make the important distinction between high and low wage workers on zero-hours contracts, say the researchers. For example, many consultants work on a zero hour basis.

“It is the invidious way that vulnerable people at the low end of the labour market – such as in supermarket retail – are forced to live their lives that requires scrutiny,” said Wood

“High unemployment and tough economic times, combined with ever-increasing flexible working practices that favour corporations, is creating a culture of servitude – trapping people in vicious cycles of instability, stress and a struggle to make ends meet.

“The policies the government is looking at completely misunderstand the nature and scale of the problem.”

While California is an ‘At Will Employment’ State, meaning that all the US supermarket workers are on de-facto zero-hours contracts, the UK supermarket does not make use of zero-hours contracts. However, the researchers say that through a combination of extreme part-time and key-time contracts it achieves similar worker flexibility.

They found that all these employment strategies contribute to employee anxieties as workers try to juggle these demands with social and family responsibilities – as well as the enduring financial worry if next week’s hours drop.

During fieldwork, Wood interviewed a number of current UK and US employees on flexi-contracts.

One UK worker said: “Nobody can possibly survive on three and a half hours’ pay a week. And then it boils down to you’ve got your three and a half hours plus you’ve got flexed-time which they will give you if they need you.

“But once your face doesn’t fit you don’t get any more hours and you might as well stay on the dole really.”

Burchell adds that some employers use these contracts because they have genuinely unpredictable staffing needs – such as salad production that is weather dependent. But in the case of supermarkets, employers are using flexi-contracts because they are convenient for management, and the impact on the lives of workers isn’t being considered.

“There is plenty of guidance for managers about good practice for health and safety, for example, but almost nothing about scheduling worker hours – and there could and should be,” he said.

“Much of the misery caused is probably through incompetent scheduling, and management not realising the way they are controlling workers’ lives. If employees have a right to request more predictable hours enshrined in legislation that the management would have to justify refusing, it would at least help redress the balance slightly.”

New report shows that zero-hours contracts are only one of a wide number of flexible employment practices that are abused by managers - leading to financial insecurity, anxiety and stress in the workforce. Researchers say the Government consultation was too narrow and call for legislation requiring employers to defend scheduling decisions.

So-called ‘flexi-contracts’, whether that’s zero, eight or ten hours – none of which can provide a living – allow low-level management unaccountable power to dictate workers’ hours

Brendan Burchell

Markus Schopke

The consumer society is happy (for a while)

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�������������Ī - Alex Wood

'Precarious scheduling' at work affects over four million people in UK – far more than just zero-hours

Flexible hours 'controlled by management' cause stress and damage home lives of low-paid workers

Zero-hours contracts are ‘tip of the iceberg’ of damaging shift work, say researchers

��Ī - Alex Wood