Managing Annualised Hours on HealthRoster

The Flexible Working and Work Life Balance Policy states the following in relation to annualised hours: “Annualised hours - give organisations and staff extra flexibility to vary their patterns of work across each year according to service need and individual preference. The total number of hours to be worked is agreed at the outset. Exactly when these hours are worked each week or month becomes a matter for agreement between managers and members of the team. (Often set shifts with staff deciding when to work the other hours.)”

When a staff member requests to change their contract to annualised, a conversation should take place between them, their manager and your People Partner to calculate averaged weekly contracted hours, to fulfil their hours over the year, and fit with their flexible working requirements.

If you are unsure who your People Partner is, please contact the Human Resources team who can point you in the right direction.

An example of annualised contracts is for “Term Time” working needs, and generally contracted hours will look noticeably different to standard contracts e.g., 21:36 or 18:54 or 36:47, with their working pattern during Term Time being higher so that Net Hours over Term Time increase to cover the deficit during non-Working periods (i.e., Half Terms and School Holidays).

The below example is based on this premise, in this case the staff member is contracted 18.9 (or 18:54 in hours and minutes) and works 20.5hrs (or 20:30) during Term Times:

• You can see that the “Hours Left” column consistently show as -1:36 (or -1.6), a negative figure indicates the hours within the viewable period are over their contracted hours, increasing cumulative net hours.
• During a Half Term, the “Other Leave” > “Term Time” unavailability would be input, containing 0 hours:

• Here you can see the “Hours Left” show a positive figure, indicating technically, contracted hours have not been fulfilled within the period shown.
• For this type of contract, this is correct, as hours should be balanced overall across the year by the times they work “over”, based on the calculations completed in the initial review.

It is still important to monitor the net hours to ensure they remain within acceptable parameters, if you do not already have a copy, please request the “Investigating Net Hours” guide from our team.