How 0 hours contract really benefit the employees who do not have enough hours?

Most ZH roles don't have any meaningful training, any appraisal system, any formal feedback, any push for improvement beyond the immediate task.... They therefore don't give the best performance/service to whoever is the customer or client, but are great for profit and "nice" managers who don't want to bother addressing any issues.

The staff who are offered more work are the ones willing and able to take it. So the person who has another zero hours job won’t be offered more work, because of the times he’s had to refuse, and doesn’t get the chance to bump up his two part time jobs into a full-time one.

And the staff who couldn’t find a job close to their home will miss out on extra hours because they can’t get into work quickly enough.

ZH contracts are not always bad news, they really suit some people.

I took early retirement at 57 and am loving it.
My OH is 3yrs younger so went PT (2+days a week) on a ZH contract, taking work as and when he wanted it with holiday pay paid pro-rata. Worked great for 18-months but then his employer decided to take on more FT staff and change his ZH PT role to a contracted PT role with fixed hours. He stuck with it for a few months but the lack of flexibility meant he eventually left and (easily) found a ZH PT role elsewhere.

His old company have still not managed to fill the contracted vacancy.

This is entirely my experience.

Also it's easy to hide a whole bunch of poor management behaviour under zero hours contracts. Bit of a wee racist? Just give the work to white people. Woman up the stick? Yeah, we don't have any shifts this week. Useless nephew that can't hold down a job anywhere else? Give him plumb picks and no one can complain otherwise their own shifts will mysteriously dry up. Etc.

Obviously, NAEALT.

I have been temping on zero hours whilst looking for a permanent role.

It’s fine as it means I can cut back when I need to. I usually get the shifts I ask for because they know I’m reliable and won’t phone in sick or turn up hungover. Took me a while to get to this point though and a lot of the other staff are young and at college and don’t ‘need’ the money in the same way I do so aren’t so reliable.

It’s hopefully not long term for me, as I am aware that they could easily turn it off completely.

if you need the job security then start looking for something else with minimum contracted hours.

We have several employees who have chosen to be on zero hours contracts because they want to the flexibility. They tend to work the same shifts week in week out but don’t want a contracted role (they are all offered it in a regular basis). Others are relief workers, when the rota comes out they list all the shifts they’d like to work and we spread them out to try to give everyone the hours they want.

we try not to have too many relief workers so everyone can have a decent amount of hours but it’s a very tricky balance.

Where I work, the least amount of shifts are given to the casual staff who don't really give a shit about the job or the people they're covering, despite years of training and promising to do better.

In other words, we have to be absolutely desperate to call on them, and only do so if the wonderful hardworking casual staff are unavailable.

Zero hours are a minefield.

Clearly, there is a lot of instability for employees which for the most part is extremely bad - that's why the majority of people want permanent, salaried roles. And many employers abuse the system and it can be extremely unfair on employees. However there are a lot of jobs in the economy where it works well for both employer and employee.

I've worked on zero hours jobs myself, and now manage a zero-hours team. We work at a visitor attraction. It is very seasonal, and there are a few times a year when it's totally dead, and other times like a few festival weekends where it's bonkers. Zero hours gives us the flexibility to have a team across the season that we can rota on 100% of the team for the festivals but then not have to come in when there is literally nothing for them to do at quieter times.

Most of our employees are either students or people who do not need/rely on the income so much (eg people retired from their main career and doing something that they enjoy). These roles suit them enormously well as they can take holidays or breaks whenever they want, no commitment, go home for the holidays for students, etc.

We do ask for them to have good availability to work at a few specific points in the year (the festivals) but other than that we do not stipulate any availability requirements.

Where it doesn't work so well is when you have someone who relies on the income in a meaningful way. We've introduced annualised hours contracts with these people in mind, but take up has been only about 10% of the zero hours staff so it shows you actually it works well for our team already.

In terms of who gets the shifts: it can feel unfair for sure. I ask everyone their ideal each month and they're available, and I try and match and spread it accordingly. I do rota on reliable people first, and think about the kind of jobs available, so who is good with particular types of events. Then it's just fill the spaces as fairly as possible. It's inherently 'unfair' except nobody has any real right to expect anything.

I'm not sure what we'll do if the contracts get banned - lots of short term contracts / low number of hours annualised contracts? Who knows. I don't think we treat anyone unfairly!

Well I think you've had a range of great advice on here OP. You can : become a student; become an actor; take up international championship swimming; become young; live with your parents; marry a dh who pays all the bills.

There you go, sorted, nothing to worry about.

Everyone I've ever known on a zero-hours contract has been afraid to turn down shifts because they know future shifts are likely to be withheld as punishment. Sometimes they worked for months without a single day off.
They all worked in the care sector.

Regards to money. My dh is a normal salaried staff member. His wages cover all the bills.

I used to have a zero hours contract when I worked as a community carer. At the time, my eldest son was having a very difficult time at school (he is autistic amongst other issues) and I would regularly have to pick him up at 10am or attend a last minute meeting at 1pm etc.

For me, a zero hours contract was perfect because if we were going through a bad week I could just ask for weekend hours. Or if things were more settled I could pick up school hours as extra. I was given the hours because in general I was reliable & wasn’t one of the many who would fail to turn up to calls when hungover at the weekend!

DH worked full time on a standard contract however. I’d imagine it’s a lot harder to manage if a zero hours contract is your main or only income.

The Hotel we worked in did zero hours for all contracts and all jobs, except for the Management of course. Both owners gave us all zero hour contracts. This was in a very busy golf tourist town. Minimum pay too. Tbh it all about sheer greed on their parts. No such thing as overtime either. If staff went over their contracted hours they had their hours and wages cut back to the set hours for each job.

How can you plan personal finance if you never know how many hours you are given?

For some people they may not be financially reliant on the hours from that job. They may have a spouse earning more who covers main bills and the zero hours provides extra to save. They could have a student loan & the zero hour job provides "fun money". They might be living with parents & few obligations and just earning extra to save a house deposit or uni fees.

Most of my staff have zero hours. 90% of them are young, living at home with minimal living expenses. I prioritise those that do a good job and are reliable over those than ring in sick because they have a headache or slack off all day.
I have alot of staff that only work 4 hours a week due to the work involved and their ages. They take time off whenever they need to which for some of them is 1/2 weekends a month. If they had a minimum hours contract then they wouldn't have the flexibility they want. It works both ways.

Up to them really

If that is important you don't go for the job

Zero hours contracts work well for many people but like anything, it won’t work for everyone. My workplace uses them and the people who are given the most work are the ones that are best at their jobs. They don’t turn up and do the bare minimum. The ones who get fewer shifts aren’t treated as unimportant, they’re treated like people who chose a zero hour contract.

The amount of universal credit you get varies in line with what you earn. BUT it's not a straightforward £ for £ calculation, so even that is stressful and unpredictable. And the universal credit is calculated every four weeks, so there's always at least a slight lag. Better than tax credits though I guess, which was only recalculated once a year.

Of course what would be best of all would be for employees to be able to support themselves from employment.

With a great deal of stress and uncertainty and a fair amount of incremental benefit fraud.

Some jobs are almost entirely zero/short hours contracts now that decades ago were all staff on fixed contracted hours - shops, factories, restaurants all used to have permanent set hours contracts, full and part time. But that creates responsibilities for employers, so shit employers like supermarkets and warehouses duck out. Why should these titans of industry experience any uncertainty when you can shift the stress onto minimum wage staff?

We are not quite zero hours as we are on 12 or 16 hr contracts.
You sign up to the remaining shifts that you want. A manager doesn't 'choose' it's first come first served.
There's always shifts available if you take the unpopular ones eg Saturday lates.

You find a job with set contractual hours. There are plenty to pick from. Zero hours contract are beneficial for those who prioritize free time to do other things over financial security. If you need financial security, then you do a different job.