Night shifts and days off

[fourplusfour]

Talking with a friend about a new job . Shifts are a mix of early starts, late finishes and overnights. If she works, for example Sunday night til 7am Monday, does Monday count as a day off? It sounds to me like they are.

Depends what you mean by a 'day off', do you mean a days holiday/annual leave or a non working day? The way it normally works in my experience is you are contracted to work however many hours a week (35 or 40 or whatever) and shifts are allocated in accordance with whatever working pattern, so for a Mon-Fri 9-5 person that would be 5 shifts of 8 hours each or whatever, then Saturday and Sunday are non working days. For a long day worker it might be 3 x 13 hour shifts Monday - Wednesday then the rest of the week off. For a nights person it might be a night shift Sunday night into Monday morning then a day shift Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - the working time directive gives guidance on how long an interval there has to be between shifts. The fact of having worked a night shift doesn't usually change the fact you still have to work your 40 hours or whatever over the week although some places roster on a monthly or even annual basis so although you are contracted to do an average of 40 hours a week they could roster you for more one week and less another, depending on work-flow and busy periods etc, all this should be made clear in the terms and conditions of employment.

If what you are asking is could she be asked to work a night shift Sunday night followed by a day shift Monday daytime, no she shouldn't be according to the working time directive unless she opts out - and unless the nightshift is actually some variety of an on-call/sleep in arrangement where she's not actually working/awake overnight and even then there is guidance/regulations to be followed about compensatory rest...

Annual leave obviously is different, some places you simply book annual leave for the shifts you don't want to work, some places it's rostered in, some places have rules about e.g. not being allowed to book holiday when you are rota'd for a night shift, overtime can complicate things too but your friend would need to ask the job how all that works as it varies place to place?

Yes, Monday is a day off if she isn’t going into work that night.

Yes Monday is her day off. She may have worked 7 hours ( until 7am) but she only worked a few hours on Sunday evening. Even though she will have been working on Sunday.

Thank you. Makes sense.