Shorter working week and unlimited holiday plans implemented following sound HR advice

In order to enhance attraction and retention of employees, a company decided to reduce the five day working week to four-and-a-half days and remove their annual cap to allow employees to manage their own leave. They hoped that these enhancements would support higher performance and achievement of targets – and spoke to Stephanie Hallett and the Eagle HR team to ensure this would be the case.

Stephanie and the team had several meetings with their client to consider their proposal and identify areas where there could be issues. All legal obligations were also considered to ensure the company remained compliant with the law.

Market research was carried out to identify similar programmes and subsequent feedback from employees and employers on what had worked well and what could have been done better. During the rollout of the new programme, the Eagle HR team drafted FAQs which were issued to staff to make sure their queries were answered.

Alongside this, the holiday policy was redrafted by members of the team to reflect the new ‘unlimited’ holiday entitlement and make certain there was a strong policy in place to support their vision. Finally, Stephanie and the team redrafted the company’s hours of work clause to reflect the new working hours and drafted a policy to accompany it which detailed the guidelines for members of staff.

The work of Stephanie and the team meant the company had the assurance that they were complying with the law, had considered all possibilities and were able to mitigate against any issues they were likely to face – and were going to see positive results following the implementation of the changes.

Stephanie Hallett, Head of Eagle HR, said: “When companies make decisions to implement plans like this it’s important that they have the right HR advice behind them to ensure as little disruption as possible through the process.”