Global policies on working time need to comply with local laws
Employers with a workforce spread across the world often face a conundrum: should they set global employment rules and standards that reflect their international business strategy or let each country develop its own HR policies?
Global HR policies give international companies consistent ways of managing employees wherever they are based. But differences often exist at national level because of a country's specific regulatory regime, economic climate or culture. The challenge for global HR practitioners is to identify which differences can be addressed within a cross-border policy and which ones call for a local response. One area that often demands local treatment is working time.
National differences
Patterns of work and the duration of working time vary significantly between different countries. France, Germany and the Netherlands have some of the shortest annual working hours, according to the latest figures from the OECD. By contrast, working hours are far longer in some non-EU countries, such as Japan and the US.
These variations can be attributed partly to regulation and partly to each country's cultural norms and market demands. So, while the Working Time Directive sets a limit of 48 hours on the average weekly working time across the EU, the UK secured the ability to allow workers to opt out of that limit in order to meet the needs of the country’s labour market. Other EU member states have taken a very different approach, with France, for example, introducing a 35 hour week in 2000.
International transfers
Multinational employers must ensure that their policies and practices comply with the different legal requirements for working time in each country where they have employees. But a number of issues can arise when employees are moved from one system to another. Take the example of a worker from a country without a legal limit on the duration of working time, such as the USA, who is assigned to the UK. If the worker is an autonomous decision-maker and the employer does not control his or her working hours, then the worker may be exempted from the 48 hour average limit. However, employers will often prefer to avoid any uncertainty about the extent of a worker's autonomy and instead ask the worker to sign an opt-out from the average 48 week.
Difficulties can arise if a manager who is used to working in a long hours culture influences colleagues to adopt what he or she sees as acceptable working practices, with the result that some or all of them increase their working hours. These workers may not have signed opt-outs, particularly if they are more junior, and the manager’s influence could create a risk for the employer of breaching the statutory limit on weekly working hours.
Employers also need to be mindful of their duty to take reasonable steps to safeguard workers’ health and wellbeing – a duty that in the UK goes hand in hand with their obligations to comply with working time legislation. So although the manager in our example may be allowed to continue to work long hours, the employer must keep within the baseline set by domestic law for the wider workforce.
Cross-border policies
Given all the differences at national level, is it possible or desirable to achieve a global policy on working time? International standards already exist, and indeed have existed since the ILO Hours of Work (Industry) Convention 1919 set the principle of an eight hour working day and a 48 hour working week. Employers may be able to identify a common set of rules and limits that ensure compliance across a range of legal requirements, seek to promote worker wellbeing and support the ethos of the business. Cross-border policies always have their challenges but this particular one could be worth rising to.
Katie Williams is a partner at Pinsent Masons LLP.
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