Case Study: Kellogg's - Annual Hours 

Annual Hours Scheme gives employees "a regular salary and a lifestyle".

At Kellogg's Wrexham plant, the company and USDAW, the food and retail trade union, have broken new ground with an agreement that is flexible and fair for the 500 workers.

As part of an annualised hours system, staff have agreed to work a shift pattern of 12-hour day and night shifts. Instead of overtime, annual hours includes a quota of "banked" hours which employees can be asked to work at any time.

The system, which gives long breaks between shift changes, also includes three 18-day breaks during the year and guaranteed earnings. Salaries are among the best in the region.  Kellogg's has gained a substantial rise in the capacity of its plant, which is now working 24 hours a day making breakfast cereals, mainly for export. The 500 jobs at the factory are now more secure. 

Bill Snell, the area organiser for USDAW involved in the agreement, said the union and stewards had studied a large number of other annual hours systems during a long negotiating period. Together, officials and stewards had drawn up a matrix of the advantages and disadvantages of each and tried to secure the most favourable settlement.

"We have good ground to believe this will be treated as a model agreement," he said.

 

"The average member will say that what they have got now is a lifestyle. They have three 18-day breaks and a salary to go with it that means they can do something with the time off. There is less stress and there is a stability of income that they never had before."

Philip Lynch Associates, who worked closely with Kellogg's management and USDAW, greatly assisted both parties in the design and development of the flexible working scheme.