Many Part-time Employees? How to Take Care of the “418” Rule?

As we all know, the hotel industry, catering industry and retail industry always need to employ part-time employees, such as tea lady, kitchen helpers, waiters, dishwashers, etc. These employees generally have short working hours and do not need to work continuously for a long time. But if during the peak times, the employer didn’t hire more staff, then the senior part-time staff had to increase the workload and work overtime.

Of course, working overtime is a mutual agreement. However, employers need to pay attention to changes in the roster, as it is related to the benefits of employees. In this case, it is easy for employers to forget a very important thing – and also an enduring topic – “418“ Rule.

The “418“ Rule is often referred to as “continuous contract” in the Employment Ordinance(EO). If an employee is continuously employed by the same employer for 4 weeks or more, with at least 18 hours worked in each week, and is entitled to some benefits, such as rest days, paid holidays and sickness allowance.

However, the Labour Department is reviewing the “418” rule in 2023, and plans to change it to 4 weeks of total working hours as the basis. Employees are required to meet different working hour requirements within four weeks, namely 72, 68, 64 and 60 hours, in order to enjoy more statutory entitlements.

Note: The EO does not make any clear distinction between permanent workers, part-time workers or temporary workers. However, no matter what types of employment, as long as they are employed by continuous contracts, they are covered by the Labour Legislation.

There are many companies that do not strictly follow the “418” Rule. One reason is that there is no concept of continuous employment of short-term workers. Another reason is about poor management. Take SMEs and some restaurant owners for example. The company does not employ full-time HR, and the employer is kind of a part-time HR or admin. In many cases, because they did not strictly record and manage the working hours of their employees, they may have violated the law unconsciously.

Why does “418” Rule easy to ignore?

The reason why some employers tend to ignore the ”418“ Rule is that most employees are still using paper or excel to record the working days and time, so it is difficult to make timely adjustments.

In addition, many employees have been working in the same place for a long time, and after getting familiar with their colleagues or employers, if they are satisfied with their wages, they would not change their jobs. They would also assume that their benefits are the same as before, and they will not take the initiative to ask employers for additional requirements.

So does the employer. Once an employer has fully understood the employee’s personality and working style, if there is no special reason, they would not want to change staff easily.

How to keep in mind of “418” Rule?

Therefore, employers need to know how to reasonably schedule and accurately record actual working hours for employees. Although the traditional method is not as smart as modern electronic products, it will automatically calculate the working hours for the past 4 weeks and the future. We know that every HR or employer wants to finish those admin affairs as soon as possible to save some time and be off from work earlier. Then I would suggest you to try the integrated system of “Roster + Attendance” to shorten the 3-hour work to 3 minutes:

• Bulk create shifts, and employees can check their rosters through mobile apps
• Employees use mobile apps to clock in and out
• Export “418” reports with auto-calculated attendance data

Workstem —— Human resources system has an automated attendance feature that can export the attendance report of working hours in the past 4 weeks and the work schedule of the next week. It is clear at a glance who is a “418” employee and who is not. It helps employers be legal in human resource management and protects the legal rights and benefits of part-time/temporary workers.

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