My employer wants to have a 52-week review period rather than a 17-week review. Should we agree?

The Working Time Regulations permit the extension of the 17 week reference period used for calculating the 48 hour weekly average by a collective agreement or workforce agreement to a period not exceeding 52 weeks, if there are objective or technical reasons concerning the organisation of work. An example of where such an extension might be useful is where workers are on annualized hours contracts.

A collective agreement is an agreement between the employer and an independent trade union.

A workforce agreement is between an employer and the duly elected representatives of its employees or, in the case of small employers (i.e. those with 20 or fewer employees), the employees themselves.