Key takeaways
The ERA 2025 represents a significant shift in how UK retail businesses manage zero-hour workers. Here's what to remember:
Under current proposals, the ERA 2025 gives zero-hour workers the right to request guaranteed hours after approximately 12 weeks of consistent scheduling (subject to final secondary legislation)
Retail managers need a documented, timestamped process for offering shifts and tracking hours across the reference period
Common tribunal triggers include verbal-only offers, penalising workers who decline shifts, and ignoring the reference period
A written scheduling policy protects your business and gives your workers clarity on what to expect
Technology that supports tracking, alerts, and audit trails helps reduce compliance risk and frees managers to focus on running the shop floor
Zero-hour contract scheduling just got more complex for UK retail managers. The Employment Rights Act (ERA) 2025 introduced new rights for workers on flexible contracts, and if you're building rotas that include zero-hour staff, you need a structured process to support compliance workflows under the proposed Employment Rights Act framework.
This matters right now because the retail sector runs on flexible labour. From high street clothing stores to supermarkets, zero-hour workers fill the gaps that fixed contracts can't cover. But the rules around how you offer, track, and manage those shifts have changed.
This article gives you a practical, five-step rota workflow for managing zero-hour workers in retail. You'll learn how the 12-week reference period works, how to create a workforce record for shift offers, and how to avoid the common mistakes that increase the risk of employment disputes or tribunal claims.
What the Employment Rights Act 2025 means for your retail rota
Under current proposals, the ERA 2025 gives zero-hour workers the right to request guaranteed hours after a reference period of approximately 12 weeks. If you've been offering a worker consistent shifts over that period, they can ask you to put those hours into a formal contract. This right applies across all sectors, but retail feels the pressure most.
Why? Because 1.17 million UK workers sit on zero-hours contracts, and retail remains one of the UK's largest employers of shift workers. According to Deputy's Big Shift Report 2026, the Deputy Shift Work Index declined to 0.96 in 2025, signalling continued contraction in employment levels across shift-based industries.
The government's announcement to end exploitative zero-hours contracts reinforces the push toward greater transparency, predictability, and accountability in scheduling. For retail managers juggling seasonal demand spikes (Black Friday, Boxing Day, summer sales), that creates a direct tension: you need flexibility, but the regulations now require documentation, consistency, and fair process.
The consequences of getting this wrong include tribunal claims, reputational damage, and recruitment difficulties. Workers talk, and a business known for ignoring scheduling rights will struggle to attract the flexible workforce it depends on.
For retail managers, the message is clear: you can still use zero-hour contracts, but you need a documented, defensible process behind every rota decision you make.
How the 12-week reference period works in retail
The reference period is the mechanism that, under current proposals, triggers a worker's right to request guaranteed hours. It tracks how many hours you've offered (and the worker has accepted) over approximately 12 consecutive weeks.
Here's what that means in practice: if you consistently offer a zero-hour worker 20 hours per week for 12 weeks, they can request a contract reflecting those 20 hours. The request doesn't convert their contract automatically. It's a right to ask, and you must respond properly (more on that in Step 5 below). For clarity on terminology, see this guide to zero-hours contract definitions.
Retail managers need to understand which shifts "count" toward the reference period. Bank holidays, seasonal overtime, and temporary cover shifts all contribute. If you bring someone in every Saturday for three months, that pattern forms the basis of their request.
Think of it from the worker's perspective. They've shown up reliably for 12 weeks, and now they want the security of knowing those hours will continue. The law backs them up.
This creates a challenge for retailers who use zero-hour workers primarily during peak trading periods. If your Christmas temp works consistent hours from October through December, the 12-week threshold arrives right as the seasonal demand drops off. Understanding the realities of seasonal retail jobs helps you plan ahead rather than react.
Five-step rota workflow for zero-hour workers in retail
This workflow gives you a repeatable process for building rotas that include zero-hour workers while supporting your compliance requirements under the ERA 2025. Follow these steps every time you build or update a rota that includes flex workers, and you'll create the documentation and visibility you need to respond confidently if a guaranteed-hours request arrives.
Using staff rota software designed for shift-based teams makes it easier to follow this workflow consistently across locations and managers.
Step 1: Map your demand forecast before offering shifts
Start with data, not instinct. Before you offer a single shift to a zero-hour worker, you should know what your demand looks like for the coming weeks.
Pull together your footfall data, sales forecasts, and historical trading patterns to project staffing needs. Leveraging AI demand forecasting can improve accuracy compared to manual estimates. Then separate your workforce into two groups:
Guaranteed-hours staff: workers on fixed contracts who form your baseline coverage
Flex pool: zero-hour workers you call on for variable demand
Identify your peak windows (weekend trading, late-night openings, seasonal events) where you'll need flex cover. Document your forecasting rationale. If a worker later challenges their scheduling pattern at tribunal, your written reasoning shows you allocated shifts based on genuine business need.
Consider a high street clothing store heading into summer sales. Historical data shows you'll need 40% more floor staff on Saturdays in July compared to April. Mapping that demand upfront lets you plan your flex pool with intention rather than scrambling week by week.
Deputy's AI-assisted labour forecasting helps retail managers estimate staffing needs from sales and footfall data, generating draft forecasts for manager review rather than relying on guesswork.
Step 2: Offer shifts with a documented trail
Every shift offer to a zero-hour worker should be timestamped and recorded. A quick WhatsApp message or verbal ask in the break room won't cut it if you're ever asked to demonstrate fair process.
Your shift offer needs to include:
Shift date
Start and end time
Location
Role or department
Reasonable notice period
Give workers enough notice to accept or decline without pressure. ACAS guidance on zero-hour contracts makes clear that workers can refuse shifts without penalty. You should record both acceptances and refusals, because both matter for the reference period calculation.
Why does a refusal matter? Because if a worker declines three consecutive offers, that may break the consistency pattern that would otherwise trigger the guaranteed-hours right. Without a record, you can't demonstrate this at tribunal.
Deputy's platform timestamps shift offers and responses automatically, creating a built-in audit trail. Every offer, acceptance, and refusal sits in one place with a clear record of who was offered what, and when.
Step 3: Track rolling hours against the reference period
This is where most retail managers get caught out. You're busy running a shop floor, and tracking the cumulative hours of each zero-hour worker across 12 weeks isn't something you can do reliably in a spreadsheet.
Set up a rolling 12-week view of each zero-hour worker's actual hours. Then flag workers approaching consistent patterns. If someone's worked 18 to 22 hours per week for six weeks running, you need to know about it now, not in week 13.
Once you spot a pattern forming, you have a decision to make: do you want this worker on guaranteed hours, or do you need to genuinely vary their shifts based on fluctuating demand? You can't vary shifts purely to avoid triggering the right to request. That approach invites legal challenge and undermines trust with your team.
Keep records transparent and accessible. If a worker asks how many hours they've worked over the past 12 weeks, you should have the answer immediately. Opacity breeds distrust, and distrust leads to grievances.
Deputy's rolling hours tracking and configurable alerts notify managers when workers approach reference period thresholds, giving you visibility before obligations arise.
Step 4: Plan rest breaks and Working Time Regulations support
Zero-hour workers have the same rest break entitlements as contracted staff. The Working Time Regulations don't distinguish between contract types, so your rota must respect these rules for everyone.
The basics:
20-minute uninterrupted break for any shift over six hours
11 hours of rest between shifts
One full day off per week (or two days per fortnight)
Night work restrictions apply equally
Retail managers often schedule zero-hour workers back-to-back across departments or stores, accidentally breaching rest requirements. If the same worker does a closing shift at one branch and an opening shift at another, you may breach the 11-hour rest rule without realising it.
Build rest-period rules into your rota template from the start. Picture this: your supermarket needs cover for a late restock shift finishing at 10 p.m. on Thursday, then an early morning delivery shift starting at 6 a.m. on Friday. If you assign the same zero-hour worker to both, you've breached the 11-hour rest rule.
This happens more often than you'd think, especially during peak weeks when managers grab whoever's available.
Deputy's rest break planning and Working Time Regulations (WTR) support surfaces potential violations for manager review before you publish the rota, helping you catch issues proactively.
Step 5: Respond to guaranteed-hours requests properly
When a worker exercises their right to request guaranteed hours, under current ERA 2025 proposals, you must respond within a set timeframe. You can't ignore the request or delay indefinitely. This is a formal process, not an informal chat in the stockroom.
You can refuse, but only on specific grounds. These include genuine business reasons such as insufficient demand to sustain the hours requested.
Whatever you decide, document your reasoning thoroughly. A bare "no" with no explanation may expose you to a tribunal claim.
If you accept the request:
Update the worker's contract to reflect guaranteed hours
Adjust your rota template to include them in baseline coverage
Recalculate your flex pool capacity
If you refuse without valid grounds, the worker can take the matter to an employment tribunal. The best defence is a clear paper trail showing you considered the request fairly and responded with documented business reasoning.
Deputy's platform can flag upcoming request deadlines and store decision documentation alongside the worker's shift history, keeping everything in one workforce record that supports reporting and operational oversight.
