In the food and drink industry, there is no room for error, especially when it comes to compliance. From Working Time Regulations and rest break entitlements to role-based agreements and site-specific rules, staying compliant is no small task when you’ve got shift-based teams spread across locations.
The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) reports that the UK’s food and drink manufacturing sector now employs nearly 500,000 people, contributing £37.3 billion to the economy and accounting for 23.4% of total UK manufacturing turnover. This substantial scale brings complexity and with it, the need for stringent compliance. Getting it wrong can result in burnt-out employees, financial penalties or damage to your brand’s reputation. But the good news? With the right approach and the right technology, compliance doesn’t have to be complicated.
At its heart, compliance is about protection. It protects your people from being overworked. It protects your operations from disruption. And it protects your business from unnecessary risk.
But when you’re relying on spreadsheets or systems not built for manufacturing, it's easy for things to slip through the cracks. Hours are miscalculated. Breaks are missed. And managers are left to second-guess whether the rota they’ve just approved meets every requirement.
That’s where workforce management software can help. With the right time and attendance system, the stress of manual checking disappears. By building your rules directly into your workforce software, you gain:
- Immediate visibility into who’s at risk of breaching regulations
- Confidence that breaks, rest periods and working time limits are automatically accounted for
- Consistency across sites, departments, and roles
No more sleepless nights and firefighting. Just a clear, auditable record of compliance activity, ready when you need it. It’s about making compliance part of the process, not a last-minute check.
