Flexible Working.

Flexible working is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs, e.g. being able to work certain hours or work from home. Anyone can ask their employer to work flexibly.

Employees who care for someone in the UK (e.g. a child or adult) have the legal right to ask for flexible working.

Flexible working relates to an organisation’s working arrangements in terms of working time, working location and the pattern of working. We have resources covering all aspects of working flexibly and atypical working. You’ll find information on flexible working hours, part time working, job sharing, temporary working, agency workers and casual employment, term time and seasonal working, remote and home working and virtual organisations.

The right to request flexible working in the United Kingdom;

Key points

• Employees must have 26 weeks continuous employment at the date the application is made.
• Employers have statutory duty to consider applications.
• Once agreed it becomes a permanent change to the contract of employment.
• An employee has the right to appeal if necessary against the outcome.
• Negotiate an agreement if requested hours are not possible.
• Only one application can be made in a 12 months period.

There are many forms of flexible working. It can describe a place of work, for example, home-working, or a type of contract, such as a temporary contract. Other common variations include: part-time working, flexitime, job sharing and shift working.

Parents of children aged 16 or under, or disabled children under the age of eighteen (Parental Leave), have the right to apply to their employer to work more flexibly if they have:

• worked for their employer for 26 weeks continuously at the date that the application is made
• not have made another application to work flexibly under the right during the past 12 months

The request can cover hours of work, times of work and place of work and may include requests for different patterns of work.

The Government proposes to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees; they will remove the current statutory procedure for considering requests. Instead employers will have a duty to consider all requests in a reasonable manner; however, business will have the flexibility to refuse requests on business grounds.

The Government plan to legislate on this in 2013 and will introduce the changes to flexible working in 2014.

Types of flexible working

There are different ways of working flexibly.

Job sharing

2 people do 1 job and split the hours.

Working from home

It might be possible to do some or all of the work from home or anywhere else other than the normal place of work.

Part time

Working less than full-time hours (usually by working fewer days) and this is the most common way of flexible working.

Compressed hours

Working full-time hours but over fewer days, normally for people who are good at what they do and focus on the goal than the time spent working.

Flexi-time

The employee chooses when to start and end work (within agreed limits) but works certain ‘core hours’, for example 10am to 4pm every day.

Annualised hours

The employee has to work a certain number of hours over the year but they have some flexibility about when they work. There are sometimes ‘core hours’ which the employee regularly works each week, and they work the rest of their hours flexibly or when there’s extra demand at work.

Staggered hours

The employee has different start, finish and break times from other workers.

Phased retirement

Default retirement age has been phased out and older workers can choose when they want to retire. This means they can reduce their hours and work part time.

Flexible Working Arrangements;

To comply with the procedural requirement employers must:

• arrange a meeting with the employee within 28 days of receiving the application
• allow the employee to be accompanied by work colleague if they wish
• notify the employee of their decision within 14 days of the date of the meeting
• arrange a appeal hearing if necessary within 14 days of being informed the employee wishes to appeal
• notify the employee of the decision of the appeal within 14 days after the meeting.

Examples of where an application for flexible working can be refused are:

• the burden of additional costs
• detrimental effect on the ability to meet customer demand
• the inability to reorganise work among existing staff
• the inability to recruit additional staff
• where it will have a detrimental impact on quality and performance.

Once an employer approves the application the variation in contractual terms is permanent and the employee has no automatic right to change back to the previous work pattern. However, agreement can be made between both parties that the flexible working can be for a specified time period or a trail period may be agreed.

In the UK, What can an employee do if an application is refused?

Wherever possible it is better to reach agreement on flexible working within the workplace. However, if the application is refused at the appeal stage you can:

• have an informal discussion - there may be some simple misunderstanding which can be resolved in an informal route
• use the employer's internal grievance procedure
• seek assistance from a third party such as a trade union representative
• seek assistance from Acas through the conciliation process.

Where agreement cannot be reached you may wish to consider:

• a referral to the Acas Arbitration Scheme
• making a claim to an employment tribunal.
  
  
  
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