Right to Request Flexible Working from First Day of Employment
- Employment Law
- 6th Dec 2022
The Government have committed to creating legislation to allow employees to make a flexible working request from the first day of their employment. Julie Sabba, an Associate in the Employment team considers the proposal in more detail. Currently, an employee has to have 26 weeks’ service to make a flexible working request. The individual […]
By Gareth Matthews
MLP Law
The Government have committed to creating legislation to allow employees to make a flexible working request from the first day of their employment. Julie Sabba, an Associate in the Employment team considers the proposal in more detail.
Currently, an employee has to have 26 weeks’ service to make a flexible working request. The individual must also not have made such a request in the last 12 months. The change will therefore remove the qualifying period to allow an employee to make a flexible working request from day one of their employment. Employees are also to be given the right to make 2 requests in any 12 month period, with employers required to respond within 2 months, rather than the 3 months that apply presently.
There is also a commitment to remove the requirement for employees to set out how the effects of their flexible working request might be dealt with by their employer. Furthermore, if an employer cannot accommodate a request to work flexibly, they will be required to discuss alternative options before they can reject the request.
The purpose of a flexible working request is to allow the employee to change their terms and conditions in one (or more than one) of the following ways:
- how many hours they are required to work;
- when they are required to work, and/or
- where, as between their home and their employer’s place of business, that work is done.
In practice this can include requests for job-sharing and flexitime, as well as compressed, annualised or staggered hours.
Whilst the exact timetable for the legislation has not been published it would serve employers well to begin to plan for the change, particularly by considering the potential flexibility of any role from the outset of the recruitment stage.
If you would like advice from the Employment team at MLP Law in respect of any of the issues raised here or more generally, please do not hesitate to get in touch on 0161 926 9969 or employment@mlplaw.co.uk, or follow us on Twitter @HRHeroUK.
About the expert
Stephen Attree
Managing Partner
Stephen is the Owner of MLP Law and leads our Commercial, IP and Dispute Resolution teams which provide advice on all aspects of the law relating to mergers, acquisitions, financing, re-structuring, complex commercial contracts, standard trading terms, share options, shareholder and partnership agreements, commercial dispute resolution, joint venture and partnering arrangements, IT and Technology law, Intellectual Property, EU and competition law, Brexit and GDPR.
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