Flexible working now available to all UK employees

If you’re one of those people who finds themselves fighting a never-ending battle between balancing your personal and professional commitments then this post is definitely for you.

Last month, the UK government announced that from June 30 every employee in the UK would be able to request flexible working arrangements – a right that up until now only applied to certain carers and parents with children under 17.

On the face of it you might be wondering what’s in it for businesses? Well, the government estimates that the new plans will lower absenteeism, improve productivity and reduce staff turnover, which will realise economic benefits of about £475 million over the next 10 years.

But what exactly is flexible working and what do the new rules actually mean? Let me explain further:

What is flexible working?

Flexible working is when an agreed change is made to an employee’s working pattern. This can actually manifest itself in many different ways but the most common types of flexible working are flexitime, home working, job sharing, part-time working and changes to working hours.

The new rules are thought to be particularly attractive to young people who are just starting out in their careers and want to undertake additional learning or training and older members of staff who are approaching retirement.

Who is now eligible to apply?

Anyone who has worked for their employer for at least six months (26 weeks) continuously is eligible to apply for flexible working. Known as ‘making a statutory application’, employees can make one flexibility request per year and their employer must consider it in a ‘reasonable manner.’

Not all applications, however, will be automatically approved under the new rules; they simply allow all employees to make flexible working requests.

Why might an application be rejected?

Obviously, not every flexible working application will be successful and there will be times when employers have to decline requests. However, employers can only decline a request for one of the following business reasons:

• the burden of additional costs
• an inability to reorganise work amongst existing staff
• an inability to recruit additional staff
• a detrimental impact on quality
• a detrimental impact on performance
• detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand
• insufficient work for the periods the employee proposes to work
• a planned structural change to your business

These are the same reasons under which previous flexible working requests could be declined and the new rules don’t change them in any way.

How will applications be dealt with?

In a ‘reasonable manner’ by the employer is what the law states. The application process will ultimately see the employee have a face-to-face meeting with their employer in which the flexible working request will be discussed.

Employers then have three months in which to notify their employee of the decision – unless a longer period is agreed beforehand with the employee. A clear business case must be included with any rejections and the relevant business reason from the list above stated.

All flexible working applications will be dealt with on a first-come first-serve basis by the employer. This means that conflicts may occur and if they do, businesses are advised by the government’s Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) to try to reach a compromise with the employees involved.

So if you’ve ever longed to reduce your hours or experience the benefits of flexitime, now is your chance!

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