If this hasn't been enough to encourage employers to actively embrace flexible working, employees also have a statutory right to make a request to work 'flexibly' – ie., seek to change the hours they work, the times they work or the place they work (for example, a request to work from home) – from the date they obtain six months' continuous employment with an employer.
Employees do not have to give a reason for making a flexible working request. The right is no longer limited to those with caring responsibilities.
Although employers are not under a legal obligation to agree to a statutory flexible working request, they can only lawfully refuse for one of eight specified business reasons set out in the flexible working legislation:
- Burden of additional costs
- Detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand.
- Inability to reorganise work among existing staff.
- Inability to recruit additional staff.
- Detrimental impact on quality.
- Detrimental impact on performance.
- Insufficient work during periods the employee proposes to work.
- Planned structural changes.
Once in receipt of a written statutory request for flexible working, employers must treat the request in a 'reasonable manner', which includes dealing with it within three months of receipt (including offering and dealing with any appeal against a refusal). Acas has produced a statutory Code of Practice and supplementary guidance to assist employers in handling flexible working requests 'reasonably'. Employees are only entitled to make one statutory request every 12 months, although employers can agree to consider more.
If a request is approved, it will represent a permanent change to an employee's contract of employment, with no automatic right to return to their original terms in the future unless the employer agrees otherwise.
