From 30th June 2014 the right to request flexible working has been extended to all employees. Until now, this right only applied to the parents of children under 17 or 18 in the case of parents of disabled children or those caring for an adult.
All employees have a statutory right to ask their employer for a change in their contractual terms and conditions of employment to work flexibly provided they have worked for their employer for 26 weeks continuously at the date the application is made. An employee can only make one request in any 12 month period. Employers might consider introducing a policy for handling requests to work flexibly, making it clear to both employee and employer what the procedure should be. Requests by employees to working flexibly should be made in writing stating 3 things:
* specifying the change the employee is seeking and the date they want the changes to happen
* what effect they think the change would have on the employer and how, in their opinion, any such effect might be dealt with
* that this application is a statutory request
Employees requests must be considered objectively and an employer can only refuse them if there are business reasons for doing so, such as if it will have a detrimental impact on performance, quality, the ability to meet customer demand or the burden of additional costs to the employer. There are however benefits to flexible working for both the employee and the employer:
* improved morale
* reduced absence levels
* increased productivity
* increased loyalty
* retention of valuable workers
* employee satisfaction
* workforce flexibility
For more guidance , here are 2 helpful guides from ACAS:
