Overview

An employee’s statutory right to request flexible working was dramatically widened in June 2014, whereas before this date, employees needed to meet specific eligibility requirements, such as having caring responsibilities for either a child or an adult in need of care. Now, all an employee needs to be eligible to request flexible working is 26 weeks’ continuous service and not to have made a previous request within the last year.

Even eligible employees don’t have the right to work flexibly, but rather a right to submit a request to their employer for flexible working. On receipt of the request, following the law change, the employer is under a duty to consider the request in a reasonable manner, but does not have to follow a statutory procedure.

Recent developments, How Government Plans to Extend the Scope of an Employee’s Legal Right

The Government response to a consultation on extending the scope of flexible working legislation is expected, as the consultation was closed on the 1st of December 2021.

The consultation, “Making Flexible Working The Default”, considered amongst other things, by removing the current 26-week service eligibility criteria, meaning that employees will be able to request flexible working from day one of employment.

The CIPD produced a report stating that the UK nations and regions are ranked as the least flexible in terms of working arrangements. It has shown some areas to be “flexible working hotspots”, for example; workers in the South East of England have the best flexible working options, followed by the East of England, whereas workers in the Yorkshire and Humber region are least likely to have flexibility in their role. Generally, the analysis found that in regions where employees report better flexibility in hours, they tend to have less flexibility over where they work (the North East comes out top for flexible hours, but bottom for flexibility of location).