‘Flexible working’ is a phrase that describes any working pattern adapted to suit your needs.
Common types of flexible working are:
- part-time: working less than the normal hours, perhaps by working fewer days per week
- flexi-time: choosing when to work (there’s usually a core period during which you have to work)
- annualised hours: your hours are worked out over a year (often in set shifts with you deciding when to work the other hours)
- compressed hours: working your agreed hours over fewer days
- staggered hours: different starting, break and finishing times for employees in the same workplace
- job sharing: sharing a job designed for one person with someone else
- home working: working from home.
Who can ask for flexible working?
Anyone can ask their employer for flexible working arrangements, but the law provides some employees with the statutory right to request a flexible working pattern. Provided you are an employee (but not an agency worker or in the armed forces) and have worked for your employer for 26 weeks continuously before applying, you have the statutory right to ask if you:
- have a child under 17 or a disabled child under 18 who receives Disability Living Allowance
- are responsible for the child as a parent/guardian/special guardian/foster parent/private foster carer or as the holder of a residence order
- are the spouse, partner or civil partner of one of these and are applying to care for the child
- are a carer who cares, or expects to be caring, for a spouse, partner, civil partner or relative or who lives at the same address as the person being cared for.
You have the right to ask for flexible working – not the right to have it. Any application you make for flexible working should be seriously considered by your employer and only rejected if there are good business reasons for doing so. Your employer must respond to your request in writing.
Employees who do not have the legal right to request flexible working are free to ask their employer if they can work flexibly, many employers are willing to consider such requests.
Only one request can be made each year, and this should be in writing. You must comment on how you think the change in your working pattern will affect the business and how this might work in practice.
There is a standard procedure that employers must follow when considering these types of requests. Should your application be turned down, you have the right to appeal
How do you apply?
You should expect that the process of making a request and your employer considering it may take up to 14 weeks. If you are thinking about changing your work pattern, you should speak to your employer well in advance of the date from which you are seeking the change.
You need to remember that if your employer agrees to your request, then it may result in a permanent change to your contract of employment. These considerations are also likely to apply if you do not have the right to request flexible working. If you are requesting flexibility you should consider speaking to your employer as early as possible.
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