Flexible Working

Flexible Working

With the summer holidays approaching many employees will be wondering how they can juggle their careers with their caring responsibilities. Some may be aware of their statutory entitlements for flexible working and others may think they are!

So prepare yourself... with our Key Points on Flexible Working

What is flexible working?

· Part-time working

· Term-time working

· Job-sharing

· Flexitime

· Compressed hours

· Annual hours

· Working from home on a regular basis

· Mobile working/teleworking

· Career breaks

· Shift Swap

This list is not exhaustive and you may well be running different forms of flexible working right now. Don’t forget that as well as the right to request flexible working there is also parental leave and time off for dependants

What are the benefits of flexible working?

With an increase in older workers and mothers in the working population flexible working patterns can widen your options for attracting the best person for the job
The increased demand for an effective work-life balance.
Grateful and engaged employees who are more productive through not worrying about caring responsibilities such as who will take Grandad to the day centre every Thursday.

What are the myths of flexible working?

Everyone is entitled to work flexibly No they’re not! There are currently specific statutory requirements for an employee to be eligible for flexible working, parental leave and dependants leave.
Flexible working is only for mothers of young children - No it isn’t! Flexible working can be requested by anyone with caring responsibilities for: children under 17, disabled children under 18 or a dependant adult who lives at the same address.
If I allow one person to work flexibly, everyone will jump on the bandwagon – allowing one employee to work flexibly may be all the operation can handle – you can refuse and review it regularly in case the situation changes or offer a trial period to see how it works in practice.
I can’t run my business and let employees work flexibly – as you can see on the list above there are many different forms of flexible working and you are only obligated to consider requests from eligible employees if it is not workable for your business you CAN refuse the request providing you have given it proper consideration.
If I have refused someone a similar request before, I should refuse again to remain consistent – each case must be reviewed individually. Your operation may have changed and failure to take into account the employee’s reasons without proper consideration could be considered indirect discrimination.

Who is eligible?

An employee will be eligible if they:

have 26 weeks continuous employment
have made no other application in the previous 12 months
have or expect to have parental responsibility for a child under 17 years old (or 18 years old if the child is disabled and receives Disability Living Allowance)
are the parent/guardian/special guardian/foster parent/private foster carer or as the holder of a residence order of the spouse, partner or civil partner of one of these and are applying to care for the child
are a carer/expect to be, of an adult who is a spouse, partner, civil partner or relative; or who although not related to you lives at the same address as you

Parental Leave

Each parent can take a total of up to 13 weeks' parental leave for each child up to their 5th birthday.
Adoptive parents can take a total of up to 13 weeks' parental leave. This can be until the 5th anniversary of their placement with you or until their 18th birthday, whichever comes first.
Parents of disabled children in receipt of Disability Living Allowance have the right to take up to 18 weeks' parental leave until the child’s 18th birthday
The leave is unpaid unless you have different entitlements in your contracts.
An employee will be eligible if they:-
are an employee with 52 weeks’ continuous employment
are named on the child’s birth/adoption certificate
have legal responsibility for a child under 5 (or 18 if the child is disabled)

Time off for Dependants

An employee has the right to reasonable unpaid time off work to deal with emergencies involving a 'dependant'. A dependant could be a relative or anyone living in their household as a member of the family. It could also be an elderly neighbour living alone who falls and breaks a leg and the employee is closest on hand.

An employee requests every other Monday off to take his mother who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis for her physiotherapy treatment. This should be considered under a flexible working request rather than time off for a dependant because the arrangement is likely to be ongoing.

An employee says they will be late because the school heating system has broken down and they need to take their child to a relative - this should be considered time off for a dependant as it is a short term emergency situation.

An employee calls in to say that their dog has been involved in a fight with another dog and they would like the day off to take the dog to the vet and care for them afterwards – there is no entitlement to flexible working however you may want to offer the employee either unpaid leave or annual holiday.

An employee’s partner has just had a baby but is still in hospital. He has to take their older child to nursery and has been late 3 times in the last 10 days. It is becoming a problem as a client and other employees have complained – this should be covered under time off for a dependant temporarily, however it may be that you need to discuss flexible working with the employee on a short term basis whilst his partner remains in hospital.To discipline him for lateness would almost certainly be either refusal to allow his statutory right to time off to care for a dependant or suffering a detriment for doing so.

The latest HR news from