Coming soon — changes to flexible working rules

That was my main thought as I headed home from the office one lunchtime shortly before the first lockdown the day our firm moved to remote working in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I hadn’t necessarily expected to be sent home so soon — but had been due to trial working from home that week.

It wasn’t something I’d done before; I wasn’t sure how I’d find the experience; and — as I’ve said — no one really knew how long we’d be doing it for.

However, for me at least, working remotely turned out to be a lightbulb moment.

Now, four years on, many colleagues work flexibly with some days a week at home, and others in one of our offices across Scotland. It works well, not least because my employment law colleagues are all based in different sites anyway — so we’re used to collaborating remotely — and much of the procedural elements of, for example, employment tribunals continue to be held online.

That said, the success of this approach depends on a range of factors and it’s a topic — particularly in relation to remote working, a popular type of flexible working — that has turned out to be divisive.

No matter your view though, change is coming and — as an employer — you’ll need to factor that into your decision making process.

Let’s take a look.

The changes

There are three main changes effective from April 2024 —

• The right to work flexibly will be a “day one” right, meaning employees won’t have to wait until they have 26 weeks’ service

• Employees can make two requests to work flexibly in a 12-month period, rather than one request at the moment

• Employers will need to consult with the employee before they reject their request

What does stay the same is the type of request employees can make — including reducing their hours and working from home. The grounds for rejecting requests remain broad and include additional costs as well as not being able to reorganise work among other staff.

And businesses asking employees to return to the workplace aren’t likely to encounter problems if that decision’s evidence-based and is flexible enough to accommodate exceptions such as childcare.

The flexible working business case

There isn’t a single approach that suits all businesses; however, many organisations have adopted some form of flexible working, such as the hybrid approach.

According to a CIPD report from last year, 83% of organisations have hybrid working in place, with 45% having a formal policy.

The CIPD also says in that document its research shows flexible working is important for jobseekers, while it can be an important element for job satisfaction.

With that in mind, I caught up with our head of HR, Gary Hunt, to get his view of what businesses ought to consider when they’re making a business case to embed or develop a flexible working approach.

He says the touchpoint for any policy should be the organisation’s goals and values. Any official approach ought then to be structured to align with these and could, for example, be split into themes including talent acquisition and retention; wellbeing; equality and inclusion; productivity, employee engagement and cost efficiency.

Of course, he adds, the emphasis you give in your business case will depend on those goals and values and what works for your organisation and your workforce.

In short, flexible working has its staunch advocates and equally resolute detractors, but one thing’s for sure, it’s here to stay.

Please get in touch with me if you have any questions about the legal aspects of flexible working and you can read more commentary from the employment law team in our news and views section.