Our Employment Law Solicitors are specialists in advising on flexible working arrangements.

Flexible working relates to the way in which a business lets its employees work; including hours of work, pattern of working and place of work. There are many forms of flexible working including home-working, part-time working, flexitime, shift working and job sharing.

Since 30 June 2014, the right to request flexible working has been extended to all employees (including mothers, fathers and adoptive parents).

All employees are entitled to make a request for flexible working arrangements provided that:-

1. They have at least 26 weeks’ service; and
2. They have not made a flexible working request within the preceding 12 months.

The prescriptive statutory procedure requires the employer to consider the request in a reasonable manner.

The employer will need to notify the employee of its decision within three months, unless an extension is agreed with the employee. The request can be treated as withdrawn if the employee, without good reason, fails to attend two consecutive meetings to discuss the request or an appeal.

The employee may make a claim to the Employment Tribunal if the employer wrongly treats the request as withdrawn or if the employer’s decision is not made within 3 months. The claim must be brought within three months of the date on which the application is treated as withdrawn or the final decision is communicated.

ACAS has now published its final draft Code of Practice for handling flexible working requests. ACAS has also published a good practice guide to supplement the Code. These two documents can provide good guidance to an employee on how their employers should be handling their flexible working request.

Our Employment Advice Services

Our specialist Employment solicitors can assist you by: –

• Advising you on your rights,
• Helping you to prepare formal proposals for flexible working,
• Helping you to prepare for any formal meeting,
• Assisting you to draft an appeal against an adverse decision, and
• Advising you on how to lodge a claim for any breach of the regulations

We are able to offer very competitive rates and fixed fee packages for our work. All our initial advice is provided by qualified solicitors and offered for free, so please call us on 0208 591 3366 or request a call back through the website.