Are you up to speed with new flexible working legislation?

Businesses have been urged to make sure they are up to speed with new flexible working legislation which came into force last week.

Robert Shaw, consulting solicitor at Cartridges in Exeter has highlighted the following issues: 

Currently, only employees with children under 17 (or those with disabled children under 18) and those who have responsibilities as a carer have a right to request flexible working.

The new law extends this right, and means that, from 30 June 2014, any employee with 26 weeks' continuous service will be able to make an application to work flexibly for any reason. 

However, it’s not all bad news for employers – they will receive some flexibility too. The new law dispenses with the statutory procedure for consideration of flexible working requests, replacing it with a duty on employers to deal with requests in a ‘reasonable’ manner.

The legislation does not give employees the right to work flexibly. Instead it provides a right to request flexible working.

Eligible employees can request a change to working hours, working time or working location. This includes a wide range of working patterns, such as job sharing, working from home, part time working, compressed hours and flexitime.

Currently, any employee with caring responsibilities can make a request for flexible working. The employee must have 26 weeks’ continuous employment and must not have made a flexible working request in the past 12 months.

The new legislation removes the requirement that an employee must have parental or caring responsibility in order to make a request. This means that all employees who have the necessary period of service with their employer will have a right to request flexible working regardless of caring responsibilities.

Further details are contained in the ACAS Code of Practice on Flexible Working.  Please follow the link if you would like to see the ACAS guidance and Code of Practice: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1616