New Flexible Working Rights

[Ron Davies]

An additional 4.5 million workers may be able to apply for flexible working after new legislation is brought in..

On April 6th a new law allowing for parents with children aged 16 below to request flexible working in a bid to improve the work home life balance.

The current law states all carers and parents of children aged up to six, or children with disabilities aged up to 18, have the right to request flexible working. At present 6 million carers and parents already have the right to request flexible working from their employers. Also 95% of flexible working request are granted, showing that most companies understand the benefits and want to help their employees.

The Minister for Employment Relations (Pat McFadden), said, “This is about balancing work & family life and extending the right to request will help more parents get the flexibility they need. The business benefits of flexible working are well documented and this remains the case in tougher economic times.”

Firms can refuse flexible working requests, but they need to have legitimate business concerns.
Flexible working includes compressed hours, working from home, or any pattern of hours that are not standard to an orginaisation.

Benefits of flexible working to business include increased productivity and recruitment savings. It has been shown that staff reducing their hours makes them happier, often producing similar results as their full time colleagues.

For further guidnace on flexible working you can log on to either the Business Link or Direct.gov websites.

[Malcb17]

I have to confess that I have mixed feelings over this one, on the one hand I have every sympathy with people in work sharing in the profits made by their hard hard work, on the other hand as an employer working upwards of 90 hours a week as a lot of people on this forum do it sticks in my throat.
I could employ a young person tomorrow and grow my business and yet if I employ a woman and she becomes pregnant I have to pay for her to be off work for months never knowing if she is actually coming back, I can't advertise for a man as that is illegal I just have to employ the best for that job and hope nothing happens because as a small business that would cripple me.
I am not greedy but the new regulations just add to what is already an extremely difficult choice that every employer has to make.
The new regulations will certainly help some groups including women who because they are generally the one that raises children cannot work 9 til 5 so this will allow more people to work when they are available and that has to be a good thing.
Please don't see this as an attack on one section of the community just as a critcism of the employment laws as they stand.

[sheffy]

I think small businesses have enough on their plate without this! It puts you off employing staff!