Right to request flexible working open to all

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Changes that could herald the biggest changes to the world of work have finally been put in place after the Children and Families Act was given its long-awaited Royal Assent in parliament last week.

The legislation – which could come to be regarded as the most significant step forward in working conditions since the 1963 Contracts of Employment Act – gives workers a host of new rights, including most significantly, the right for all staff to request flexible working.

Until now, only workers with children under 17 (or those with disabled children) and those with caring responsibilities could automatically ask their employer to work flexibly. The new law however, which comes into effect in April means any worker with six months’ continuous service is now able to request to work flexibly after 30 June 2014. This includes working from home, doing job shares, working compressed weeks, or taking other forms of flexible working.

The legislation will also provide for other forms of work-life balance. From April 2015 mothers, fathers and adopters can opt to share their parental leave between them, so that parents can either have several months off at the same time or swap leave throughout their baby’s first year. Leave can be taken by either of the baby’s parents (or the mother's husband or partner) in periods of a week or multiples of a week.

Employment relations minister Jenny Willott said: “Current workplace arrangements have not kept pace with the times. The Children and Families Act will bring the way parents balance their working and home lives back into the 21stcentury.”

She added: “By enabling any employee to work flexibly, we want to remove any cultural assumption that flexible working is only for women, or just parents and carers.”

Although the Act is described by Willott as “good for business”, it has faced considerable criticism from business groups including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) in particular. In 2012 the BCC said the changes risked “causing unnecessary friction between parents and employers and will raise unrealistic expectations about the level of flexibility most businesses are able to accommodate”.

Paul Reeves, employment partner at Stephenson Harwood said “employees still only have a right to request flexible working, and not a right to flexible working”, and government has only stipulated that requests should be considered “reasonably”. However, ACAS has published a draft of its code of practice and guidance for employers about how to handle requests.