New Flexible Working Rights

Posted on 5 Mar 2024
New Flexible Working Rights

The Employment Rights (Flexible Working) Act 2023 comes into force on April 6th in the UK introducing significant changes to flexible working arrangements, granting millions of employees greater control over their work location and schedule.
 

The headlines

  • The updated regulations now allow employees to request flexible working arrangements from their first day of employment, eliminating the previous requirement of having to wait 26 weeks. This includes a wide range of options, including part-time work, term-time hours, flexitime, compressed hours, and the ability to work from various locations.
  • Employers are required to provide a detailed explanation if they choose to reject any flexible working request. This marks a departure from the previous system, which allowed employers to deny such requests without justification.
  • The timeframe for employers to respond to flexible working requests has been reduced from three months to two months, ensuring a more prompt resolution for employees.
  • Another significant change under the new legislation is that employees are now permitted to make two statutory requests for flexible working within any 12 months, doubling the previous limit of one request per year.

Two further pieces of legislation also become law in April:

This article in People Management gives employers some guidelines and advice on how businesses and HR can prepare for the new flexible working laws.