Flexible working

All employees have a statutory right to request flexible working from their employer. This could cover changes to working hours, times of work or place of work. You can ask your employer for changes twice a year.

A statutory flexible working request should be made in writing and provide details of the revised working schedule. The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills has a template here that you can use. Your employer then has up to three months to make a decision. The employer must have a sound business reason for rejecting any request. You can propose starting with a trial period to test out the new pattern.

A more informal, non-statutory request can be made at any time, and you can make as many requests as you like. This may be useful if you want to make a temporary change.

Some examples of flexible working include:

• Flexi-time - having flexibility outside of ‘core hours’ of work
• Working from home or remote working – this could be from home, or elsewhere
• Job sharing – where two or more employees share the work normally done by one person.
• Part-time working – employees might work shorter days or fewer days in a week.
• Term-time working – employees don’t work during school holidays and either take paid or unpaid leave or their salary is calculated pro-rata over the whole year.
• Compressed hours – employees work their total hours over fewer working days
• Mealtime flex – employees take their lunch break when it suits them during the work day. Some employees may choose to take a shorter break instead and leave work earlier.