The Employment Rights (Flexible Working) Act 2023, effective from 6th April 2024, introduces significant improvements in work-life balance for UK employees.
The Act enables employees immediate access to request flexible working arrangements, eliminating the previous 26-week wait period. This includes requests for flexitime, part-time, term-time, compressed hours and varied working locations.
For employers, new obligations under the Act necessitate documented justifications for any denial of flexible working requests. This marks a departure from past practices which permitted rejections without explicit reasoning. Additionally, the mandated response time to such requests has been shortened to two months, accelerating the previous three-month timeline. The Act further enhances employee benefits by permitting two statutory flexible working requests in any 12-month period, a notable increase from the previous single request limit.
This legislative change fosters an environment of improved organisational flexibility for both employees and employers.
These changes create a challenge for many organisations in how they will administer the requests, specifically, ensuring adherence to the two month time limit and including documenting decisions are stored.
CaseworkER by Conformity Software improves the visibility and transparency of managing flexible working requests including an integrated form for flexible working requests to be submitted. By building in and predefining the process to be followed, including timeframes along with letter templates which are stored on the case, CaseworkER will ensure you are meeting your obligations for flexible working requests and providing reassurance for employees all requests are handled fairly and equitably.
