Day-one flexible working right agreed

The government has said it will proceed with plans to give employees the right to request flexible working from the first day of their job – but no date has yet been set for putting the measure into legislation.

The promise comes after a consultation exercise on proposals to reform the right, and remove the current 26-week qualifying period “when parliamentary time allows”.

In its published response to the consultation, which included contributions from the TUC and unions, the government proposes that the right to request (not a right to automatically have) will take effect from day one. Workers will be allowed to make two requests rather than one, as now, within a 12 month period, and the response time for employers will drop from three to two months.

There will be a new duty to discuss alternatives to the request, and the process will be simplified. There will be no change to the list of eight reasons the employer has to refuse a request for flexible working.