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42 Spring 2023 I n December 2022, The Government released plans to make flexible working the default position for employers and employees. This involves the introduction of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill, the publication of new guidance and a promise of further consultation. So where do employees and employers stand currently? In 2014 employees with at least 26 weeks of continuous service were given the legal right to submit a maximum of one request in a 12-month period to change the contractual terms of their employment. This could be related to their hours, times and place of work. The employer could then only reject this request should they be able to apply at least one of the eight business reasons for doing so. The eight reasons are: • The burden of additional costs. • Detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand • Inability to reorganise work among existing staff • Inability to recruit additional staff. • Detrimental impact on quality. • Detrimental impact on performance • Insufficiency of work during the periods that you propose to work; and planned changes The proposed changes are: Employees are given the day-one right to submit a flexible working request. Prevention of employer rejections of applications without discussing flexible working requests and exploring other options with employees. Increasing the number of flexible working requests in a 12-month period to two. Reducing the employer response time to two months. The employee will no longer need to explain the potential impact on their employer and suggest ways to mitigate these effects. Raising awareness that the current law does not prohibit an employee from applying for the right to work flexibly for a temporary period only. In due course, the Government also plans to further call for evidence on how ‘informal flexibility’ (where ad hoc flexible working is permitted without formally changing the employment contract) works in practice. HOW HAVE THESE CHANGES BEEN RECEIVED? The proposal has mainly received a favourable response to the ‘day one’. However, there is still a minority that believes it will reduce productivity. What changes are being proposed by the new Employment Relations Bill? HR ADVICE: FLEXIBLE WORKING