First published on Monday, March 17, 2025
Last updated on Monday, March 17, 2025
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The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 came into effect in 2024 and introduced the reworked system of flexible working.
As an employer, whether any of your staff are currently working flexibly or not, it’s important to get to grips with what the law currently requires of you.
Dive into our article to learn more about what the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 means for you and your business.
The legal definition of flexible working
Under the Act, flexible working can relate to working hours, patterns, and locations. From offering workers the option to work compressed hours to introducing flexible start and finish times, the term flexible working is broad.
The following are some examples of flexible working options:
Compressed hours
Hybrid working
Compressed workweeks
What does the law say?
Changes to flexible working laws cover topics such as when flexible working requests can be made, who can make a request (all employees), how many requests can be made, and how and when employers must respond to these requests.
By introducing these changes, the government have made flexible working arrangements more accessible. Granting employees greater ‘flexibility’ when it comes to making flexible working requests.
Making a flexible working request
Employees can make flexible working requests from day one of employment. This begins the process of ‘making a statutory application’.
This requires the employee to write directly to their employer to make the request.
Under the Act employers now have two months to decide on this request, however extensions can be provided, only if this is discussed and agreed with the employee.
As part of their request, employees are no longer required to specify what impact his will have on the business. They can also make two flexible working requests with any 12-month period.
Withdrawing an application
An employee can opt to withdraw their application, but they must tell their employer of this decision.
As an employer you can also choose to withdraw their application if the employee does not attend at least 2 meetings to discuss their application without a good reason for doing so.
However, you must also inform the employee of this decision, explaining why their application is being withdrawn.
Your decision
If you wish to reject an employee’s request, this decision must be discussed with the employee, consulting on your decision and providing one or more of the following reasons for why you are refusing this request:
Extra costs that will damage the business
The work cannot be reorganised among other staff
People cannot be recruited to do the work
Flexible working will affect quality
Flexible working will affect performance
The business will not be able to meet customer demand
There’s a lack of work to do during the proposed working times
The business is planning changes to the workforce *(list sourced from Government website)
* https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working/after-the-application
However, if you agree to the request, you must begin the process of changing the employee’s contract. You should complete this within 28 days of the request being approved. Updating your employee’s employment contract to outline their specific flexible working arrangements.
The appeals process
While employees can now make statutory applications for flexible working requests, they do not have the statutory right to appeal the decision.
However, as an employer, you can have an appeals process in place. which would allow the employee to solve a dispute over their application being refused.
Employment tribunals
An employee may take you to an employment tribunal if they believe the request was mishandled or the application led to them being wrongly or unfairly treated at work. If you did not provide one of the reasons for refusing the request, this could also result in a hearing at an employment tribunal.
An employee can begin their complaint within 3 months of:
Receiving their employer’s decision on the request
Discovering their request was treated as withdrawn
The date in which the employer had time to respond to the request but did not.
If an employee has made a flexible working request linked to a disability and this is rejected, they may also be able to claim discrimination in the workplace, as this should be treated as a reasonable adjustment request.
As any employer will know, employment tribunals are to be avoided and can result in both hefty compensation payments and business reputational damage. It’s important to follow the correct procedure for handling requests to ensure that you are legally compliant.
The benefits of increased flexibility for your business
Thanks to research from the government and support from ministers, the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill was introduced and achieved Royal Assent, coming into effect in 2024.
Why was it approved? Because according to the Conservative Government under Rishi Sunak, millions of workers will benefit from flexible working conditions.
Flexible working arrangements gives workers more ownership over where and when they work which can cater to employees with certain disabilities and health conditions. But also provides all workers with more freedom, reduced commute times, and the opportunity for more family time. Flexible working may even benefit businesses in the long run too, with:
Higher rates of productivity
Better staff retention rates
A boost in employee morale
Improved workplace culture
Cost efficiency
Adapting to the changing behaviours of the modern workplace also means your business may appear more attractive to potential top talent. Improving your recruitment efforts and creating a more diverse employee base with a range of talents to support the growth of your business.
More reasons to provide your team with flexible working hours can be found in our dedicated article on flexible working hours.
How to handle flexible working in your business
With these changes to flexible working laws and changes in attitudes towards flexible working arrangements, it’s more important than ever to take the right approach to handling flexible working in your workplace.
Whether you can adjust for employees or not, it will benefit you and your employees to review your current policies and procedures to adjust to the changing nature of work in the modern day.
Having a flexible working policy in place is a good way to ensure your employees understand the process and how you handle requests in your business.
Use HR software to manage flexible working
With features such as BrightBase providing you with a HR document library and policy templates, you can easily create your own flexible working request outcome document, providing employees who make a request with a clear decision.
Plus, BrightBase also includes a range of contract templates, so you can quickly and easily update your employee contracts to align with their new flexible working arrangements.
Making sure you’re up to date with legislation, including recent updates to UK employment laws, is essential for keeping your business HR compliant. If you’re worried about your business being compliant or would simply like more information about your legal responsibilities, BrightAdvice is here to help.
Our 24/7 employment law advice line is available with BrightHR to provide you with expert employment law and HR advice. On a case-by-case basis our team will work with you to find a solution to your problem or to simply answer a burning question.
