The right of working parents to apply to work flexibly has been extended to those with children under the age of 17 (or 18 where the child is disabled). Employers are under a legal obligation to consider these requests seriously.
Eligible employees are able to request a change to the hours that they work, a change to the times that they are required to work and/or to work from home. However, all requests must be made in writing. The employee has a duty to consider how the company could accommodate their request.
In order to become eligible, there are a range of considerations that an employee has to satisfy, but the legislation does ask employers to consider all types of working patterns, such as annualised hours, flexitime, job sharing, shift working etc.before arriving at a decision.
Within the framework of the regulations, there are time limits within which employers need to respond to meet with the employee and there is also the provision for the right of appeal against a decision by an employer.
The employer is under no obligation to agree to the request but will be required to give details of why any such request is being rejected. That reason has to be one of those outlined in the regulations.
Employees who are dissatisfied with the employer's response to their request can potentially pursue the matter through an Employment Tribunal for a remedy or through the ACAS arbitration scheme.
The right to request Flexible Working was extended on 1 April 2007 to include the carers of adults. Applicants in this area are required to satisfy certain specific provisions in relation to who will be eligible but the process is otherwise similar to that currently used for the Flexible Working applications in relation to children.