Worklife Balance
It's important to balance your work and home life. The right to ask for flexible working aims to help employers and workers agree on work patterns that suit everyone. Find out what flexible working is and how to apply for it.
'Flexible working' is a phrase that describes any working pattern adapted to suit your needs. Common types of flexible working are:
- part-time: working less than the normal hours, perhaps by working fewer days per week
- flexi-time: choosing when to work (there's usually a core period during which you have to work)
- annualised hours: your hours are worked out over a year (often set shifts with you deciding when to work the other hours)
- compressed hours: working your agreed hours over fewer days
- staggered hours: different starting, break and finishing times for employees in the same workplace
- job sharing: sharing a job designed for one person with someone else
- home working: working from home
You can combine any of these working patterns to come up with something to suit your circumstances
Anyone can ask their employer for flexible work arrangements, but the government has introduced a statutory right in order to encourage applications. You have the statutory right to ask if you:
- are an employee (but not an agency worker or in the armed forces)
- have a child under six or a disabled child under 18
- are responsible for the child as a parent/guardian/foster parent
- are applying to care for the child, and
- have worked for your employer for 26 weeks continuously before applying
Under the law your employer must seriously consider any application you make, but they don't have to agree if there's a good business reason not to. You have the right to ask for flexible working - not the right to have it.
Directgov offers an interactive tool (external link) to find out whether you have the right to request flexible working. You can also find out what work patterns may suit your lifestyle best (external link). If you decide that you can ask for flexible working, they also give you advice on the next steps (external link) in how to request it
Print this page | Page Last Updated: 23 July 2007 11:13