How to check flexible working requests: a guide for HR
Employees in the UK now have the right to request flexible working from day one of their employment. As a result, it’s essential to stay informed about what should be included in a flexible working request and keep up with recent changes to the law. To help, we’ve included a template to ensure you gather all the necessary information from your employees.
What is a flexible working request?
A flexible working request allows employees to propose changes to their working patterns, such as adjusting hours, days, or work location. Employees in the UK can request flexible working from their first day of employment under recent legal changes. They are entitled to request changes to:
- The number of hours they work
- When they start or finish work
- The days they work
- Where they work
How has the law changed for flexible working?
All employees have a right to request flexible working, regardless of the type or size of the company. Recent changes to the UK government law mean that employees can now make this request from the first day of employment. Previously, they were required to work for 26 continuous weeks before becoming eligible.
What are the different types of flexible working?
Different types of flexible working include:
- Remote or work from home arrangements
- Job sharing
- Hybrid working (working both in the office and remotely)
- Part-time
- Compressed hours (working longer days but having more days off to compensate)
- Flexitime (employees choose when to start but there are ‘core hours’ which they must work)
- Annualised hours (employees have to work a certain number of hours a year but otherwise may have flexibility about when they work)
- Phased retirement (employees gradually reduce their hours in the run-up to retiring)
Depending on the type of business and industry you operate in, it may not be viable to satisfy all employees' flexible working requests. For example, you might need to provide customer service during specific hours of the day. However, consider the common reasons for flexible working requests below:
Common reasons for flexible working
Employees may find flexible working beneficial for a variety of different reasons, including:
- Wanting to spend more time with family or care for young children
- Balancing work with caring responsibilities as a carer
- Phasing out work gradually as they approach retirement
- Managing a disability that makes daily commuting impractical
- Striving for a better work-life balance
However, it is important to remember that employees may have highly personal and specific reasons for requesting flexible working, so it may be a good idea to consider the reason for it when negotiating.
If a request cannot be accommodated, consider alternatives to address the employee’s needs wherever possible. For instance, if an employee requests to work remotely full-time but the role requires office attendance, you might propose hybrid working as a compromise.
What should be included in a flexible working request?
An application for flexible working hours requires the following:
- A handwritten request
- The date of the request
- The name of the employee
- The change they want to their current working pattern
- When they want the change to be made
- A statement declaring that it is a statutory flexible working request
If you’re part of an HR team, this checklist can help you manage this data in a more organised way. It also serves as a template that you can reuse for future requests. For larger businesses dealing with many requests, providing this checklist to employees in advance can streamline their processes, reducing the need to ask for additional information later.
Flexible working request template
Large organisations may struggle to manage multiple flexible working requests efficiently. Standardising the process with templates can streamline submissions, ensuring all requests are reviewed fairly and promptly.
To simplify this process, we’ve provided a flexible working request form template to help you gather all the necessary information required from your employees. This template can help you collect and store the data on a secure HR database. However, bear in mind that the initial request may need to be handwritten.
- Employee name,
- Date of request,
- Requested working pattern changes,
- Start date,
- Has a handwritten note been provided? YES/NO,
- Is this a statutory request? YES/NO,
- Additional notes and reasons for request.
How to handle and negotiate flexible working requests
Once an employee submits a request, you must consider their request within two months of receipt, unless they agree to a longer timeframe with you. If you approve the request, it may be necessary to amend the terms and conditions of their employment contract.
Employers are also legally required to handle flexible working requests in a ‘reasonable manner’. This involves:
- Fairly weighing up the pros and cons of the employee’s request,
- Exploring different alternatives if the request cannot be accommodated,
- Offering employees an appeal if they are unhappy with the decision.
Gather more employee feedback with SurveyMonkey surveys
Aside from a flexible working request form, there are so many ways you can gather useful HR data from your employees using our HR survey templates.
Let’s look at a few examples. Our training course evaluation form helps you evaluate learning and development needs and gather data on:
- How useful employees find their training
- Whether training programmes are redundant or helpful
- Whether they’re getting the right support to learn and grow
- What courses are the most effective and where others could improve
Employee self-evaluation can also provide great insights into professional ambitions, feelings about employer branding and more. With our self-evaluation form template, learn about:
- An employee’s achievements and contributions
- How an employee is progressing towards their own goals
- What their personal goals are for the next review period
- How they think they could improve
- What training and development needs they’ve identified
What’s more, you can modify our form to your company’s specific requirements and branding. Haven’t found what you’re looking for above? Learn about all the different kinds of human resources and sample HR questions with our guide.
Need more data-driven HR insights?
We’ve walked through the steps of negotiating a statutory flexible working request with your employee. With the template provided, you can also process requests more efficiently and store this important information on your digital database. We also provided some other tools and templates that HR teams can use to gather even more information on their employees.
Manage flexible working requests with SurveyMonkey HR tools and surveys
Flexible working request FAQs
Looking to gain additional insights on flexible working requests? Some of the frequently asked questions below could address your concerns:
How has the UK law on flexible working changed?
The law on flexible working has changed to make it easier for employees to request flexible working. Before April 2024, employers in the UK could reject a flexible working request without consulting an employee first. Also, to qualify for a flexible working request, employees had to work 26 weeks consecutively. They could also only make one flexible working request per year.
How can HR handle flexible working requests fairly?
Consider holding a meeting with your employee to discuss what flexible working arrangements are suitable for them. Having a meeting face-to-face can reduce the risk of poor communication. It can also provide a good opportunity to negotiate the fairest outcome for both the employee and the business.
Acknowledging an employee’s right to appeal this decision can also be good fair practice and can make the process smoother. Acas provides a Code of Practice for employers to follow if an employee makes an appeal.
Are employees aware of this new right to request flexible working?
As Acas found in a study, seven out of 10 employees are not currently aware of these new changes. Additionally, 43% of employers weren’t aware of the changes themselves. This emphasises the importance of discussing the new right to request with employees. It also means that familiarising yourself with this new legislative change can make flexible working requests smoother in the future.