New Employment Regulations Regarding Flexible Working
Under provisions set out in the Employment Rights Act 1996 and regulations made under it, all employees have a statutory right to ask their employer for a change to their contractual terms and conditions of employment to work flexibly provided they have worked for their employer for 26 weeks continuously at the date the application is made.
Before June 2014 the right only applied to the parents of children under 17 or 18 in the case of parents of disabled children or to those caring for an adult. Now any eligible employee can apply to work flexibly for any reason.
Flexible working is not new and there are many reasons that a business might want to consider flexible working regardless of the update to regulations last month, namely:
- Enhanced recruitment and retention of quality staff
- Extended working hours to improve customer service
- Business continuity and disaster recovery planning
- Business growth without additional office costs
- Reduced sickness and absenteeism
MPS has been providing flexible working solutions for many years and offers a range of telephony, mobile and IT solutions that can enable staff to work more flexibly in terms of location and times of the day.