Reading the Guardian's report of this, it all seems rather pointless
The new rules do not alter the previous basis on which an employer is entitled to reject a flexible working request. There are eight business reasons an employer can use, which include the burden of additional costs, an inability to either meet customer demand, to reorganise work, or recruit new staff.
and
There is no obligation to provide you with an appeal, unless this is part of company policy, although it is good practice (as advised by Acas) for firms to have an appeals process.
A grim document
15 hours ago
2 comments:
I find the whole thing very odd. Today I woke up in a world where I could ask my employer for flexible working, and my employer could say yes, or it could say no. The answer would depend on the needs of said employer, and our respective bargaining positions.
How, in any way whatsoever, is that different to yesterday?
What has this achieved other than publicising the fact that flexible working is a thing that exists, and that people who fancy it might want to suggest?
I suppose it kept some people busy drafting up the rules and stopped them from doing any damage somewhere else. But couldn't they have just dug a hole so that we could have busied them up for another couple of years while they filled it in?
I suspect that the original intention was to produce regulations that would force employers to allow flexible working, but things were watered down until the whole thing became pointless. At that point the whole project had acquired so much momentum it was impossible to stop.
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