Flexible working rights extended!

As you may have noticed, the arena of Employment Law is becoming increasingly populated with legislation aimed at making life easier for us all as employees and human beings.

In this light, the Flexible Working legislation will extend its reach to encompass those employees with a minium of 26 weeks’ continuous service and who care for an adult aged 18 or above who is their spouse, partner/civil partner, relative or an individual who lives at the same address.
Just for the purposes of clarification, this right was only open to those who had parental responsibility for a child under the age of six (or 18 for a disabled child). Of course, companies are not obliged to grant requests by employees to work flexibly but are under a duty to give proper consideration to the request.

In my opinion, the extension of this right to individuals caring for an adult is likely to have more of an impact on businesses than the legislation’s introduction a few years ago because we are living in an increasingly ageing population. If your organisation has not up until now, seriously entertained the concept of flexible working, I would suggest now would be the ideal time to start working towards cultural change. All the indicators out there suggest that the working world is moving towards fluid and less conventional modes of operating – see my blog re the Hampshire PA Hunt for example which explores a role for which the hours will be completely flexible.

You might be interested to read about a success story in the field of Flexible Working. Farrelly Facilities and Engineering have won awards for revolutionising the way they work – have a look at their website for more information http://www.farrellyfacilities.com/main.html