Jane Parry is an Associate Professor of Work and Employment. Her research interests include changes in how work is organised and how inequalities and disadvantages operate within labour markets and organisations.
Michalis Veliziotis is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Management. He is an economist who is interested in how the labour market and workplace institutions shape employees' work experiences.
The Employment Rights Bill currently moving through parliament is set to extend Britain's flexible working rights, as described in a recent House of Commons Library briefing paper. If the Bill is enacted, employment tribunals will be able to consider whether it was reasonable for an employer to decide to reject a request. This is intended to encourage careful consideration of requests and enhance access to flexible working.
The Bill seeks to build on the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act passed in April 2024 by the previous government. This extended provisions around applying for flexible working arrangements and included secondary legislation to make these a 'day one' request right for all employees.
Post-pandemic flexible working
Our organisational case studies on flexible working looked at flexible working practices in 5 large organisations in different industries in the post-pandemic environment:
- retail
- local government
- financial services
- healthcare
- banking
This included both statutory and non-statutory flexible working.
We found that flexible working has become a key part of organisations' strategic thinking, with recognised benefits around recruitment, retention, and workforce well-being. During and since the pandemic, flexible working has been crucial in making hybrid working successful. For example, variation around core hours is often combined with hybrid working, to offer value to working parents.
Different approaches to managing flexible working
The research found that flexible working operates in various ways in organisations. One of these is via the statutory requests covered by legislation. This is currently one of the less common approaches to accessing flexible working. Organisations intentionally manage flexible working in both formal and informal ways to reflect a spectrum of workforce needs. These range from foreseeable working patterns around fixed childcare to ad hoc needs to varying working hours to attend non-work appointments.
In most instances, our research found that the big change of recent years, hybrid working, was organised informally with managers. While there has tended to be organisational steer on the ratio of site to home presence that staff were expected to be working, these patterns of working were rarely reflected in people's written contracts. This was partly because they were seen to be fluctuating or evolving.
Some of the operational issues that large organisations were engaging with around flexible working included:
- keeping track of employees' different, often complex, working patterns
- ensuring equity in access to flexible working
Measures here included offering a broader range of flexible working options to site-based workers unable to work in a hybrid way, and trialling recording systems.
For the organisations we studied, pandemic experiences and the subsequent transition into hybrid working had prompted a learning mindset around flexible working. Notably, organisations saw informal flexible working as critical to managing diverse and changing needs.
What next for flexible work?
The new legislation could introduce a climate of change for organisations around how flexible working requests are dealt with. It could also bring an opportunity to develop and share good practice.
Following the mainstreaming of flexible working, employers have become more adept at managing a diverse range of working patterns. While our case study organisations observed little change in the volume of statutory requests, it remains to be seen whether changes in 2024 and future changes under the Employment Rights Bill will see greater use of the statutory procedure. For example, employees may wish to formalise hybrid working arrangements that have become part of their everyday practice.
Our research showed some stigma around statutory requests. For example, interviewees often viewed the statutory procedure as a 'last resort' for difficult cases that could not be settled through informal discussions. Our research further highlighted that statutory requests can often come from the most vulnerable individuals who feel a lack of support from their line managers. These were people who would be unable to continue working without access to flexible working.
For example, a financial services organisation relayed how menopause symptoms can make commuting into an office every day unmanageable. But this was a difficult issue to raise directly with line managers – according to a survey by Simplyhealth, an estimated quarter of women in this position consider quitting their roles.
Such cases suggest that cultures resistant to flexible working can have negative effects on staff wellbeing and retention, and on wider labour market participation.
Taking a close-up look at organisations' processes in the research revealed some inconsistencies in how employees access flexible working. For example, the growth of hybrid working has further highlighted challenges around equitable decision-making and the impact on workforce relations.
The context of legal changes is a good time to review organisation policy and clarify options and procedures. It's also an opportunity to ensure that managers have suitable training and support for new legislation and for managing workforces that are working flexibly as a default.
Read our full report on organisational case studies on flexible working