UK staff to be given extra versatile working rights

UK staff may have the precise to ask for part-time hours or homeworking preparations from the primary day of a brand new job beneath measures to advertise versatile working set out by the federal government on Monday.

Kevin Hollinrake, minister for small enterprise, stated it was a “no-brainer” to increase the prevailing proper to request versatile working after 26 weeks with an employer, as it will assist folks with caring duties to steadiness work and residential life, and create a extra numerous workforce.

The measures, to be delivered by secondary laws, will even enable staff to make two versatile working requests in any 12-month interval, slightly than one at current; shorten the deadline for employers to reply; and require employers to discover all choices earlier than rejecting a request.

The adjustments are an advance on the present scenario, the place many individuals who must steadiness work with household obligations wrestle to discover a new job or change employer, as a result of posts are not often marketed as versatile and so they can not wait six months to make a request that could be rejected.

Nonetheless, campaigners stated the proposals don’t go so far as that they had hoped. They argued that they left employers free to reject a versatile working request and beneath no obligation to think about how roles may very well be tailored earlier than recruiting for them.

Frances O’Grady, basic secretary of the Trades Union Congress, the umbrella physique for the UK’s commerce union motion, stated a proper from day one to request various working preparations can be a “small step in the precise route” however employees wanted “the authorized proper to work versatile from their first day in a job — not simply the precise to ask”.

A survey launched final week by Timewise, a versatile working consultancy, discovered that simply three posts in 10 had been marketed as providing any type of versatile working — which might embrace preparations akin to job-sharing or adjusted hours in keeping with worker wants or compressed hours, in addition to part-time and distant work.

The proportion of versatile working posts being marketed is an even bigger than up to now, however that’s largely due to hybrid and distant working in skilled sectors akin to advertising and marketing and finance throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Solely 12 per cent of jobs had been marketed as open to part-time work, the kind of versatile working most in demand, in keeping with the survey — the proportion was a lot smaller in higher-paid roles. Timewise stated this meant many single dad and mom particularly had been excluded from the labour market or “trapped in jobs beneath their ability degree”.