HR Insights • 6 MIN READ
Flexible Working: What HR Leaders Need to Know
MAR 28, 2026
The right to request flexible working from day one is now law in Great Britain. Here is what has changed and how to manage requests fairly.
The new legislative landscape
From April 2024, all employees in Great Britain have had the right to request flexible working from their first day of employment, removing the previous 26-week qualifying period. Employers must consider requests and respond within two months. Requests can only be refused on one of eight statutory business grounds: additional costs, inability to reorganise work, inability to recruit additional staff, detrimental impact on quality or performance, insufficiency of work during proposed hours, and planned structural changes.
What counts as flexible working
Flexible working covers a range of arrangements: part-time hours, compressed hours (full-time hours in fewer days), flexitime (core hours with flexible start and finish), remote working, and term-time working. Employees can now make two requests per year rather than one. HR teams should update their flexible working policies to reflect the new statutory framework and ensure managers are trained to handle requests consistently and fairly.
Managing flexible working fairly
The biggest risk in flexible working management is inconsistency: similar requests approved for some employees and refused for others with similar roles. This creates perceptions of unfairness and, where protected characteristics are involved, potential indirect discrimination claims. Use a structured assessment process for every request, document the business rationale for each decision, and review decisions at a senior level before communicating them.
The productivity case for flexibility
Research from Stanford and others consistently shows that well-managed flexible working increases productivity, reduces absence, and improves retention. Employees who have flexibility over when and where they work report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to leave. The organisations that resist all forms of flexibility are increasingly losing talent to more agile competitors, particularly among knowledge workers who have the skills to move elsewhere.
