Flexible Hours Question

[MGSteve]

Hi, Just wondering if there was someone who could offer some information with regards to this problem.

My wife is looking to return to work after maternity leave and she's asked the employer if she can compress her hours into 4 days, so go to work an hour earlier and leave an hour later.

They had a meeting today and said they would confirm within 14 days, but the problem they had was the Lone Working aspect with regards to Health & Safety.

They acknowledge that there are other workers present in the office at the times she wants to work, but they claim they are there voluntarily so don't count as far as lone working H&S goes, officially because she would be the only contracted employee there at that time, she'd be working alone.

This to me sounds fishy - surely H&S applies all the time, not just for your contracted hours?

Just wondering if anyone has any information they could share - it would be of interest to me as a company director as well to be honest as I run my own small business and may run into lone working situations with my staff in the near future.

Many Thanks

 

[MikeJ]

I'd guess they're arguing that if the other employees don't have to be there, they've not taken reasonable precautions to ensure that she's not working alone.

 

[sjbeale]

You can request flexible working, however, there is no obligation on the part of the business to grant the flexible hours requested and they can refuse because of business reasons.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

I don't see a problem with the lone working, and this would need to be explained in more detail by the employer if they rely on this reason in refusing the request.


The first thing is to ensure the request meets the statutory requirements, including identifying itself as a request under s.80F of the Employment Rights Act, and specifying when it should commence.


For the employer to reject the application, they will need to consider that one of the following conditions apply:

(i) the burden of additional costs,

(ii) detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand,

(iii) inability to re-organise work among existing staff,

(iv) inability to recruit additional staff,

(v) detrimental impact on quality,

(vi) detrimental impact on performance,

(vii) insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work,

(viii) planned structural changes, and

(ix) such other grounds as the Secretary of State may specify by regulations.

Karl Limpert

 

[rishabh]

Work from home could be an option if her company allows for few days.