Closed petition Make flexible working requests available to all with presumption of approval

Closed on 10 November 2021

Give employees the right to request flexible working from day 1 of employment and create a presumption in favour of flexible working by placing the burden on employers to demonstrate that a role is unsuitable for flexible working, including part-time hours, annualised hours and job sharing.

Under current legislation, workers do not have the right to request flexible working until they have completed 26 weeks of service. There is currently no obligation to accept a request and these can be rejected for a number of reasons.

The current legislation causes a substantial barrier to many groups such as; women, carers and those with disabilities. As many roles only consider applicants that can work full time.

A day 1 right would remove this barrier and help to remove the gender pay gap.