This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Petition Make flexible working requests available to all with presumption of approval
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.
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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.
This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months