Exploring flexible working family friendly rights
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Transcript of Exploring flexible working family friendly rights
Exploring Flexible Working
and Family Friendly Rights
David Poddington, Partner
Tom Draper, Associate
Kelly Gibson, Legal Executive
Rebecca Hutchinson, Trainee Legal Executive
22 September 2016
“ the material for this seminar has been prepared solely for the benefit of delegates on this seminar. It should not be relied upon
for giving advice and Taylor&Emmet LLP accept no responsibility for loss or consequential losses incurred as a result of
reliance on this material”.
Programme
Family friendly rights and flexible working: the what and the why?
How to handle flexible working requests
Indirect discrimination
Homeworking pitfalls
Experiences of shared parental leave
Maternity leave and redundancy
New developments
What are family friendly rights
Maternity leave and pay
Paternity leave and pay
Shared parental
leave and pay
Adoption leave and pay
Time off for ante natal
appointments
Dependant leave
Parental leave
Flexible working
What is flexible working?
Updated Regulations came into force in June 2014
Now all employees with over 26 weeks’ service can request to work flexibly for any reason
One request permitted every 12 months
Results in permanent change to terms and conditions
Common forms of flexible working
Condensed hours
Part time hours
Part time working
Shift patterns
Home working
Flexi-time
How to handle flexible working
requests Deal with requests
reasonably and assess them on individual merit
Written request (check date)
Arrange a meeting Right to be
accompanied?
The decision
Trial periods? Appeal
Withdrawn requests
Grounds for rejection
Flexible working
requests may only be rejected on prescribed
grounds
• the burden of additional costs
• detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand
• inability to reorganise work among existing staff
• inability to recruit additional staff
• detrimental impact on quality
• detrimental impact on performance
• insufficiency of work during the periods that you propose to work
• planned changes
Flexible working v business needs An employee in a call centre
requests to change his working
hours from 9-5 to 7-3 to enable him
to pick his children up from school.
However, the phone lines do not
become busy until after 9am so
there is insufficient work for the
employee to do and no alternative
duties he can undertake. It is likely
that his request could therefore
reasonably be refused due to
insufficiency of work.
Two management employees apply
for a post as a proposed job-share,
but both wish to work three days
per week.
The business cannot afford the
increased payroll cost, and
proposes that both employees work
2.5 days. However, the employees
will not compromise and therefore it
is likely their request can be
reasonably refused on costs
grounds.
Completing requests
What criteria might you consider?
First come, first served?
Practical discussions with the employees
Setting precedents?
Indirect discrimination
What is discrimination
• Rejecting flexible working requests could have negative disproportionate impact on groups with certain protected characteristics (sex or disability)
• Under the Equality Act 2010, indirect discrimination occurs where A applies to B an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice (PCP) that A would apply equally to others, but which puts or would put those who share B’s protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage. If the PCP cannot be objectively justified, discrimination will occur
Example:
A woman with less than 26 weeks' continuous service wishes to work part-time
due to her childcare arrangements. She makes a request for part-time working
without following your Flexible Working Policy. This employee may have an
indirect sex discrimination claim if her request is rejected
Claims for breach of flexible working
regulations
Remedies for breach of statutory scheme:
• An order for reconsideration of the request (the date of the tribunal's order will be treated as the date of the request)
• An award of compensation to be paid by the employer to the employee, of such amount as the tribunal considers just and equitable, up to 8 weeks’ pay
Discrimination claims – injury to feelings
Constructive dismissal claims
Homeworking pitfalls
Loss of control of working hours –
Working Time Regulations 1998
Damage to team working and
culture Relocation
Insurance and restrictive covenants
Travel time Redundancy
Business rates?
Homeworking: health and safety
considerations
Stress and working hours
Equipment First aid Risk
assessment
Experiences of shared parental
leave
• Career damage
• Mums don’t want to share!
• Financial implications
Why the low uptake?
What are your experiences?
Maternity leave protections
Pregnant employees are protected against discrimination during the “protected period”
The protected period begins when a woman becomes pregnant and ends when she returns to work after the pregnancy. If she does not take leave or miscarries before 24 weeks, the protected period ends at the end of the period of two weeks beginning with the end of the pregnancy
However, additional protection applies in certain circumstances, including in a redundancy situation
Maternity leave and dismissal
“Employees cannot be
dismissed whilst they are
pregnant”
“Employees on maternity always have the right to
return to the same job”
“Employees on maternity leave cannot be made
redundant”
Myth busting
Maternity leave and
redundancy
Right to be automatically placed into suitable alternative role in preference to any other employee (male or female)
Fairly apply selection criteria (if appropriate)
Consult with any employee on maternity leave
New developments
Shared Grandparental Leave
Childcare vouchers
Gender pay gap reporting
30 hours free childcare per week for working parents
Enhanced maternity rights?
Brexit…