Three weeks into her new role, a customer-service adviser at Pennine Mutual — a Leeds building society with 640 staff — asks to compress her hours into a four-day week. Her manager replies that she must wait six months. He is wrong: since 6 April 2024 the request is a day-one right, and his refusal without a statutory ground exposes the society to a tribunal claim. The People Director must rebuild the whole flexible-working policy before the next request lands.
Statutory flexible working request
A request by an employee to change the hours, times, or place at which they work, made under Part 8A of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 and the Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023 made it a day-one right from 6 April 2024, removing the previous 26-week qualifying period.
The reform changed four things at once. Employees may now request from their first day rather than after 26 weeks. They may make two requests in any rolling twelve-month period rather than one. The employer must decide within two months rather than three. And the employee no longer has to explain how the change affects the business or how the employer might deal with it.
An employer may only refuse a request on one or more of eight statutory grounds set out in s.80G ERA 1996: the burden of additional costs, a detrimental effect on the ability to meet customer demand, an inability to reorganise work among existing staff, an inability to recruit additional staff, a detrimental effect on quality, a detrimental effect on performance, an insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work, and planned structural changes.
Before refusing, the employer must consult the employee. The ACAS statutory Code of Practice on requests for flexible working, in force from 6 April 2024, makes consultation a procedural expectation; a tribunal will treat a refusal reached without a meeting as a strong indicator of an unreasonable decision.
| Feature | Before reform | From 6 April 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Qualifying service | 26 weeks | Day-one right |
| Requests per 12 months | One | Two |
| Decision period | Three months | Two months |
| Business-impact explanation | Required from employee | No longer required |
The People Director rewrites the policy so every line manager follows one route: acknowledge the request in writing, hold a consultation meeting within two weeks, and record the decision against the eight statutory grounds. For the four-day-week request, the society agrees a three-month trial with compressed hours, measured against call-handling targets. The adviser keeps her full-time pay across four longer days; the society retains an experienced employee it would otherwise have lost.
⚠️Telling new starters they must wait six months
→ The 26-week qualifying period was abolished on 6 April 2024; refusing to accept a request on length-of-service grounds is now itself a breach of Part 8A ERA 1996.
⚠️Refusing without holding a consultation meeting
→ The ACAS statutory Code in force from April 2024 expects consultation; a tribunal treats a refusal reached with no meeting as evidence the decision was not handled reasonably.
⚠️Missing the two-month decision deadline
→ Decisions must be communicated within two months unless the employee agrees an extension; a silent overrun lets the employee complain to a tribunal.
UK HR Director rebuilding a flexible-working policy
Suggested questions