Help needed pls- flexi hours declinature

[Sk77]

Hi,

I wrote previously looking to get some advice re my initial request. They noted my formal application following correct procedure and a meeting was called for yesterday. To reiterate, there's no hr- it was me & co owner.
Having verbally said they would decline due to setting precedent, he/they had obv done some reading & printed off the reasons they ar allows to say no & used 3.
I requested these in writing (I know once this is done they can't change them) - I do not agree with any. They read as follows:
"at this stage we are reluctant to offer flexible working due to the following concerns:
1: we feel this would lead to extra costs to cover her work"

(I do not agree. My base annual is £60k so the pro rata drop of a day would mean another employee taking a call or reading an email (before deciding to call me at home to tell me to action) would not take the equivalent of my daily rate)

I manage my own work flow, have always maintained I will be contactable if needed. Had said would do odd 5 day week on an ad hoc basis if needed at times. I see this as same as how I would manage work if I had a days hols or a days travelling to a meeting. I don't even have a phone that would need to be covered as we have a central number everyone picks up.

2:"we feel that existing staff would need to take on some of her work when she was out of the office"

3: "we feel that it would have a detrimental impact on her ability to achieve her budget targets & on her performance overall"

"was mentioned that we have a number of people who, in her view, work on a part time basis, but I explained that they are either on consultancy or on a "flexible" working basis because they are nearing retirement"

• makes no mention if the staff member who works one week in & 3 weeks in Asia, (who does same role as me) or the pa who does 7 to 1 every day.

They have said they would "discuss more flexible commuting hours on the current 5 day week basis" but I do not know what this is.

They have told me to consider and come back to them with thoughts & discuss further.

Please advise me here, should I see a solicitor now & tell them I'm doing so, should I accept this for now & raise after baby? Should I request break down of this 5 day week thing even tho I do not want it or should I put my arguments down on paper to them?

Any advice re what should be done next will be so gratefully received. Feel am going slightly mad!

Absolutely don't call a solicitor! You'd make yourself look very silky.

You can appeal, using the appeal procedure, but given that they have provided business reasons, they are within their rights and have offered a compromise.

Oh, and other people's working arrangements aren't relevant as fwr are done on a case by case basis.

I fail to see how knowing how best to handle a very important situation makes someone look "silly"? I wasn't suggesting I will share that with my employer. Thanks for your time!

I was trying to answer your plea for help! You would look silly engaging a solicitor to act for you at this stage, I assumed that's what you meant.

Bad form to ask for advice and meet it with sarcasm. However ...

There is no legal right to have flexible working put in place, just a legal right to request so at this stage you'd be wasting your cash.

You need to use the appeals process - you need to address each of the reasons your employer has given by providing workable solutions that will work for them. Best to work with them on it so that you can come to a compromise.

Oh and you can only request once per year so do pursue the appeal in the correct timescale - ir you would have to wait another year to request again.

You would look silly. Solicitor would ask you if you have followed standard appeal procedure. You'd say no. solicitor would tell you to go away and follow correct procedure.

What you need to do is to address their reasons in an appeal. If you intend to be contactable from home and to deal with stuff forwarded by the office then this is well and good and you should mention it, but you can't 'formalise' it because then you would be officially working from home, rather than taking a 4 day pro rata role. They would therefore be right to discount such an offer and assume that you would not be working on this day off. Otherwise what if they say OK and then every time someone tried to call you your phone was switched off? They wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they tried to discipline you.

If all the other staff are going to be doing is taking a call or reading an email, then who exactly is going to be doing the 20% of work that you are giving up? Are you going to be working 25% harder on the other days to make up? Whilst in reality this is often what happens, it is probably unwise to base your case around this for two reasons. (1) It allows the company to use the defence they have which is that your performance may suffer because you are being asked to do too much work in remaining 4 days and (2) If you argue performance won't suffer, you are implying that you aren't working hard at the moment. You need to think this through and maybe come up with a plan to deal with fact that 20% of the work won't 'go away' Maybe flexi hours is an option yo can suggest (ie extra hour during other 4 days to reduce impact (also reduces the pro rate pay cut). Another option available if your workload is genuinely known to ebb and flow at different times is to request 47 extra days holiday a year (=1 day off a week after allowing for vacation), and you can argue that you and boss will agree when these can be taken and will only be taken when workload is light. You need to have flexibility with childcare though for this to work.

Asia and PA staff not relevant to situation by the way.