Flexible working request potentially being denied, what are my rights?

[PeachyGreen95]

I met with work last week to discuss returning, I have asked to drop a day and a couple of hours on 2x days I’m working to pick the baby up.

They were asking a lot of questions in the meeting about childcare etc (fair enough) but mentioned that me being out of the office when requested may not work for the business and they could provide me with a trial period. My initial request was to return 5x days with 2 days at home and they said that I would be stretching myself with potential child sicknesses etc, which is why I’ve now requested 4 days a week.

If they deny my new request, am I entitled to go back to my role as it was? Does it sound like they’re trying to push me out?

Sounds like they don't believe you'll be "working" on your work from home days.

Have you got childcare organised, i.e. parents/nursery/partner, etc? If so, make that clear to them that you will be "free" to work on WFH days.

Otherwise, is your work flexible enough that you can put in a full days' work around looking after your child, i.e. early starts/late finishes etc during sleeping times?

Could you offer to work from the workplace on all working days and not have any WFH days? That may appease them if they're more confident you'll actually be working by virtue of being in the workplace.

If they claim it doesn’t work for business reasons then you don’t have a lot of come back.

I wanted to reduce my hours from 30 to 22 1/2. It was denied as they said there is too much work in my role for 3 days a week. They said I could choose how I worked those hours so when the 15 hours free childcare comes in I will work my hours over 3 1/2 days.

I don't think they can tell you you can't work five days in case your child is unwell?!
If that's the only reason you dropped your request to 4 days that seems off. Do you have a union who would support you with the specifics of your role/industry?
I always advise our staff to consider the nervous to the organisation of their flexible working eg you want to work five in 4 that brand you'll be in earlier on the morning to deal with it support xyz and you'll be around later in the evenings for emergency practitioner matters/escalations

I would strongly advise that you don't drop your request from 2 WFH days to 1. Unless you don't have a commute, it will be much easier for you to drop off and collections in you're WFH.

Their reference to sickness stretching yourself sounds like utter BS. If your child is ill and cannot attend nursery you simply will not be able to work. It doesn't sound like they are trying to push you out, rather intimidate you into asking for less from them. Utter nonsense after how many 100s HAD to work from home for almost 2 years 🙄

The new regulation requires your work to prove that it doesn't work for them and based on what you have outlined, there is nothing to suggest it wouldn't. Some places of work are just belligerent about offering flexibility.

It sounds like they don’t believe you’ll have childcare lined up for your wfh days. Do you?

I was under the impression they thought I wasn’t working on my WFH days.

We have a childminder in place (drop baby to her) on my WFH days, that was the plan. I’ve now requested

Monday - day off
Tuesday - in office 8-4pm (childminder)
Wednesday - wfh 8-4.30pm (childminder)
thursday - in office 8.30-6pm
Friday - same as Thursday

if they don’t accept the above, could I say I’ll drop the WFH day during the week and then surely they’ll know my days have been planned around pick ups / drop offs. If they deny it altogether, surely I can revert back to my original hours and the one WFH day in my contract?

im worried they’re trying to push me out of the business but not sure how easy it is to do this when returning from maternity leave 😖😖

They were asking a lot of questions in the meeting about childcare etc (fair enough)

no, not fair enough! You have no legal requirement to answer questions about childcare, that's indirectly discriminatory (men could be asked that question too, however the likelihood of the question being targeted towards a woman is far greater in all organisations).

Please try not to worry about being pushed out. As of 6 April 2024 there are new regulations which protect women going on and returning from maternity, you may want to take a read of this summary https://www.thackraywilliams.com/insights/news/important-changes-from-6-april-2024-to-the-redundancy-protection-for-pregnant-employees-and-employees-returning-from-family-leave#:~:text=From%206%20April%202024%20the,pregnant%20employees%20in%20redundancy%20situations.

Try not to offer a negotiation immediately, once they have responded just wait and think your choices through. It has to work for you too after all. Do not be pressured/worry yourself into taking less than you can get.

@MyOtherCarisAVauxhallZafira I did think this, it sounds like they were pushing me to go part time as it could reduce my salary by around 10k…

I felt a bit flustered in the meeting, not sure why as we have childcare lined up and had a plan in place. I feel like I’ve now been pushed into requesting 4 days a week. I wouldn’t mind doing this as if means a day in the week with the baby but I wasn’t sure if this was actually allowed by them. I felt that some of the questions were a bit intrusive too.

They mentioned a trial period which Im happy to take part in as I’ll be able to see if this works for me too.

@daisychain01 I’m really upset I didn’t stand my ground more, im due another meeting with them once they’ve had time to digest my new request so I need to make sure I’m better prepared.

some of the questions were slightly intrusive - my partners parents will look after her one day a week and are moving away from us soon - they asked where they’re at with their house sale and who will take over. Whether my mum works and what her hours are. It threw me a little bit and I started to get flustered, felt like they were trying to catch me out.

They have massively overstepped the mark here with that line of questioning and 100% guarantee they wouldn't be asking the same of a male employee so they are on shaky ground. It's none of their business what childcare arrangements you have in place.

They can however, reiterate that wfh is exactly that and not to be used for childcare.

Who are you having the meeting with? Is it your line manager? Do you have HR? Is there a flexible working policy you can refer to?

Well, you know what you have to do. Just make sure your DC only gets poorly on Mondays 🙄

have you had a look through the guidance on GOV site? The ACAS code of practice is a good reference here:

https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working

One of the points of flexible working is to manage work/life balance with respect to family life e.g.Staggered start/finish times, compressed hours etc… what you are requesting isn’t unreasonable. Keep your request as it is and work through the process using all the guidance you can find to support you.

you may also find this article useful, it talks around potential breaches of the Equality Act 2010 with regards to flexible working.

To add to my above post - I work in HR. The amount of times managers balls up these requests because of their own biases and misconceptions is immense so we quite often have to step in and sort out their mess.

@UghFletcher it’s a small business so it’s the owners of the business I’m meeting with, they have an outsourced HR rather than an internal one, there’s a flexible working policy in the handbook which says I’m allowed to request flexible working once a year.

I felt so awkward because we hadn’t really spoken about what happens when my in laws move away from us however I know that between both families we’d be able to sort it out. They scoffed when I said this and I felt like an idiot. They said a lot of sickness etc comes with childcare and how am I supposed to work if I’m being dragged from pillar to post with child sickness etc.

there is actually a male colleague who is due to have a baby soon and I doubt he will be asked these sort of questions. I’m scared about being kicked out and jobless.

It seems like you volunteered more information on your home life than was necessary. They just needed reassurance that childcare was in place, not details which has triggered doubts. Maybe someone else has their dc when wfh. Treat this purely as a business transaction. Why do you need to pick up at 4/4:30 and how will you ensure the needs of the role are met regardless etc. Could you start earlier on those days? You have the right to request flexible working but they can decline on business grounds.

@LIZS perhaps I have overshared but when I get embarrassed and flustered I tend to spew stuff out. I’ll need to grab the baby from the childminder at 5pm so want to finish at 4pm on a working day in the office and 4.30pm on a WFH day.

@PeachyGreen95 to answer one of your questions, you can return to your original contractual hours I.e. 5 days with one WFH if that is what you want.

Childcare is none of their business unless you start to need leave at short notice for childcare.

It is reasonable for them to ask if you have childcare in place on the days when you plan to wfh.

It is not reasonable for them to quiz you on the details of that childcare, whether your mum works etc. I am pretty certain that they would not ask such questions of a male employee, for the same reason that they didn't quiz you about whether your dad works.

If they can demonstrate that there are valid business reasons as to why your proposed flexible working arrangements wouldn't work for them, then they can certainly refuse your requests. In that scenario, you absolutely hag the right to go back to whatever working pattern/wfh arrangements were in place before your maternity leave (unless, perhaps, the policy on wfh has changed in the interim for the company as a whole).

They absolutely cannot force you to go part time on the grounds that your dc will get sick/you'll need time off because of this. I guarantee they would not seek to push a male employee with young children to reduce their hours to care for sick children, so this looks like direct sex discrimination to me.

@PeachyGreen95 If you want 5 days then I would go back to them and say you felt pressured in the meeting and to go to 4 is not what you want and while they (as a small business) might be worried about childcare, that is not their concern. A trial period is not unreasonable - have a look here:

https://workingfamilies.org.uk/articles/flexible-working-a-guide-for-employees/

They can only refuse on business grounds (for example, if you asked to reduce your hours and they don’t have enough people to pick up the extra work). A trial period might allow you to reassure them that this is workable.

I suggest a call to ACAS to talk it through seeing as your HR is outsourced and not on site.

They can give you some really great options and the right way to go about pushing back / what your rights are etc.. sounds like as a small business the owners are very much going with what suits them rather than considering that a flexible working request can actually work to their benefit in terms of being able to keep you rather than lose you and spend more money recruiting.

FYI 'we don't like your suggestion' is not a genuine business reason for declining. I don't see from your request why they should have an issue but they would have to detail a pretty solid reason e.g your work can't be done in 4 days a week because lots of critical client meetings take place on a Monday

Tbh I would not accept going for 4 days unless you realyyyyyy want to stay with your child.
It is often offered as you will be expected to do normal full week workload in 4 days and get paid for 4 days in stead of five which is amount of work you will do. It works very well for business as they save 20%.
Tell them you are capable of doing five days a week.
They would never suggest to a man with year old baby that je needs to cut hours.

I think everyone will soon have the right to request flexible working, not just mothers with children. I know a lot of secondary school teachers who would like not to be timetabled with classes at the start and end of the day so that they can take and fetch their children to school. . I look forward to how Headteachers are going to cope with that but if flexible working is to be the norm there must be adjustments for all jobs not just some.

I agree with @Ohnobackagain - I don’t see their reasoning for the 4 days. If you want to do 5 but your request is to increase from 1 to 2 WFH that seems reasonable.

The trial period is normal and I’d accept that . I’d suggest making sure you have clear outcomes or objectives in place, and an agreed workload, so that you have objective evidence of whether the extra WFH day is affecting your work performance, esp given your suspicion that they see WFH as “not really working”.

It’s OK for them to check you have childcare in place for your WFH days but the amount of prying about exact arrangements is inappropriate and not any of their business. I don’t see how they can push you to take one as a non working day instead. It’s up to you whether you work and use childcare , or look after your child yourself.

Do you have a colleague you can ask to accompany you to meetings , if you are inclined to get flustered and over share? If not, try rehearsing a few lines that put boundaries in place about what you are willing to share or agree in the meeting, like:
“I’ll need to get back to you on that”
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to go into personal details” (if pressed about personal things, esp where they concern other members of your family)
”I will have childcare in place during all my working hours”
“I have a number of options for childcare” (followed by one of the lines above about not sharing personal information, and ensuring you have childcare in place to cover working hours)

Huh? They already do! It's just that mums are often the lower earners and so are expected to be primary carers/request PT.
The new rulings are only about the right to request, not have it approved. Everyone on here always acts like asking = getting but that's not the case.

Why do you 'have' to be in the office OP? Does anybody else WFH?