Compressed hours request declined by employer

[Jackv545]

Hi All,

My wife is due to return to work next week and earlier in the year had requested to go back to work with compressed hours (4 days in 3), which was recently declined with the company providing the following reason:

"we would not be able to facilitate longer working days for a compressed working week as you will remain a salaried employee, not hourly".

Is this a valid reason (I am a permanent employee)? I am looking for advice on if this is something I can try to push back on. I would be looking to start early and finish late on 3 working days so that my salary doesnt drop to 3/5, but to 4/5 of a full working week.

Many thanks for any help

Jack

It doesn't sound like one of the legal reasons they can decline the request, no.

https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working/after-the-application#:~:text=Reasons%20for%20refusing,planning%20changes%20to%20the%20workforce

I think you/your wife (sorry it's not clear which of you it relates to) should write back asking for further clarification and also information about the appeals mechanism. There's no reason per se why a salaried employee can't work compressed hours but it may be there's something behind it, for instance if the company employs a mix of salaried employees and flexible/contingent/hourly paid workers, and it is difficult or impossible to get the hourly paid workers to cover the work your wife would otherwise be doing during the day a week she would now have off, whereas they are happy/able to have hourly paid people working early/late and don't need extra cover at those times from their salaried employees that would explain why they've made that distinction and would fall under one of the permitted reasons...

Compressed hours is only applicable to full time. What you are asking for is part time with longer days.

The salaried hours is potentially a valid point. What it depends on is your contract and the culture. If the contract/culture is an expectation you work the hours to get the job done by working longer days you reduce the “extra hours” available to work.

I would advise asking ACAS based on the wording in your/your wife’s contract.

Saying "you’re salaried, not hourly" is quite vague.
Unless they can show a real operation problem with her proposal (e.g.covering business hours, impact on team, customer service, etc.), then their refusal could be seen as:

• Not based on a valid business ground, and
• Not a raesonable consideration of her request.

It depends what the job is. Can the work be done out of work hours? Is there a place of work she can do it? We like to make sure people are leaving the office at around 5/5.30 to avoid presenteeism. Jobs can be done out of working hours but someone working til 8pm isn’t always likely to be particularly productive.

If she is unsure about the reasons, she can ask for more clarity.

I think what they mean is that "salaried" employees are paid to achieve their workload, not to do a specific number of hours, and might regularly have to do long hours in the office to get the job done without being paid overtime. Within that concept, it makes no sense for a salaried employee doing apparently "compressed hours" to be effectively be paid a couple of grades higher than a full-time employee with no such adjustments who might well be working the same length of days 5 days a week.

I don't agree with this point of view, it comes from the same stables as presenteeism machismo, and prizes inefficient employees who can't get the job done swiftly but have no home commitments over capable and effective employees who don't waste time.

I agree with pp that it's not a legitimate reason to turn down a flexible working request.

@RareGoalsVergeAgree; and if they come anywhere near staying this then surely the response is great, I can do the job in 4/3 days so I’ll just crack on then.