I submitted a FWR for compressed hours last month (Jan) which I had been planning to do for a couple of months. Nothing complex, or too different to my current pattern. I followed procedure to the letter.
However very late last year my company announced its sale. We are now in pre-close period where we are told to work “business as usual” as a totally separate company to the one buying us. Once the sale closes we will all TUPE over and only then will they look at structures, redundancies etc. I have no idea if my role is safe, and won’t know until after the sale closes in maybe another few months.
So, they broke procedure by rejecting by email without having had any conversation with me, and the reason they gave was around not wanting to set a “precedent”. I have challenged on both counts. That reason is not one of the legally permissible reasons to reject.
They have now replied acknowledging they should have consulted me before rejecting. They are also now saying the “real” reason is one of the permissible ones around plans for restructuring. They said they assumed that I would know that the main reason for refusing was the upcoming acquisition. I do things by the book - a formal FWR allows no assumptions and I wouldn’t have bothered if I didn’t think I had a decent chance.
Even if they can change their reason for refusal to suit them when they realise they’ve messed up, I don’t know that that reason stands up to scrutiny? I am an employee of my company until sale close, technically my company itself is not planning any restructures - it is business as usual until after close (another few weeks), and I may or may not be kept on by the new company.
Is this permissible reason a murky grey area? Anything my company want to do during this pre close period would go through an approval process by the new company anyway. I am disappointed that my company where I have been a high performer with a good reputation for 6 yrs is not behind me in setting me up for future success, especially as it is a very non complex low-business-impact win/win FWR!