Working from Home law changes
Is Working from Home more productive or less? Unlike many employers, more than half of employees are unconvinced about the benefits of home working for their organisations. As of the 6th of April 2024, employees will have the right to ask their employers for approval for flexible working arrangements from day one of their engagement. However, the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 sets out reasons why employers have the right to refuse applications from employees on specific grounds.
Many employers already allow staff the right to request flexible working from their first day of employment. Research from the CIPD last year found that 14% offered this opportunity before the legislation took effect. Perhaps unsurprisingly, employers investing heavily in office-based collaboration solutions would rather that their staff spend time in the office, to take advantage of these systems and to enjoy meeting equity without any additional spend.
“The new flexible working legislation removes the requirement for an employee to have 26 weeks’ continuous service before they can make a formal flexible working request. This means the right to request flexible working becomes a ‘day-one’ right. Employees will also be able to make two flexible working requests every 12 months, a change from the current single request. The Act will reduce the time limit for employers to deal with flexible working requests from three to two months, although this can be extended if the employee agrees”.
While the new legislation codifies current practice in many organisations, its introduction has been far from universally welcomed. Employers must consult with an employee before refusing a request, and the new legislation will remove the need for employees to explain or justify the impact of the proposed change on their working arrangements. Acas has drafted a new code of practice on how employers should handle flexible working requests once the new changes have taken effect, but this remains under consultation. A new code will come into effect alongside the legislation.
In the current Acas code, flexible working is a term used to describe an arrangement that meets the needs “of both the employee and the employer” as to when, where, and how someone works. Since the pandemic and the raft of virtual working that followed, many employees now choose to work differently to the traditional Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 in an office. This could include part-time working, home working, hybrid working, flexitime, job sharing, compressed hours, annualised hours, term-time working, and team-based rostering.
The Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023, which come into force on 6 April this year, extend to England, Scotland, and Wales and update the Flexible Working Regulations 2014 by removing the requirement for an employee to be continuously employed for at least 26 weeks to make a flexible working application. The benefits of allowing employees more autonomy over their working arrangements are well-documented, such as greater engagement, better work-life balance, and lower stress. Employees who work flexibly are less likely to take time off work for childcare issues or mental health issues, for example.
There are also risks to the employer of not offering flexible working options. The CIPD estimates that around 4 million people have changed careers because of a lack of flexibility at work. Enabling employees to work flexibly can help organisations narrow the gender pay and pensions gap. According to the Fawcett Society, 40% of women who are currently not working said access to flexible work would mean they could take on more paid work, while 77% of women agreed they would be more likely to apply for a job that advertised flexible working options.
Employers should look at their current policies around flexible working and ensure they reflect the new law, in particular with relation to the length of service required. Training managers on complying with the new rights will be essential, as employees must now be consulted before their request is refused. Managers should also be made aware of the shorter time frame in which to consider a request. There remains a list of permitted business reasons for which a request can be refused, and the employer must offer concrete evidence to support the reason for refusal.
The productivity issue
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There are several grounds on which an employer can refuse a request an application to work flexibly. These are:
While not listed specifically, the term that cropped up repeatedly in our discussions with employers and AV specialists is ‘productivity’. Employers with staff absent from the workplace are suspicious about their productivity levels and are seeking methods of verification. Nearly half of the enterprises surveyed (44%) are collecting data on employees’ home working hours, with an additional 33% planning to in the future according to Kinly, The new Trusted Connections 2024 study surveyed 425 enterprise AV professionals working in the UK, Germany, Nordics, and the Netherlands. It revealed that 65% of enterprises are encouraging staff to install Internet of Things (IoT) devices in their homes, while a third (33%) are also investing in analytics platforms to monitor remote workers.
For many enterprises, at-home tracking systems are helping meet their obligations to protect employee wellbeing – something which has become much harder since workers left the office environment. A third of those surveyed (32%) said their organisations are now collecting well-being data such as ‘tiredness indicators’ from remote staff. A further 37% plan to track this sort of data in the future. More than a quarter (28%) said their organisations are also collecting environmental data from people’s homes – such as lighting and air quality, while 36% have plans to collect this data in the future.
Commenting on this trend, Tom Martin, CEO of Kinly said: “For years enterprises have been able to maximise both the productivity and well-being of staff within the office environment. From providing natural lighting to monitoring screen time, worker analytics have been a big part of the AV industry. Now, that’s all changing. With so many employees working from home, businesses can no longer guarantee a high-quality work environment. The result is people working longer hours, in conditions that wouldn’t have been acceptable at the office. IoT technology is becoming an increasingly popular way to address this, using at-home AV equipment to monitor everything from air quality, to working hours and screen time. Of course, adopting this tech means being transparent with employees. It cannot be used without their express consent.”
According to Kinly ’s research, employee wellbeing is not the only challenge posed by the rise of hybrid working. More than half of those surveyed (57%) said poor hybrid workflows are damaging staff productivity, while 27% face issues with decentralised or siloed data. Fifty-eight percent said that outdated AV tech is also damaging the overall productivity of remote employees.
Tom Martin continues: “While remote worker tracking will definitely be the hot topic of 2024, there’s a lot to be said about getting the basics of AV right. Many enterprises have still not developed effective strategies for hybrid working, with efficiency and productivity slumping due to badly designed workflows and outdated tech. As our research report shows, effective hybrid working is essential to business growth, staff retention, and even recruitment. Simply giving employees a laptop and saying ‘work from home’ isn’t enough. Enterprises need bespoke, intelligent, and increasingly data-driven solutions for hybrid working, built around their specific business goals, and their employee’s individual needs.”
With enhanced employee rights now enshrined in law, there is some scepticism about the degree of change that this will impart. Caroline Philipps, senior associate at Fladgate LLP , said: “The new legislation arguably has relatively little impact in practice, especially as no minimum standard of consultation has been specified. The changes do place more of the burden of dealing with a flexible working request on the employer, who is going to have to evidence more engagement and make decisions quicker. An employer’s scope for refusing requests hasn’t otherwise changed.”
A recent study by HR recruitment company Wade Macdonald showed that although 88% of workers consider flexible working to be a valuable benefit, the perception is that it is more likely to be granted to managerial employees. As for the productivity issue, technological solutions are available to satisfy