Government to extend flexi-working right
The right to flexible working is to be extended to parents of children up to the age of 16 under new plans unveiled by the government today.
Ministers said the change, on which they will now consult, would result in an extra 4.5m employees being able to request from their boss a variation in hours, go part-time or to work from home. Around 6m are currently allowed to do.
Prime minister Gordon Brown claimed the extension, which is the result of a review by Sainsbury's HR director Imelda Walsh, would be welcomed by parents and employers alike.
"The right to request flexible working has been working for lots of people over the last few years," he told BBC Breakfast. "It is working for parents of young children and now it can apply to children under 16 where families need time off to help bring [them] up.
"A lot of employers will welcome it. Flexible working is the right to request flexible working, it is not an automatic right to flexible working."
Business secretary John Hutton added: "It is important that employers retain control over deciding whether it suits their business allow people to work flexibly, but extending the right to request to parents of older children will allow families to take priority when decisions are made."
Walsh's review also concluded that any change should be implemented at once, rather than a staged introduction, to avoid creating confusion and small businesses generally have a better record on accepting flexible working requests than larger ones.
Post a comment
BusinessZONE - 15-May-2008
Categories: News
Story read: 1737
Number of comments: 1
Why just parents?
Emily Coltman, 16 May 2008 @ 09:38 AM
In my view, flexible working should be offered to everyone, parents and non-parents alike, if there is a good reason.
Collecting children from school and spending time with them is a good reason.
But so is working 8-4 instead of 9-5 in order to miss the worst of the traffic on the M25 and have a long evening for study.
And so is working from home because working in the office would be too noisy when you're trying to shoot videos.
All my employers have been very reasonable about flexible working even though I have no children, but I can imagine that some wouldn't be.
Mr Brown, please don't discriminate against those of us who don't have children!
M
