Making Flexible Working the Default | techUK response
The consultation includes five main proposals to support the Government's 2019 manifesto promise of making flexible working the default.
techUK and its members are supportive of the suggestion that the Right to Request Flexible Working should be available to all employees from their first day of employment. However, it should be noted that some roles cannot be done at home, such as retail roles or on-site infrastructure roles. It is welcome to see that Government is planning to continue expanding the right to flexible working beyond its initial limited focus on working families and is keen to encourage broader take-up across different groups to normalise this type of work in the UK.
The tech industry has seen the conversation on flexible working shift due to the pandemic, but wants to stress that this definition of flexible working is quite wide. Flexible working does not only mean working from home but also includes: job shares; compressed hours; part-time concessions; remote, hybrid, and digital-nomad models that are entering the mainstream of ways of working. techUK believes that companies should define flexible and hybrid working with regard to their specific organisational context.
Government proposals should allow employers to be iterative in their thinking and the ways in which they engage with their employees on this issue.
Read the full response here.
Authors
Nimmi Patel
Nimmi works on all things skills, education, and future of work policy, focusing on upskilling and retraining. Nimmi is also an Advisory Board member of Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (digit). The Centre research aims to increase understanding of how digital technologies are changing work and the implications for employers, workers, job seekers and governments.