Flexible working rejections
With flexible working high on the government agenda ensuring business have effective processes in place to handle requests is vital, especially as legal there will be legal requirements placed on employers to ensure that they are diligently reviewing requests.
All employees have a day one right to request flexible working and employers are expected to actively engage in conversations with employees to explore all options fairly before arriving at a decision. The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduced a new requirement that employers must only reject requests where it is reasonable to do.
The Employment Rights Act 1996 previously included guidance on acceptable reasons for rejection for one or more of the following business reasons:
- The burden of additional costs
- An inability to reorganise work amongst existing staff
- An inability to recruit additional staff if required to cover periods of unavailability
- A detrimental impact on quality
- A detrimental impact on performance
- A detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand
- Insufficient work available for the periods the employee proposes to work
- Planned structural changes to the employer’s business
Acas is updating its statutory Code of Practice on requests for flexible working to reflect changes being introduced through the Employment Rights Act 2025 and regulations made under it.
- The consultation Acas- flexible working-requests-2026 will led to changes to the law on flexible working by:
- introducing a new reasonableness test for refusing flexible working requests. Employers will still be able to refuse a request using one or more of the existing statutory business reasons, but they will also need to explain why it is reasonable to refuse the request for the stated business reasons
- setting out mandatory consultation steps before a request can be refused. Where an employer feels they cannot accept a statutory flexible working request in full, they must follow a consultation process with the employee which will be set out in law
The core sections of the draft code of practice on which they are seeking views has been developed to reflect these changes and specifically focusses on the following draft guidance:
- how to reach a reasonable decision about a request
- how to consult an employee about their request
- requests that may involve reasonable adjustments
- managing multiple requests for flexible working arrangements
The code will be made clearer and easily accessible to employers when the changes come into force, they will:
- Provide that an employer may refuse a request only where it is reasonable to do so for one or more of the statutory business reasons
- Require an employer to explain why it considers the refusal reasonable
- Require employers to follow mandatory consultation steps, which will be set out in regulations
The amendments to flexible working law are expected to take effect from autumn 2027 at which time If an employer rejects a flexible working request because of a genuine business reason, they will have to:
- State the reasons, and
- Explain why they believe their refusal is reasonable.
Actions for employers
Review your existing flexible working policies and compare how these measure up to the changes.
Are your reasons for rejections documented and does it demonstrate that each case is reviewed independently and not as a ‘blanket decision’ – each case is different.
HR should ensure there is consistency in the approach taken by the business
Remember the onus is no longer on the employee to state a case for requesting the change.
If you cannot accommodate the request, is there scope for a compromise?
If you already have robust review plans and follow up reviews of requests this will demonstrate good working practices.