Originally published here.

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted both the significant impacts that the UK lockdown rules have had for working women with caring responsibilities, and the potential of flexible working practices to redefine the ways in which people work. This paper will first examine the current UK right to request flexible working and its limitations particularly: the requirement for 26 weeks continuity of employment; the wide discretion that employers have to refuse such requests; the lack of ability to challenge employer’s decisions; and the limited ability to make subsequent requests and/or to make temporary changes. The paper will then critically examine the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s consultation ‘Making Flexible Work the Default’, which addresses the some of these concerns, namely, to change it to a day-one right to request.

This examination will consider whether a greater shift to flexible working as the default position, and a redefining of working practices and the work-life paradigm, can have a positive impact for working persons, especially those with caring responsibilities and/or other work-life conflicts. In particular, the paper will critically analyse whether a societal shift to more flexible working can redress the impact of the pandemic for working women with caring responsibilities. In doing so, the paper will reflect on whether this shift represents a challenge to the traditional unburdened worker norm or whether it will continue to reinforce traditional gender roles. Further areas for reform and development will also be identified, including enhanced rights for working fathers and a recognition of new and emerging areas of work-life conflict, such as Menopause in the Workplace, as highlighted by the Women and Equalities Commission’s inquiry on this topic.

The pandemic also necessitated an almost overnight switch to home working for many. The requirement to work from home has highlighted the potential benefits of greater flexibility and has exposed many more employers and employees to flexible working arrangements. This shift has presented new challenges, not least of all access to technology and the boundaries between work and life, but also new opportunities to redefine how and where people work and what workplaces will look like in the future. However, it is important to bear in mind that the experiences of home working during the pandemic have varied and are different from those in normal circumstances. Indeed, the research referred to above highlights the challenges that women with caring responsibilities faced in combining work with care and schooling in circumstances were external supports for both were largely unavailable.

The experiences of home and flexible working are therefore likely to be notably different from those where these supports are available. Nevertheless, there has been a shift in the attitudes of many employers and employees towards flexible working (Global et al, 2021). In order to assess the potential for the right to request flexible working (RTRFW) to redefine how people work, the current right and proposed changes will be examined. It will be argued that these changes can have an impact on not only those with caring responsibilities but also in other areas of emerging boundaries of work-life conflict, such as menopause, which has recently been the subject of a Women and Equalities Committee Inquiry (2021).

The proposals to revise the RTRFW present an opportunity to make the right more effective and meaningful. In particular, the proposals to make it a day-one right and to make it easier to make additional requests could reduce some of the barriers faced by those who want greater flexibility but cannot access it. However, employers will retain a large degree of discretion and there are no proposals to enhance the ability to challenge decisions, which could limit their impact in practice. Consequently, the proposed revisions should be part of a wider revision of the framework of work-family rights which provides a more defined role for working fathers and considers new and emerging boundaries of work-life conflict. It is only by doing so that the proposals have the potential to effect meaningful and lasting change. Nevertheless, they mark a small step forward in renegotiating the boundaries between work-life conflict.

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