Flexible Working Request refused - advice please? — Scope | Disability forum
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Flexible Working Request refused - advice please?

clairey_wairey
clairey_wairey Community member Posts: 2 Listener
edited December 2020 in Work and employment
I am supporting a friend of mine who has submitted a flexible work request to her Manager and had it refused.  She has a long standing mental health condition and an eating disorder for which she has had treatment for many years.  She is a productive member of staff, she very rarely takes time off sick and her work rate is proven far higher than many of her peers.  During the summer she struggled with the isolation of lockdown and her Nan died of Covid so she asked for a 4 week period of reduced hours to enable her to grieve and manage her mental health.  She feels that this should have been taken as a compassionate leave request or similar.She has submitted a request to condense her hours, with a slight reduction, to enable her to work a 4 day week allowing her a Friday to access counselling again and to support her parents who are older.  Her request was refused because her company said that she had already had one request and would have to wait until next July to submit another.  She is devastated by this as she has really struggled this year, she lives alone.  She consistently out performs her colleagues, there are colleagues due to return from maternity leave who it appears may be granted part time work.  She is not asking for part time just longer days and shorter weeks.  Can you offer any advice please? Thank you 
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Comments

  • Cher_Alumni
    Cher_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 5,741 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi @claireywairey

    I'm sorry to hear about your friends work situation, that must be really tough for her.  

    Scope have a webpage on what to do if you employer is not doing enough around reasonable adjustments that might help with regards the next steps. It also includes these contact details to speak to people trained in employment legislation:
    I hope you have some luck and please keep us updated.  

    For your info, I removed a duplicate of this post to avoid confusion :)  
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  • janer1967
    janer1967 Community member Posts: 21,964 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi and welcome 

    Unfortunately due to having one request allowed they are correct and she would need to wait . However she can appeal the decision 

    As for the maternity returnees they have the right to request flexible working on their return 

    As suggested get some advice from ACAS 

    In her appeal I suggest she submits a plan of how her request would work in reality 
  • Tori_Scope
    Tori_Scope Scope Posts: 12,488 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi @clairey_wairey! Welcome to the community :) I'm sorry that your friend is going through that situation. It sounds like she's lucky to have you for support. Please do let us know whether ACAS are able to help.
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  • clairey_wairey
    clairey_wairey Community member Posts: 2 Listener
    Thank you for your advice, we spoke yesterday and actually the arrangement for a4 day week she had in the summer was ended after discussion with her manager because the company were making people redundant.   So it was felt that, given that her job was on the line she should go back up to 5 days until things settled down so could this be seen as still 1 request.  She was already allowed to work in this 4 day pattern and thus time she's offering to do more hours because they said they have a high workload.   I've given her the links for EASS and ACAS but she's very very upset as they sent the formal refusal on Friday evening so she read it last night.   Thank you for any advice.  
  • janer1967
    janer1967 Community member Posts: 21,964 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi again as before I would tell her to appeal the decision explaining how her proposal would work and also mention that she is making the request as part of the equality act and the requirement for reasonable adjustments under the act 

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