Changes to Employee Rights

From 6 April, a number of changes to family friendly and flexible working rights come into force and employers are being encouraged to review and update their policies in line with the following:

• Employees will have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment, rather than after 26 weeks, and twice in a 12‐month period.
• Paternity leave and pay will be able to be taken as two non‐consecutive blocks of one week at any time within the first year of birth or adoption.
• For employees returning from maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave in a redundancy situation, the period over which redundancy protection and the requirement to be offered suitable alternative roles will be extended to 18 months after the child’s birth/placement.
• Employees will have a day‐one right to take unpaid carer’s leave for up to one week in a rolling 12‐month period in either half or full days.

ACAS will be publishing a Code of Practice in April with guidance on dealing with flexible working requests, and CFA members can access free advice on employment law issues from Citation by calling 0161 504 0843 - please see the CFA benefits and helplines documents for full details of this helpline (Member area of website).