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I work for a very small company, and am in daily contact with my bosses. On 19th June I wrote the following email to them:-
I am writing to formally request a flexible working arrangement.
Ideally I would like to reduce my hours and work a 32-hour week over 4 days, ideally 8.30-5.00pm with a half-hour lunch break. I would be most grateful if my weekly day off not be a set day, although most likely to happen later in the week. I believe that this floating day off could be beneficial to you,because it would mean that I would be able to be more flexible.
Having so far successfully worked my full-time hours overthe course of 4 days + 5 hours on a Friday, I feel confident that I have already laid much of the groundwork to ensure that this can be a workable pattern for the company. I feel that I have a firm grip on my workload and that it would be most unlikely that any duties or responsibilities were neglected. Very little crosses my desk which needs to be dealt with immediately, and I am confident that my forward planning and anticipation of future issues will enable me to structure my week appropriately.
If this request were agreeable to you, I would like to start this from August 2014. Also of course I would anticipate this being subject to review after a set number of months, before being made a permanent change to myT&Cs.
I have just been informed by one of the bosses that I need to make a 'statutory' request, and that the email above has not been treated as such. Now, on doing a bit of research I note that I have not been 100% correct in the way I worded my request. However, I do believe that I have covered the salient points and that it is very clear what I am requesting. I believe that, even if it was not acceptable as a statutory request, is 6 1/2 weeks an appropriate timescale for a small company (fewer than 20) to come back to me and say, "make another request using this bit of paper"?
They have told me that they are happy for me to use unpaid leave to start working 4 days from August, but would need a few months to see if my reduced hours will have an effect. I told my boss that if they honestly believe that my reduced hours will have such a detrimental effect on the business, then they should decline my request. Obviously this would leave them open to a tribunal because I personally believe it would be extremely hard to show a detrimental effect.
This is surely not right? If my request was incorrectly worded and therefore unacceptable, surely they should have come back to me sooner. And anyway - it's not as if I work for a multinational. We're talking 19 people here. As someone who usually appears to be quite highly thought of, I am faintly insulted that they are relying on the letter of the law to buy themselves more time. All the more so, because several of my bosses (Partnership) have been making encouraging noises about improving my work-life balance since long before I submitted the request.
Thanks in advance, any advice would be much appreciated.
I am writing to formally request a flexible working arrangement.
Ideally I would like to reduce my hours and work a 32-hour week over 4 days, ideally 8.30-5.00pm with a half-hour lunch break. I would be most grateful if my weekly day off not be a set day, although most likely to happen later in the week. I believe that this floating day off could be beneficial to you,because it would mean that I would be able to be more flexible.
Having so far successfully worked my full-time hours overthe course of 4 days + 5 hours on a Friday, I feel confident that I have already laid much of the groundwork to ensure that this can be a workable pattern for the company. I feel that I have a firm grip on my workload and that it would be most unlikely that any duties or responsibilities were neglected. Very little crosses my desk which needs to be dealt with immediately, and I am confident that my forward planning and anticipation of future issues will enable me to structure my week appropriately.
If this request were agreeable to you, I would like to start this from August 2014. Also of course I would anticipate this being subject to review after a set number of months, before being made a permanent change to myT&Cs.
I have just been informed by one of the bosses that I need to make a 'statutory' request, and that the email above has not been treated as such. Now, on doing a bit of research I note that I have not been 100% correct in the way I worded my request. However, I do believe that I have covered the salient points and that it is very clear what I am requesting. I believe that, even if it was not acceptable as a statutory request, is 6 1/2 weeks an appropriate timescale for a small company (fewer than 20) to come back to me and say, "make another request using this bit of paper"?
They have told me that they are happy for me to use unpaid leave to start working 4 days from August, but would need a few months to see if my reduced hours will have an effect. I told my boss that if they honestly believe that my reduced hours will have such a detrimental effect on the business, then they should decline my request. Obviously this would leave them open to a tribunal because I personally believe it would be extremely hard to show a detrimental effect.
This is surely not right? If my request was incorrectly worded and therefore unacceptable, surely they should have come back to me sooner. And anyway - it's not as if I work for a multinational. We're talking 19 people here. As someone who usually appears to be quite highly thought of, I am faintly insulted that they are relying on the letter of the law to buy themselves more time. All the more so, because several of my bosses (Partnership) have been making encouraging noises about improving my work-life balance since long before I submitted the request.
Thanks in advance, any advice would be much appreciated.
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