Statutory Flexible Working Request [England, Been employed for 5+ years]

[Neil May]

Hi Guys, was hoping you could offer some advice.

I've been working from home [England] for the last few years due to health conditions that arose over lockdown (includes respiratory and anxiety issues and not related to Covid or lockdown). I've been in and out of hospital plenty and provide fit notes every quarter.

Though my intention and genuine desire is to return to the office i dont feel i will be able to by the time my manager would like me to. This is stressing me out as im going ot have to go through the process of saying i cant attend physically in a bunch of meetings and being made to feel pretty crappy.

At this stage i really am considering making a Statutory Flexible working request to work from Home because of my health condition which prevents me from being mobile enough to travel 50+ miles and to do away with the continual stress of approaching that impending future date where im expected to be right as rain and able to return to work.

Im not really expecting much empathy from the manager so it may be tricky.

Reading about the changes Labour are planning to bring in does seem like it may make things a little easier but either way, do you have any tips for me or are there things that could get in the way and cause my request to be unsuccessful.

Im half expecting it to reach appeal stage as the knee-jerk reaction may be to try saying ''no'' in the hope i wont push it any further and im prepared to go Tribunal if i must but im hoping it doesnt get to that, My organisation has a good HR dept, Senior management and they are quite risk averse but at this stage i need to deal with my manager, otherwise i would have went straight to HR.

Anyway, any help appreciated.

Neil

[ULA]

The first thing you need to do is establish whether your company has in place a Flexible Working Request policy. If so then you will need to follow their procedure for making that request as within that policy some companies have a form to complete. If there is not policy or no specific form to complete, then in order to qualify as a statutory request, it must:

* Be in writing.
* Be dated.
* Explain the change they would like to their working pattern.
* Explain when they would like the change to come into force.
* State that it is a statutory flexible working request.
* State if the employee has made a request previously and if so when.

If the company is asking you to return to work and you are claiming that you cannot due to health reasons, be prepared that they may ask you to attend an Occupational Health assessment.