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Earlier this month, Boots confirmed that its hybrid working policy will end on 1 September 2024, meaning full-time office attendance will be required of its administrative staff based in the retailer’s London and Nottingham offices, and its Weybridge headquarters.

This move follows rumours that the owning company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, is preparing to float on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) with a potential £7 billion valuation.

Seb James, the managing director, said: “I want to start a thoughtful plan that gets us back to the office – whether Nottingham, London or Weybridge – being the normal place of work for everybody for the whole working week.”

Boots is a name in a sea of other employers who are mandating a full-time return to the office, including several law firms all over the country.

But with a new law on flexible working coming into play very shortly, what will this mean for employers who are now mandating full-time office attendance?

The flexible working changes

According to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), “flexible working” can include part-time working, home working, hybrid working, flexitime, job sharing, compressed hours, annualised hours, term-time working and team-based rostering. The term itself is used to describe an arrangement that meets the needs “of both the employee and the employer” about how, where and when someone works.

On 6 April 2024, the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 will become law, after having gained Royal Assent in July 2023.

It’s designed to open up better access to flexible working arrangements, making it a day one right rather than requiring an employee to have 26 weeks of continuous service before they can make such a request, updating the Flexible Working Regulations 2014.

It also reduces the time limit for employers to deal with a flexible working request from three months to two months, though this can be extended if the employee agrees.

Why has flexible working been such a win-win so far?

The covid-19 pandemic has led to revolutionary changes in how we work, the most obvious of which being the ability to work from anywhere and not just a physical office space, which was otherwise passed off as being ‘not possible’ in many roles. We were all instructed to work from home where possible otherwise the outcome would’ve been much worse.

But now that we’re on the other side of it, flexible working continues to bring plenty of benefits to both employees and employers. The benefits include:

• greater employee engagement;
• better work-life balance;
• lower work-related stress;
• lower childcare costs for employees;
• opportunity for employees to input more into children’s early developmental years;
• better employee mental health;
• the narrowing of the gender pay and pensions gap; and
• disabled and neurodivergent employees can curate their working area to best suit their needs.

On the topic of the gender pay gap, the Fawcett Society released a survey, Equal Pay Day 2023: Unlocking Flexible Work, which found that:

• 40% of women who were not working at the time said access to flexible work would mean they could take on more paid work; and
• 77% of women agreed they were more likely to apply for a job that advertises flexible working options.

This means employers would be losing out on a huge chunk of the talent pool by not being open to flexible working options for employees.

From my experiences as a neurodivergent aspiring lawyer, flexible working has opened up opportunities to accept offers of work from employers based outside of my home region. It has also meant that I’ve been able to design my home working environment in such a way that it can meet my work needs better than my previous employers. This has allowed me to work as best I can and not have to worry about things I can’t control from a sensory perspective.

So, what impact will this have?

The day-one right to make a flexible working request will mean that employers may find themselves fielding a large number from new employees very early on in the employment relationship.

There are permitted business reasons why a request for flexible working can be refused, and the employer must consult with the employee before refusing a request. These reasons are:

• planned structural changes;
• additional costs burden;
• quality or standards will suffer;
• the employer can’t recruit more staff;
• performance will suffer;
• the employer can’t reorganise work among existing staff;
• the business will struggle to meet customer/client demands; and
• lack of work during the periods the employee proposes to work.

With this in mind, it has been suggested that the new Act will have little impact in practice. The employer’s scope for refusing requests hasn’t changed as the final decision will still rest with them. Though perhaps there will be more pressure to not get the decision wrong, which places more burden on evidencing why a request for flexible working shouldn’t be granted.

Further, there appears to be no specified minimum standard of consultation, which means it’s at employers‘ discretion. With this Act being so new, I imagine that guidance will be released shortly regarding the most suitable degree of consultations required of the employer, depending on its size and capacity.

I believe there are two key words to keep in mind here: “empower” and “choice”. If employees are empowered with all the information they need to be able to make the best choice for them, whether that is a flexible working arrangement or otherwise, then they’ll be much more engaged and loyal to that employer.

Obviously, the employer must have the needs of the business in mind too, so another key word to keep in mind here is “collaboration”. Working together to achieve the best possible outcome for everyone.