Caring and Working

Requesting flexible leave 

If you need to combine work with your caring responsibilities, it may be possible for you to request a flexible working arrangement to help. Examples of such arrangements are: 

• Flexi-time – employees may be required to work within set times but outside of these ‘core hours’ have some flexibility in how they work their hours.  
• Working from home or remote working – where employees spend part or all of their working week away from the workplace. Home-working is just one option.  
• Job sharing – usually two employees share the work normally done by one person.  

• Part-time working – employees might work shorter days or fewer days in a week.  
• Term-time working – employees don’t work during school holidays and either take paid or unpaid leave or their salary is calculated pro-rata over the whole year.  
• Staggered hours – employees have various starting and finishing times meaning that goods and services are available outside traditional working hours.  
• Compressed hours – employees work their total hours over fewer working days eg, a 10 day fortnight is compressed into a nine day fortnight.   
• Mealtime flex – employees take their lunch break when it suits them during the work day. Some employees may choose to take a shorter break instead and leave work earlier.  

• Annualised hours – employees work a specified number of hours over the year but have some flexibility about when they work. These employees usually have a set number of ‘core’ hours they work each week and work the remainder of their hours flexibly. 

When requesting flexible working it’s important to: 

• State that this is a flexible working request 
• Outline the working pattern that would work for you 
• Explain how this might impact your role and how you would manage any negatives 

• The date on which you would like the change to start