Any employment law experts good with flexible working

[m3coupe]

I wonder if someone could give me a bit of advice if possible.

My wife works for a large supermarket and returned back to work after her maternity a year ago and went part time. She put a flexible working request in at this time and it was knocked back straight away and told she had to be fully flexible.

During this time her mother looked after our son however she took seriously ill 3 months ago and will no longer be able to offer child minding for the foreseeable future at least.

We have got our son into child minding on two specific afternoons as that was all that was available at our preferred nursery.

She is going to be putting in another flexible working request specifically asking to work the afternoons/evenings when our son is in nursery and fully flexible at the weekend. The hours she is asking for are normal working hours for her role, nothing out of the ordinary so she could effectively be asked to work these hours anyway.

She spoke to her manager and was told that all flexible working requests are being declined and that she would not want her to get it anyway, despite it not actually being her decision but from head office.

Now I know it's not a right to get flexible working agreed however I believe that it should be considered and can only be knocked back on 8 specific reasons. From reading them, requesting to work 2 specific evening shifts where managers are required to work anyway, these don't come into effect. Coupled with her managers comments that all requests are being denied, it would appear the decision has been made prior to the request even being submitted.

Basically, if she can't get something worked out they are forcing her out of her job and that could go down a very nasty path which we don't want to do.

What, if anything, can we do to try and resolve this?

[Flooble]

Not being rude, but what does your wife do (or, to be blunt, earn)?

I have friends whose childcare costs exceeded the wage that their wife was able to bring in, so the solution in that case was pretty simple!

[anothernameitist]

Is she in USDAW?

As above what does she earn v pay out, but she might enjoy the time out.

There should always be an appeals process or try another employer.

[m3coupe]

They want her to be fully flexible but has to do 3 out of 4 Saturdays and 2 out of 4 Sundays so essentially, if she was to be fully flexible during the week, we'd need to put our son in to childcare for 5 full days when she would only need it for 1 or 2 of the days.

If that was the case, childcare would pretty much use all her wages on her part time hours she is on at the moment and unfortunately, my wage wouldn't cover all our bills and allow us to live. Unfortunately we are in a situation where she needs to work.

The daft bit is, initially they were adamant she had to work her allotted weekend working even though she wanted to drop them in accordance with her part time working. This request is working with them on that but without even hearing it, it's being dismissed.

[anothernameitist]

Hope you get it ssorted to a degree that keeps all parties happy.

[Jasandjules]

What does she want to do about it?

Are other people on flexi-time in the firm i.e. people who have not recently returned from maternity leave?

The Employer may not simply state that all such requests will be refused, they have a duty to consider it.

[4x4Tyke]

This is a common problem, employers advertise roles as flexible working as a benefit which actually turns out to be them demanding flexibility from employees but not reciprocating. Employees in low skill roles like these unfortunately have very little clout in negotiating. She could go the work to rule route and just decline the shifts that do not fit but this can easily result in the employee being manages out by only being offered unacceptable shifts.

It is probably time to start looking for something new and consider the self employment.

Edited by 4x4Tyke on Sunday 8th May 18:29