Flexible working requests used to be something you only had to think about once an employee had been with you for six months. That qualifying period is gone. Since April 2024, the right to ask for flexible working — a different start time, compressed hours, hybrid or home working, a change to days worked — applies from an employee's very first day in the job. For a small employer used to treating this as a distant, occasional conversation, it's worth knowing exactly what the law now expects, because 'I didn't realise they could ask that soon' isn't a defence if you get the process wrong.
What actually changed, and what didn't
The right to request flexible working isn't new — it's existed in some form for years. What changed is who can ask and how quickly you have to respond. Every employee can now make a request from day one, they can make two requests in any 12-month period rather than one, and you have to respond within two months rather than three. You're also now required to consult with the employee before refusing a request, rather than simply rejecting it in writing.
What hasn't changed is the core shape of the right: it's a right to ask and to have the request considered seriously, not a right to be granted whatever is asked for. You can still say no — but only for one of a specific, limited set of business reasons, and only after genuinely engaging with the request first.
The reasons you're allowed to refuse
The law sets out a fixed list of grounds a refusal has to fit into: things like the burden of extra costs, an inability to reorganise work among other staff, an inability to recruit for the extra work, a detrimental effect on quality or performance, insufficient work during the periods proposed, or a planned structural change to the business. If your reason genuinely fits one of these, a refusal is lawful. What you can't do is refuse simply because it's inconvenient, because you've never done it before, or because you'd rather not have the conversation — a refusal needs a real, specific reason you could explain if challenged, not a gut feeling.
The request doesn't have to be granted. But it does have to be genuinely considered — and 'we don't really do that here' has never been one of the legal grounds for saying no.
What the process actually looks like
Get a request in writing — most employees will simply email or state it in a meeting, and that's enough, there's no special form required. From there, think it through properly: could the request work with some adjustment, even if not exactly as asked? Would a trial period answer the question better than a flat yes or no? If you're minded to refuse, talk to the employee first and explain your reasoning before putting a decision in writing, rather than presenting a rejection as a fait accompli. Then respond within two months, in writing, either agreeing (and confirming when the change starts and whether it's permanent), or refusing with the specific business ground you're relying on.
Where small employers get caught out
The most common mistake isn't refusing a request — it's handling it informally and never confirming anything in writing, so nobody's clear what was actually agreed, or by when. The second most common is treating the two-month window loosely, because there's no dramatic reminder when it starts ticking down from the day the request lands. The third, and the one worth taking most seriously, is refusing a request for a reason that sounds business-like on the surface but doesn't actually hold up — an employee who feels a refusal was really about convenience rather than a genuine business reason can bring a claim, and 'we didn't think it through properly' is an expensive thing to have to admit afterwards.
What a trial period buys you
One tool worth using more than most small employers realise is the trial period. Rather than committing to a permanent change on the back of a single request, you can agree to run the new pattern for six or eight weeks and review it against specific, named concerns — whether cover was maintained, whether a particular busy period was still handled, whether a two-person team genuinely coped with a compressed week. That gives you real evidence rather than a guess, and it gives the employee a fair shot at proving the arrangement works before either side commits permanently. It also tends to defuse the tension in a request that feels risky to grant outright, because nobody is locked in if it genuinely doesn't work.
Why this is worth getting right beyond the legal risk
There's a business case here too, separate from the compliance one. Flexible working requests are increasingly not a fringe ask — they come from parents, carers, people managing health conditions, people simply trying to build a sustainable working life, and a blanket instinct to say no risks losing good people over an arrangement that a bit of creative thinking could easily have accommodated. Plenty of small employers who've genuinely engaged with requests, rather than treating them as an inconvenience to manage, report that the flexibility cost them very little and kept a valued employee who might otherwise have left. Treat it as a genuine business decision worth thinking through properly, not just a legal box to tick, and you'll usually land somewhere both sides can live with.
The bit worth remembering
None of this means you have to say yes to every request, and plenty of small businesses genuinely can't accommodate every pattern an employee might ask for — a two-person shop can't easily run with both staff wanting the same day off, and that's a legitimate operational reality. What the law asks for is a fair, timely, genuinely-considered process, with a real reason behind any no. Build that habit now, get it in writing every time, and a request that could otherwise turn into a grievance or a tribunal claim usually stays exactly what it should be: a normal conversation about how someone works.
