Update on requesting a predictable work pattern

It has been announced that the right to request a predictable working pattern will not come into force in October as previously expected. The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions Act) had received Royal Assent in September and a draft Code of Practice had been prepared by ACAS in readiness.

The new Government, however, had set out in the King’s Speech in July that they were going to introduce legislation in respect of zero-hours contracts to ensure that all workers have their hours of work correctly reflected in their contracts. It therefore seems that rather than introduce this inherited piece of legislation in isolation, they will implement overarching statute to address all issues in this area.

There have also been reports of a new right to request a four-day week being introduced; of course, existing Flexible Working legislation (as amended in April 2024) gives employees the right to request any change to their working time, days, hours, pattern or to work from home, and a four-day week is simply one example of a request which could be made under that legislation. What needs to change is employers’ attitudes to flexible working requests. Whilst there are a number of statutory grounds on which a request can be declined, an employer should not react to a request by immediately thinking on which of the grounds it could be declined but rather should be considering how it could be accommodated. Employers need to think more in terms of flexibility; simply stating “that’s not what we do here” or “that doesn’t work for us” is not sufficient.