Jemma Pugh and Hannah Cohen consider whether the UK’s flexible working legislation could be amended to bring it more in line with the Dutch approach
Developments in the Netherlands that establish a legal right to work from home have created something of a media frenzy at the prospect of this being the first country to preserve an employee's right to work from home in statute. However, the legislation (which, at the time of writing, is awaiting final approval by the Dutch senate) makes it compulsory for employers to consider employee requests, where the relevant profession allows it, rather than making working from home an immediate unconditional right for all at the outset of the employment relationship.
In this respect, the law in England and Wales is not too far behind. Currently employees with at least 26 weeks' continuous service have the legal right to request flexible working. This could, and often does, include a request to work from home for some or all of the working week.
There is a statutory procedure that must usually be followed, which involves the employee making a formal written request, which the employer then has three months to consider. The employer can only refuse a request for one (or more) of eight reasons specified in the legislation, which are:
the burden of additional costs;
detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand;
inability to reorganise work among existing staff;
inability to recruit additional staff;
detrimental impact on quality;...
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