Guidance on flexible working
Flexible working is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs, e.g. having flexible start and finish times, or working from home. All employees have the legal right to request flexible working - not just parents and carers. Employees must have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks to be eligible.
There are different ways of working flexibly:
- Job sharing (two people do one job and split the hours)
- Working from home (it might be possible to do some or all of the work from home or anywhere else other than the normal place of work)
- Part time (working less than full-time hours (usually by working fewer days))
- Compressed hours (working full-time hours but over fewer days)
- Flexitime (you choose when to start and end work (within agreed limits) but work certain ‘core hours’, e.g. 10am to 4pm every day)
- Annualised hours (you work a certain number of hours over the year but have some flexibility about when you work. There are sometimes ‘core hours’ which you regularly work each week, and work the rest of your hours flexibly or when there’s extra demand at work)
- Staggered hours (you have different start, finish and break times from other workers)
- Working in different offices (up/down the hill)
If you thinking of applying for flexible working you should speak to your line manager in the first instance. Your manager may ask you to complete a flexible working application and has a duty to arrange a meeting to discuss your application within 28 days. Your manager should notify you of their decision within 14 days after this meeting.
The Medical Sciences Division takes a positive approach towards requests for flexible working. However, it is recognised that, due to the operational needs of individual teams or units, your manager may feel unable to accept a particular request. As an employee you are also encouraged to be flexible in your approach to requests and asked to consider alternative working arrangements that may be appropriate if your first-choice flexibility option is not possible.
Find out more about hours of work
Job sharing
A job share is defined as where two people are employed to share the duties and responsibilities of one full time post on an hourly, daily or weekly basis, and the salary and leave entitlement is allocated on a pro-rata basis. The contract is held jointly and is conditional upon the offer of appointment being accepted by both. Posts that are job shared remain established entities; they do not become part time jobs, nor will job sharing be used to lose posts or part of posts - job sharers will be treated as fairly as full time staff.
All full time posts are potentially open to job sharing. However, your employer reserves the right to ensure that operational needs and/or other priorities will not be adversely affected. It will be the decision of your manager to advise as to the post’s suitability for job sharing, although agreement to a job being shared should not be unreasonably withheld.
The way in which the actual hours of a job share post are divided between the job share partners should be decided by your manager.
Working from home
The Divisional Office has a commitment to flexibility with the aim of meeting both our own and your needs. Arrangement should meet business needs and your own needs so it is favourable for both. While homeworking is categorised as a type of flexible working, you should not assume that other aspects of flexible working (such as amended hours) are automatically part of a homeworking arrangement.
Your line manager should set out types of homeworking that you will be expected to do, and whether home or the office will be the main place of work, e.g.
- home as the main place of work;
- flexible homeworking with time split between home and the office;
- mobile working with a base at home to travel to different premises and customers;
- the office as the main place of work with working from home occasionally.
Other considerations: Your manager needs to know whether the home is suitable for home working. You need a safe and reasonable space, security and privacy in which to work, and for office-type tasks an internet connection able to support work systems. There should be an agreement about hours worked at home and the core hours when in the workplace. You should also agree how you can store and transmit documents and information. Both you and your manager are responsible for ensuring that the University’s health and safety policy is followed (e.g. that the workstation at home is suitable).
Read more about working from home on the University website.
Part time working
A part-time worker is someone who works fewer hours than a full-time worker. There is no specific number of hours that makes someone full or part-time, but a full-time worker will usually work 35 hours or more a week.
Your employer is responsible for ensuring that part time workers have the right not to be treated less favourably than a comparable full-time worker with regard to rates of pay, including overtime for hours worked above normal full-time hours, contractual sick pay and maternity pay, access to occupational pensions or other benefits, training, promotion and leave arrangements. Most of these provisions are covered by university-wide arrangements (see the Staff Handbook for more details). However, your manager must take particular care to ensure that:
- all part-time staff receive the same access to training and promotion as full-timers;
- all part-timers receive a pro rata entitlement to leave including bank holidays;
- requests from full-timers (particularly those returning from maternity leave) to work part-time are given careful consideration, and permission is not unreasonably withheld; and
- requests to work part-time which are submitted under the terms of the University's flexible working procedure are dealt with in accordance with the University's guidance for administrators.
Compressed hours
Staff working compressed hours work their total contracted hours over fewer working days. For example, a full-time staff member could work 36.5 or 37.5 hours over 4.5 days or a 9 day fortnight rather than 5 days.
Some parameters of agreed compressed hours arrangements are set out below and should be considered before requesting a compressed hours arrangement:
- Well-being is important – breaks must be taken and hours worked per day should not be detrimental to your wellbeing.
- Full-time staff should normally work at least a 4-day week or a 9-day fortnight.
- Cover arrangements for time away must not increase workload for other staff.
- The usual day or part-day off may be decided by your manager to ensure adequate cover and efficient use of resources throughout the working week.
- Staff working compressed hours should retain flexibility to attend important meetings/events on their non-working day/half day with appropriate notice.
Flexitime
A flexi-time scheme allows staff to have an element of flexibility over their working hours. It involves flexible start and finish times around ‘core working hours’ (when attendance is required) and within the limitations of the ‘bandwidth’ (the earliest and latest times between which hours can be worked) to allow staff more choice, subject to the operational requirements, over their working hours. The purpose of the scheme is to allow you to effectively manage your work commitments and your personal commitments, but are subject to the operational requirements of your job.
Your manager will agree what are flexible hours and core hours, e.g.
08:00 – 10:00 = flexible; 10:00 – 12:00 = core; 12:00 – 14:00 = flexible; 14:00 – 16:00 = flexible; 16:00 – 18:00 = flexible.
The specified core and flexible hours can be varied but must be set to best meet the operational requirements of your work and the service that you provide.
Annualised hours
Under an annualised hours contract, your hours are expressed as a total number of hours to be worked during the course of the year. The hours actually worked can fluctuate from week to week and month to month. There can be ‘core hours’ which you regularly work each week, and work the rest of your hours flexibly or when there’s extra demand at work.
Staggered hours
Staggered hours working allows you to have a range of different start and finish times (for example 9:30 – 17:30; 10:00 – 18:00; 10:30 – 18:30). You will normally agree start and finish times with your manager within specified start and finish times on a planned weekly or monthly basis.
Staggered Hours allows you to work the required hours in a normal day, but to start or end the day earlier or later than the standard working hours. So, one staff member might work 8:30 to 16:30 and another 10:00 to 18:00. Once the working pattern is agreed by you and your manager it is fixed for an agreed period and you work the same hours each day.
Working in different offices
There may occasionally be benefit in hot-desking or to be based in a different office at specific days or hours per week. Some staff move between one or more zones in our workplace or go to a different location (for example moving between the divisional office, the Old Road Campus or the Science Area). Others hot-desk on an ad hoc basis, for example starting or finishing the day, or filling in some hours in the middle of the day, at an office close to where they attend meetings or training sessions.
You and your manager should agree on the working pattern or one-off arrangements beforehand, to ensure that this does not have impact on colleagues or impacts on the operational needs of the team.