[Ireland] New bill to ensure quick response to flexible work requests

Under a new bill, workers in Ireland will have the right to bring a case before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) if their employer ignores a request for flexible working, Business Post reports.

The bill will give every worker with children under the age of 12 the right to request a variety of flexible working options. These include job sharing, remote working, delayed starting times and “compressed hours”, where a worker does the same hours over a shorter number of days.  The bill is currently going through the Dáil.

The Department of Children has reportedly confirmed to the Business Post that workers would have the right to appeal should their employer fail to deal with their flexible working request properly.

Under the bill, employers must respond to a request within four weeks and either approve it or reject it with a written statement of reasons. They can ask for a further four weeks if a request is difficult for them to assess. If they do not comply with these requirements, the employee has a right to go to the WRC.

A similar provision in the proposed bill would allow workers to request a right to remote working. This has been criticised by unions which claim that workers should be able to take a WRC case if their request is refused, rather than only if it is ignored.

Karen O’Reilly - founder of flexible work finder Employflex - told Business Post that her company was taking phone calls every week from people “in tears” about being forced out of the workplace due to a lack of flexible working arrangements. However, she said the labour shortage was changing company attitudes.

“Companies are coming around to the idea that if they offer flexible work they will have access to a greater pool of talented people out there who would do a fantastic job for 30 hours, but just can't, for whatever reasons, work for 40 hours.”

Ms O’Reilly said she hoped employers would embrace the true spirit of the new work-life balance bill. “It is only a right to request flexible work, and there are many reasons why a company or an organisation can refuse it.”

The Irish government was due to have the system in place by last August to comply with the EU’s work-life balance directive. However a spokeswoman for the Department of Children reportedly said that it had not been possible to get the bill into the Dáil until now as a result of the “significant volume of current legislative work”, and the importance of correctly transposing the directive.

The joint Oireachtas committee on children had reportedly recommended that all workers - not just those with children under 12 - should have a “statutory right to reasonable access to flexible working”, but this did not make it into the bill.

The spokeswoman for the Department of Children said the bill was aimed at implementing the flexible working arrangements in the EU directive. “The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is progressing legislation to provide a general right to request remote working to all employees,” she said.

In addition, the work-life balance bill will allow mothers to take breastfeeding breaks of up to one hour per day for the first two years of their child’s life. This was previously restricted to the first six months of a child’s life, meaning that many mothers had no entitlement to breastfeeding breaks once they returned from their maternity leave.

The government also reportedly intends to amend the bill to allow victims of domestic violence to take up to five days of paid leave from work. Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Roderic O’Gorman, the Minister for Children, have both said that workers will not be required to provide any proof of domestic violence to their employer.

Source: Business Post

(Quotes via original reporting)

Under a new bill, workers in Ireland will have the right to bring a case before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) if their employer ignores a request for flexible working, Business Post reports.

The bill will give every worker with children under the age of 12 the right to request a variety of flexible working options. These include job sharing, remote working, delayed starting times and “compressed hours”, where a worker does the same hours over a shorter number of days.  The bill is currently going through the Dáil.

The Department of Children has reportedly confirmed to the Business Post that workers would have the right to appeal should their employer fail to deal with their flexible working request properly.

Under the bill, employers must respond to a request within four weeks and either approve it or reject it with a written statement of reasons. They can ask for a further four weeks if a request is difficult for them to assess. If they do not comply with these requirements, the employee has a right to go to the WRC.

A similar provision in the proposed bill would allow workers to request a right to remote working. This has been criticised by unions which claim that workers should be able to take a WRC case if their request is refused, rather than only if it is ignored.

Karen O’Reilly - founder of flexible work finder Employflex - told Business Post that her company was taking phone calls every week from people “in tears” about being forced out of the workplace due to a lack of flexible working arrangements. However, she said the labour shortage was changing company attitudes.

“Companies are coming around to the idea that if they offer flexible work they will have access to a greater pool of talented people out there who would do a fantastic job for 30 hours, but just can't, for whatever reasons, work for 40 hours.”

Ms O’Reilly said she hoped employers would embrace the true spirit of the new work-life balance bill. “It is only a right to request flexible work, and there are many reasons why a company or an organisation can refuse it.”

The Irish government was due to have the system in place by last August to comply with the EU’s work-life balance directive. However a spokeswoman for the Department of Children reportedly said that it had not been possible to get the bill into the Dáil until now as a result of the “significant volume of current legislative work”, and the importance of correctly transposing the directive.

The joint Oireachtas committee on children had reportedly recommended that all workers - not just those with children under 12 - should have a “statutory right to reasonable access to flexible working”, but this did not make it into the bill.

The spokeswoman for the Department of Children said the bill was aimed at implementing the flexible working arrangements in the EU directive. “The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is progressing legislation to provide a general right to request remote working to all employees,” she said.

In addition, the work-life balance bill will allow mothers to take breastfeeding breaks of up to one hour per day for the first two years of their child’s life. This was previously restricted to the first six months of a child’s life, meaning that many mothers had no entitlement to breastfeeding breaks once they returned from their maternity leave.

The government also reportedly intends to amend the bill to allow victims of domestic violence to take up to five days of paid leave from work. Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Roderic O’Gorman, the Minister for Children, have both said that workers will not be required to provide any proof of domestic violence to their employer.

Source: Business Post

(Quotes via original reporting)