Different Types of Flexible Working in England

When employing staff, you should consider that not everyone wishes to work a typical nine-to-five working day, five days a week. Instead, your business might offer different working patterns or may accommodate an employee’s requests for flexible working. While you do not have to offer flexible working in your workplace, there are benefits to doing so. Working flexibly can mean a wide range of working patterns for your staff, and it is helpful for you to think about what these may be. This article will explain the different types of flexible working you might offer your staff in England.

Different Types of Flexible Working

There are a variety of types of flexible working. However, this is not an exhaustive list, and your business might devise other flexible working patterns.

1. Home Working and Hybrid Working

Working from home or remotely means your staff are not physically in the office when working, though usually, the work takes place at home. Remote working can also be mobile, such as where your employee works while travelling. The possibility of working from home and any other remote work depends on your staff’s job role.

Some employees may split their time between the workplace and home, known as hybrid working. Hybrid working can occur in different patterns such as:

• working half the working week in the workplace and half at home;
• working from home all week except one day in the workplace; or
• working alternate weeks at home and in the workplace.

2. Part-Time Working

Your business might typically employ people in full-time jobs. If you offer someone a job on a part-time basis, this is flexible working. It means that your staff member works less than the usual full-time hours. 

Part-time work can take the form of different patterns. For example, your employee may work:

• the same daily hours as full-time staff but fewer days; or
• five days per week but shorter hours each day than full-time staff.

Your part-time staff still have the same legal employment rights as your full-time staff, but any benefits and pay may be prorated. 

3. Job Sharing

A further form of flexible working is job sharing, which is when two or more people share the same role in your business. They essentially carry out one position between them. 

Your staff members will share the role’s working hours and likely divide the responsibilities of the role. The effect is that one staff member is always carrying out the work in the given hours. It is a form of a part-time job and is usually carried out by two employees.

4. Flextime

If you allow your staff to decide when they carry out their hours of work during their working week, this is flextime. However, you can still require them to be in during certain hours each day and then work their other hours around this. The hours you need them to be at work are your core hours.

5. Patterns of Hours

Your staff may work flexibly through their hours of work. Compressed hours mean that an employee is full-time and works the same number of full-time hours as other staff but works fewer days per week by squeezing more hours each day. Consequently, these staff members work longer days.

Annualised hours is where you give your staff a total amount of hours to work over the year. You may then require them to work some core hours, which are times you need them to work. For the remaining hours, you may allow them some flexibility on when they work.

Staggered hours are where some of your staff may have different times of starting and finishing the day and when they take their breaks.

6. Self-Rostering and Shift-Swapping

If your business involves shift work, you allocate your staff the task of deciding between them who will work a shift and when. This means that between all your employees, they ensure the total working hours are covered.

You may also allow staff to swap shifts with each other when a member of staff requests for someone to cover their shift. This gives your staff flexibility when something clashes with their shift.

7. Phased Retirement

Phased retirement is a form of flexible working that your staff may use if they are older team members. It allows them to change to part-time work as a means to reduce their hours of work.

Key Takeaways

As an employer, you can arrange for flexible forms of working in your business. Flexible working can look like staff working part-time or for fewer hours than your typical working week. You may also have staff working flexi-time or working from home and hybrid working. Likewise, where your staff work flexibly, you still have employment law responsibilities, such as overseeing the safety and wellbeing of staff working from home.

If you need help understanding different types of flexible working in England, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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