Thinking about asking for some changes to make your work more flexible? Know your rights!
What is flexible work?
A flexible work arrangement (FWA) is an agreement between you and your workplace to change your standard working arrangement to better accommodate your commitments outside of work. Flexible working arrangements are usually changes to hours of work, pattern and/or location of work. Flexibility is becoming increasingly important for all employees, as employees and managers balance competing priorities in our busy lives.
Flexible working is not just for office workers. There are numerous examples of scheduled roles with access to flexibility. Some examples include:
Giving employees the ability to design their own rosters with remote access through rostering and shift-swapping applications
Flexible start and finish times
Combining and sharing roles, for example: four days in an operational role and one day in a role that allows for remote working.
We are frequently contacted by our members at the Australian Services Union who could benefit from a variation to their employment arrangements because of their personal circumstances.
Sometimes our members are unaware that they have a formal workplace right for flexible work arrangements (FWAs) to request variations varying their conditions.
Other times, our members are aware of their rights, but they are worried about pushback from their boss if they ask for accommodations, or to formalise an informal arrangement they might have with a “friendly boss”.
New rights for workers’ FWAs have also been won recently!
For this reason, it’s important to understand your rights, where your rights they come from, how to exercise them, and what your protections are from negative repercussions.