Future Of Work

Legislation will ensure staff get swift response on flexible work requests

Under new law, workers with children under 12 will have recourse to WRC if employer ignores request

Karen O’Reilly, founder of Employflex, which specialises in finding flexible roles for workers: said that her company was getting phone calls every week from people who were ‘in tears’ about being forced out of the workplace due to a lack of flexible working arrangements

Workers will have the right to take a case to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) if their employer ignores their request for flexible working under a new bill.

The bill, which is currently going through the Dáil, 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 ...