Increase staff engagement and productivity
Hybrid Workplace Solutions UK
Flexible working is a popular perk for many employees across UK businesses, offering work-life balance that can benefit your organisation. Adopting a policy can promote greater employee engagement, productivity, and increase staff retention rates.
If you’re considering using this strategy, hybrid workplace solutions are important to ensure you use UK compliant processes. With an experienced HR consultancy service, you can consider business and safety implications to effectively create your new working model.
Helping you with
Streamlined hybrid workplace solutions for one fixed fee
Helping you with
Streamlined hybrid workplace solutions for one fixed fee
Helping you with
Streamlined hybrid workplace solutions for one fixed fee
Flexible working can take many different forms: part-time, term-time, job sharing, compressed hours, annualised hours, flexitime, and remote working (hybrid) model. Any working arrangement that gives employees flexibility over where, when, and for how long they work.
Whatever your situation, our Employment Law, HR and Health & Safety specialists can advise you on the legalities, help you to preserve productivity and engagement, and ensure you’re meeting your risk management responsibilities:
Set out your arrangements and expectations, and avoid issues later down the line, with a flexible/hybrid working policy and procedure tailored to your business
Ensure employment contracts align with your flexible working arrangements, and insert new clauses if necessary, by having them reviewed and updated by qualified legal experts
Manage flexible working requests compliantly, and avoid potential discrimination issues when rejecting requests with unlimited advice from your own small team of dedicated Employment Law specialists
Save time and navigate the process efficiently and compliantly with documents drafted on your behalf, including hearing invites and acceptance, rejection and contract variation letters
Ensure staff can work safely with a dedicated health and safety policy, advice on control measures, and guidance on conducting homeworker risk assessments
Understanding employment laws with flexible working and staff rights
Understanding employment laws with flexible working and staff rights
Understanding employment laws with flexible working and staff rights
There are important employment rights relating to flexible working you need to know. Any employee has the statutory right to request flexible working from the first day of employment. However, this doesn’t mean they have a right to be granted flexible working.
UK law is specific about how you must deal with statutory requests:
Deal with applications in a reasonable manner
Have a valid business reason for rejecting an employee's request
Notify the employee of your decision within two months
There are important employment rights relating to flexible working you need to know. Any employee has the statutory right to request flexible working from the first day of employment. However, this doesn’t mean they have a right to be granted flexible working.
UK law is specific about how you must deal with statutory requests:
Deal with applications in a reasonable manner
Have a valid business reason for rejecting an employee's request
Notify the employee of your decision within two months
Whether you're offering remote rolls, WFH days, or varying start and finish times, our specialist UK team can help you get policies and procedures right. Call us today for a free consultation.
Explore our fixed-fee Employment Law support
Advice Line
Fast, pragmatic, commercial. Our Employment Law & HR advice line gives you and your managers access to truly unlimited advice on all of your people-related challenges, from the seemingly straightforward to the most complex.
HR matters come with the territory when you run a business or manage an organisation and we’re here to help you through it all. Whether you’re battling absenteeism, struggling to manage an underperforming employee or need help navigating a complicated exercise like redundancy, we can walk you through the steps required to handle the situation appropriately.
Yes. All of our advisers are qualified legal professionals or on the road to formal qualification, which means a full range of employee issues can be dealt with within your dedicated three-person team. In the event that you’re presented with an Employment Tribunal claim, we will conduct a full handover to our Litigation Team so that they are well equipped to defend you.
Why choose us?
Access expert flexible working solutions in employment law and HR
Why choose us?
Access expert flexible working solutions in employment law and HR
Why choose us?
Access expert flexible working solutions in employment law and HR
Make the most of hybrid working with our specialist insights. Our team of HR experts will guide you through exactly how it'll benefit your business. We're trusted across the UK and can help you with:
Your own small team of dedicated experts
Commercial, pragmatic advice tailored to you
Bespoke contracts, policies and handbooks
Trusted by over 40,000 organisations
Recognised as a leading firm by the Legal 500
Transparent advice on expected legal costs
Our Team
Cross-industry expertise, ready to support you
Practical support, made personal
Trusted by employers across the UK
We support over 40,000 UK employers, from small businesses with fewer than 50 employees to well-known household names with large, multi-site workforces.
The advice and guidance received has been outstanding, and has enabled our organisation to resolve a number of challenging situations efficiently with clarity and confidence. As a consequence we have continued to retain the services of WorkNest years and would not hesitate to recommend them to other organisations seeking exemplary external HR support.
Midlands Air Ambulance
The online training session delivered by WorkNest covering equality, diversity and inclusion was delivered brilliantly. The approach to tailoring content to the needs of the organisation and in this case, an audience of Board members, was well handled. The offer of online training from WorkNest is something we will be taking more advantage of from now on.
English Rural Housing Association
Governance and Executive Support Manager
We recently received training on two hot topics: having difficult conversations and performance management. Our team really enjoyed it and everyone has said that the trainer was engaging and made the full day training session interesting and relevant. I look forwarding to attending further training.
Waverly Care
Chief Executive
Being a busy small charity we needed an efficient system to save us time with our HR processes and WorkNest have delivered this. Most important is the PeopleNest support staff, who are always available to answer any questions in a helpful, prompt and friendly way.
Glasgow Council
FAQs
There can be many benefits for your business, including a reduction in operation costs and overhead. This is through needing less office space and equipment. From an employee perspective, you can offer them a popular company perk that improves their work-life balance considerably. In turn, this can make them happier, more productive, and more likely to stay with your organisation long-term.
It can do, yes, by increasing employee engagement and productivity. It’s a major company perk that’s very popular with professionals as it greatly enhances work-life balance. Alongside increasing current staff performance, it can help you attract top talent for new positions you’re offering.
There are eight reasons why your business can reject a request:
Excessive cost for your business
Unable to organise work to other employees
Unable to recruit more members of staff
A negative impact on work quality
Negative impact on meeting customer demand
Negative impact on employee performance
Not enough work available for the staff member
Upcoming changes to your business that would impact hybrid working
You have the same health and safety responsibilities for remote workers as for any other employee. You do not have an obligation to attend the employee’s address but rather an employer should consider how they would keep in regular contact with the employee, e.g. regular online meetings or phone calls. An employer would also consider what type of work is undertaken, if this can be done safely, and what control measures are needed if required.
When agreeing a flexible working pattern, it is important to make it clear that you reserve the right for the employee to attend work for meetings on days when they normally work from home, if required. This should be exercised on a reasonable basis, e.g. not expecting them in every Friday otherwise the agreement becomes meaningless.
They’re considered to be remote working (i.e. they do not have direct supervision from their employers but have means of communication). If there is another person in their home while they are working, then they are not considered to be a lone worker (i.e. as there is somebody else in the home that can assist in a case of an emergency).
You can provide a working at home form/DSE form for the employee to complete, which would identify whether an employee has suitable working conditions at home. The form would also highlight key areas that an employer can assist, such as providing a foot rest, lumbar support and/or hand and wrist support pads, etc.
Yes. Our grievance and disciplinary training course has been designed by HR specialists to give managers and supervisors the skills and confidence needed to manage these essential processes. It can be delivered exclusively to you on site or at a location of your choice.
Potentially, provided you offer a clear reason for why. For example, for more junior colleagues who may need a greater degree of supervision, you could justifiably require them to attend work.
There can be many benefits for your business, including a reduction in operation costs and overhead. This is through needing less office space and equipment. From an employee perspective, you can offer them a popular company perk that improves their work-life balance considerably. In turn, this can make them happier, more productive, and more likely to stay with your organisation long-term.
There are eight reasons why your business can reject a request:
Excessive cost for your business
Unable to organise work to other employees
Unable to recruit more members of staff
A negative impact on work quality
Negative impact on meeting customer demand
Negative impact on employee performance
Not enough work available for the staff member
Upcoming changes to your business that would impact hybrid working
When agreeing a flexible working pattern, it is important to make it clear that you reserve the right for the employee to attend work for meetings on days when they normally work from home, if required. This should be exercised on a reasonable basis, e.g. not expecting them in every Friday otherwise the agreement becomes meaningless.
You can provide a working at home form/DSE form for the employee to complete, which would identify whether an employee has suitable working conditions at home. The form would also highlight key areas that an employer can assist, such as providing a foot rest, lumbar support and/or hand and wrist support pads, etc.
Potentially, provided you offer a clear reason for why. For example, for more junior colleagues who may need a greater degree of supervision, you could justifiably require them to attend work.
It can do, yes, by increasing employee engagement and productivity. It’s a major company perk that’s very popular with professionals as it greatly enhances work-life balance. Alongside increasing current staff performance, it can help you attract top talent for new positions you’re offering.
You have the same health and safety responsibilities for remote workers as for any other employee. You do not have an obligation to attend the employee’s address but rather an employer should consider how they would keep in regular contact with the employee, e.g. regular online meetings or phone calls. An employer would also consider what type of work is undertaken, if this can be done safely, and what control measures are needed if required.
They’re considered to be remote working (i.e. they do not have direct supervision from their employers but have means of communication). If there is another person in their home while they are working, then they are not considered to be a lone worker (i.e. as there is somebody else in the home that can assist in a case of an emergency).
Yes. Our grievance and disciplinary training course has been designed by HR specialists to give managers and supervisors the skills and confidence needed to manage these essential processes. It can be delivered exclusively to you on site or at a location of your choice.
