An Introduction to “Flexible Working” Terms

When dealing with the world of employment contracts, and legal documents in general, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the diversity of terms and phrases used. The following is a guide to the key terms that you are likely to encounter when you find yourself discussing flexible working policies in a business environment.

An Introduction to “Flexible Working” Terms

“Flexible Working” has become a popular concept in recent months. With many firms looking to cut costs and streamline their businesses in the face of reduced revenues, making sure that the staff payroll is efficiently organised is an increasing priority. With this focus upon altering the way the staff are hired and paid comes a need to re-examine employment contracts and organisation. With redundancies being something that both employer and employee are seeking to avoid, the value of flexible policies becomes apparent. Through schemes which marginally reduce the hours or responsibilities of each employee many firms can keep their workforce the same size while managing to trim their expenses.

Implementing such changes to your business practices will often involve the need to draft fresh legal documents. If you’re planning to encourage a change in hours, responsibilities or demands (e.g. asking certain employees to work from home etc…) then it’s wise to ensure that what you’re asking for is stipulated in the terms of employment and any relevant contracts. Being sure of this allows greater security for you as an employer and for your employees in their jobs. In all of this, knowing the specific meaning of the key terms is vital. With this is mind, we hope you find the following glossary useful;

Flexible working - Any non-regular working pattern that results in a change in the time or place in which work is done. Examples can include teleworking, working at a home office or in a garden office, or mobile working, as well as flexible hours, compressed hours, job sharing, term-time hours and annualised hours.

Flexible working agreement - An agreement that an employee will sign up to that will cover eventualities such as variations in terms & conditions and hours of work as a result of adopting flexible working methods. This style of negotiation is often used instead of amending employment contracts.

Flexible working policy – Generally a document which covers a firm’s policy towards such items as travel expenses, costs of remote internet access etc. It can often be combined with the flexible working agreement.
Lone working - Any work activity which is carried out in isolation from other workers by an individual. This term is usually applied to an employee who regularly works in isolation, not one who does so temporarily.
Remote working – Any work activity that occurs away from the employee’s normal location and is almost exclusively made possible by remote internet access.

Standard practice – The official, agreed policy of a firm. This is important to remember when discussing flexible working policies as certain agreements will have been made in the employee’s pre-signed employment contracts. It is vital that any new demands made by the employer do not contravene any agreements laid out in these previously cemented documents.

Work life balance (WLB) - Work life balance is about people having a measure of control over when, where and how they work. It is achieved when an individual's right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as a vital priority, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society.

Working at home - Where the employee is normally based at their employer's office premises, but as a temporary arrangement they are working at their home.

Working from home - Where the employees 'office' is based at their home and they do not regularly work from the headquarters of the business.