News

March 29, 2010

CIPD calls for flexibility for employees with caring responsibilities

Employees who have caring responsibilities should have the same right to request flexible working as parents, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), which says staff are just as likely to have caring responsibilities for partners or relatives as children.

The survey of 2,000 employees carried out by the CIPD found that more than a third (34 per cent) have caring duties, with 20 per citing children as the largest responsibility.

But 12 per cent said looking after relatives was their biggest caring responsibility, while 6 per cent named their partner and 2 per cent a friend.

Under current legislation, only parents with children under 16 or with children with disabilities who are under 18 have the statutory right to request flexible working from their employer.

But the CIPD has called for the right to be extended to all staff by 2013, saying that longer life expectancy and the need to work longer to save for retirement will increase the numbers of people balancing work with caring responsibilities.

“This is not about employers putting the interests of employees before the business, it is just about them seriously considering whether they can accommodate flexible working requests in order to recruit and retain a diverse workforce,” said CIPD senior public policy adviser, Ben Willmott. “Employers which don’t provide flexible working options for working parents risk losing valuable employees.

“Staff with other caring responsibilities, such as ageing or sick parents and partners, will increasingly expect the same sort of work-life balance opportunities as working parents,” he said.

But the Federation of Small Businesses [www.fsb.org.uk] (FSB) cautioned against a “one-size-fits-all” approach, where all employees were given an automatic right to request flexible patterns.

“According to our research, only 3.9 per cent of small firms restrict flexible working to parents,” said FSB employment law committee chairman, Ben Burger. “But for some businesses, it isn’t just possible to meet everyone’s needs in every sector. Remote working may be easy for those with desk-based jobs, but impossible for retail or construction staff.”