Flexible Working Mandates: Good Intentions, Terrible Results | IEA Briefing

In this Institute of Economic Affairs podcast, Callum Price, IEA Director of Communications, interviews Len Shackleton, IEA Editorial and Research Fellow, and Annabel Denham, columnist at The Telegraph and former IEA policy analyst. The conversation examines a new IEA paper on the government’s expanded flexible working mandates introduced in the Employment Rights Act, which now makes it extremely difficult for employers to refuse requests for flexible working arrangements.

Len and Annabel discuss the hidden costs and unintended consequences of these mandates, including how they may actually harm the workers they are designed to protect. They explore how protected characteristics combined with flexible working requests can expose employers to unlimited discrimination claims, potentially leading businesses to avoid hiring workers with protected characteristics such as working mothers. The conversation also examines how flexible working creates pay disparities between those who can work remotely (effectively receiving a 5 to 7% pay increase) and essential workers in hospitals, transport and other sectors who cannot, particularly affecting public sector pay structures.

The discussion concludes with analysis of the Employment Rights Act’s broader impact on economic growth and productivity, particularly in the public sector where productivity remains below pre-COVID levels. Len and Annabel argue that whilst flexible working can benefit both employees and employers in certain circumstances, the government should step back and allow employers and employees to negotiate these arrangements directly rather than imposing top-down mandates that create regulatory burdens, slow wage growth and ultimately discourage employment.

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The views represented here are those of the speakers alone, not those of the Institute, its Managing Trustees, Academic Advisory Council members or senior staff.