Flexitime

How a flexitime scheme is set up

GOV.UK describes flexitime as the employee choosing when to start and end work within agreed limits while working certain core hours, for example 10am to 4pm. A written scheme usually settles four points:

• Bandwidth: the earliest start and latest finish, say 7:00 to 19:00.
• Core hours: the window when everyone is expected to be working. Some schemes drop core hours and keep only the bandwidth.
• Carry-over: how many hours above or below the contracted total can be banked, and by when the balance must be cleared.
• Recording: how time is logged, whether by a time-tracking system or by self-report.

The scheme still sits inside working-time law. If you also employ people in Germany, its Working Time Act caps the working day at eight hours, extendable to ten only if the average over six calendar months or 24 weeks stays at eight (§ 3 ArbZG). A 7:00 to 19:00 bandwidth does not override that cap.

In the US, the Department of Labor states that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not address flexible schedules; flextime is a matter of agreement between employer and employee or their representative.

When an employee asks for flexitime in Great Britain

In England, Wales and Scotland, the territorial extent of the 2023 Act, flexitime is one of the arrangements an employee can ask for through a statutory flexible working request. Since 6 April 2024 that right applies from the first day of employment: the Flexible Working (Amendment) Regulations 2023 removed the earlier 26-week qualifying period.

The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 set the rules you work to when a request arrives:

• An employee can make two applications in any 12-month period.
• You must decide within two months of the request, or longer if the employee agrees.
• You cannot refuse until you have consulted the employee about the request.

A refusal has to rest on one of the business reasons GOV.UK lists, for example that the work cannot be reorganised among other staff or that quality or performance would suffer. If flexitime for one role would leave a shift uncovered, say so with that reason, and consider whether narrower core hours would solve it.

Flexitime in a job ad

A team that advertises “flexitime” but expects replies from 8:00 to 18:00 is selling a benefit that isn’t real, and new hires notice. State the bandwidth and any core hours in the job ad, so candidates can judge the arrangement before they apply.