13/05/2026
Flexible working requests after maternity leave can feel like a real balancing act for employers especially in operational roles where continuity matters.
We’ve recently been asked whether a business can refuse a request to reduce to 3 days a week where it could impact clients, handovers and service delivery and the honest answer is, it’s not as straightforward as a yes or no.
Here is what one of our clients came to us with last week:
Question:
An employee on maternity leave has made a flexible working request to work 3 days a week on her return. All of our employees work full time. We are in logistics and every employee has dedicated clients and is responsible for dedicated shipments. If she works part time, other employees will have to jump in and finalise a shipment and her manager is afraid the handovers won’t be done properly. If a shipment is delayed, we face penalties or losing the client. Can we refuse the request? If we do agree, must we offer a like for like role or could we give her different responsibilities? Could we dictate her working days?
Here is how we answered:
If you refuse the request, the big risk is an indirect s*x discrimination claim because a requirement to work full time is harder for a woman with childcare responsibilities to comply with than it is for male colleagues.
To refute such a claim, you need:
✅ A good business reason for insisting on full time work.
✅To show a requirement to work full time was ‘proportionate’. You can tick point 1 but the battleground would be point 2.
So you do need to consider her request very carefully, just saying no one else works part time or her manager is ‘afraid’ the arrangement won’t work won’t cut any ice in a tribunal.
Options to explore would be whether you can hire someone to do the remaining 2 days a week on a job share basis or if any colleagues might want to work additional hours. If so, can you make the handovers work? What do you do now when employees are sick or on holiday and not available for their clients? Will that work here? Can you offer a compromise like a 4 day week? Can you offer a trial?
Flexible working requests are about employees doing their existing role but flexibly. So you can’t require her to do different duties in exchange for granting the request.
She’s also entitled to return to her old role or a similar one. However, if you can justify rejecting the application, then she must return to her old role full time. If she doesn’t want to do that, then you might say you have something else available that can be done part time and ask if she’s interested.
If you can accommodate the request but only if she works specific days, then you can make this a condition of granting the application. For example, if Fridays are your busiest day, you could say you need her to be in then. Or if you can only arrange cover on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, you could say she must take those days off.
But to avoid discrimination, you must act reasonably and be able to justify such a requirement.
In addition, you need to comply with the flexible working legislation and the Acas Code of Practice on flexible working. So you or her manager should meet with the employee (this could be a videocall) to discuss her application. You can go through your concerns and see if she has any suggestions to address these.
Under this legislation, you can only refuse her request if you can cite one of eight business reasons like increased costs, inability to reorganise work or recruit additional staff or detrimental impact on quality, performance or ability to meet customer needs.
Are you struggling with flexible work requests? Contact us today at navigatehrhelp@gmailcom
