Flexible Work Arrangements – Need some support dealing with this in the workplace?

South Australian Business News • HR and workplace relations

Elisa Luck

Thursday, February 6th 2025

Do you have employees who are requesting flexible working arrangements? It’s important that you understand that your full-time and part-time employees can request flexible work arrangements if they’ve worked with you for at least 12 months and they:

are the parent, or have responsibility for the care, of a child who is school aged or younger
are a carer (under the Carer Recognition Act 2010)
are a person with disability
are 55 or older
are pregnant
are experiencing family and domestic violence, or
provide care or support to an immediate family or household member who is experiencing family and domestic violence.

Flexible work arrangements are not just restricted to full-time and part-time employees, casual employees can request flexible work arrangements if:

they meet one of the above criteria (such as being a person with disability, being a carer or pregnant)
they’ve been working for the same employer regularly and systematically for at least 12 months
there’s a reasonable expectation of continuing work with the employer on a regular and systematic basis.

Examples of flexible working arrangements include changes to:

hours of work – for example, changes to start and finish times
patterns of work – for example, split shifts or job sharing
locations of work – for example, working from home.

Employees need to follow certain rules when requesting flexible working arrangements. You also need to follow certain rules when responding to these requests.

Join us for an informative FREE webinar on 18 March 2025 where we will cover off on flexible work arrangements, pay secrecy, job advertisements and right disconnect. Register here.

Need help in working through flexible work requests or arrangements? South Australian Business Chamber Members can call our Business Advice Hotline on (08) 8300 0000 (select option 1).