Find out about the new legislated family friendly changes to the Fair Work Act which include expanding the groups of employees who can request flexible work arrangements.
These changes, effective from 1 July 2013, are significant for employers and are summarised below:
- Transfer to a safe job – All pregnant employees now have this right even if they haven’t worked for their employer for 12 months. Should a safe job not be available an employee may take special unpaid leave for the risk period.
- Special maternity leave - This can now be taken by employees without it reducing the amount of unpaid parental leave they can take.
- Parental leave - Employee couples can take up to 8 weeks unpaid parental leave at the same time (increasing from 3 weeks). This concurrent leave may be taken in separate periods, but, unless the employer agrees, each period must not be shorter than 2 weeks. The concurrent leave cannot start before the birth or placement of the child unless the employer agrees.
- Flexible working arrangements – This is one of the National Employment Standards (NES) which is a minimum condition of all employment. Previously employees with children below school age and/or parents with children under 18 years of age with disabilities could request flexible work arrangements. This has been greatly extended and now includes:
- employees who are carers
- parents or guardians of children that are school age or younger
- employees with a disability
- employees who are 55 years or older
- employees who are experiencing family violence or who are caring or supporting a family or household member who is experiencing family violence.
An employer may refuse a request for flexible work arrangements on reasonable business grounds which include, but are not limited to the following. That the new working arrangements:
-
- would be too costly;
- would mean a change to the working arrangements of other employees to accommodate the arrangements requested;
- would be impractical as it would mean change to the working arrangements of other employees, or the recruitment of new employees.
- would be likely to result in a significant loss in efficiency or productivity;
- would be likely to have a significant negative impact on customer service.
Employers will need to amend their policies to include these changes. Subscribers to Your HRdocs can download updated Parental Leave and Request for Flexible Work Arrangements Policies from our website.
If you have questions about how these changes impact your business please contact us.