Women and Equalities Committee

Wednesday 21st October 2026

(began 1 day, 5 hours ago)

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14:24
14:25
14:26
None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yes, thank you very much. So BDF is working with predominantly very large employers. So hundreds of thousands of employees, sometimes sometimes 10,000 employees. So they are very large employers. So what we see and what our members tell us is that over the course of May 2nd, five, ten years, when they are doing lots of redeployment as a reasonable adjustment or offering lots of flexible working, they get to a point where they are sort of over. They've got more people in, for example, office based, desk based roles and not enough people on the front line.





































 So they get to a point where they might have been making adjustments . And the reasonable adjustments of duty in the Equality Act is about how are things right now? So what is this person's job, this individual's barriers, and what can you do right now? So it gets to a point where sort of when some people, some employers have made adjustments and flexibility so much, it changes the shape of their organisation. And that prompts a restructuring kind of activity. So where this affects organisations most are when there are front facing roles that might be across NHS police retail, for example.





















 But there are back office roles now. It can happen in a couple of ways. So for example, someone might be returning to work. They need adjusted duties for a short amount of time. Then they go back to when they're fully recovered. As an example, they go back to their initial role. But if it's a flexible working request that has been requested under flexible working rights, then it is seen as more permanent and then people don't. There isn't this idea that you go back to your role after a certain amount of time, for example. So members are really struggling to sort of keep the shape of their organisation intact while they're making adjustments, redeploying people either permanently or temporarily, and also doing flexible working requests as well.
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Rebecca Paul Portrait Rebecca Paul
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Yeah, it's a really good question, and I can go into more detail later about sort of what the TUC is calling for in terms of legislative requirements. We've got some really good examples of unions actually negotiating better flexible collective working agreements than the legislation. But there is some evidence that stronger legislation is needed, particularly in certain sectors with less unionised work. There's a couple of examples that we've got. So we had a survey in 2021 of over 1700 reps, which investigated the impact of the pandemic on flexible working. And the results indicated that some employers only offered home working when it was effectively mandated by government guidance.



































 And 33% of reps told us they thought homeworking would get harder to access post-pandemic. Private sector reps said this more so. But what that shows is that employers could offer that flexible working when it was mandated, but then decided to take that away. So I thought that was a really strong bit of evidence that we had. And I also wanted to bring up some evidence around the gender pay gap. So the reason I'm bringing this up is because it shows that voluntary approaches can be difficult and not always work. So as we've seen with gender pay gap reporting, encouraging employers to voluntarily provide that information was largely ineffective.















 So there was really sustained government action to promote a voluntary approach to the gender pay gap. 280 employers signed up to the scheme, but only five employers published that data when mandatory reporting was introduced. However, more than 10,000 employers reported the gender pay gap in their first year, so that was about 100% compliance. And it shows that when things are voluntary, employers don't often sign up and don't have that drive to get involved. But actually, when things are mandated, we see really, really good practice.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yes, I'd I'd agree with that. I think one of the tangible things that our members say in the flexible working provisions of the Employment Rights Act, particularly this the part of the act which talks about identifying what is reasonable in terms of if a flexible working request is doable, one of the things that they said they would like to be allowed by government to consider is how sustainable would this arrangement be? So, for example, in the Equality Act , Reasonable adjustments request, it's about what can you do now? And we regularly review that that's not there in the era.



























 So what it means is employers said that they wanted this additional bit in the reasonableness of the era to be able to say, yeah, this is doable now, but we are actually planning within our strategy, our five year strategy, we've got these plans to look like this. So it's not going to work in four years time. So if, for example, an employer had as part of their business plan, which would go over a couple of years, identified that they are going to make other structural or organisational changes. And this flexible working request they could see isn't going to fit within that.















 They would like that strategic question to be allowed to be something that they can can consider within reasonableness, because we do absolutely recognise that there's definitely a place for mandating things. I think a lot of our employers we speak to do want to do the right thing, but they don't know where all the guidance is and what they can and can't do and keeping up with things. But we also think at some level, you've got to let businesses be businesses. So principles from government and then let businesses do their thing is where we come from.
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Rebecca Paul Portrait Rebecca Paul
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Points about. So I think there is still a really widespread lack of flexible working, as we've noted, for, you know, the purpose of the committee. And since, you know, the April 2024 changes to legislation and since the pandemic, there's actually only been a change of three percentage points in the amount of employees who actually have access to any form of good quality, flexible working. And also, I know you've kind of touched on it, but when we think about the impact on individuals, when they don't get flexible working, the TUC has found 20% of people left a job due to lack of flexible working.























 And this rises to 27% of disabled workers. So we need to kind of be working with employers, but also mandating where we need to, to make sure that this really important, you know, the ability to enter the job market and stay in the job market. And I just wanted to make a point about kind of the impact on the individual, because when someone does return to work after a period of ill health, their earnings can remain unaffected if they go back to their previous employer. But if you sever that connection, the individual faces what we call like a a cost of job loss penalty, and this can be about 15% of their earnings.









And if it's for two years or more, it can be 25% reduction in earnings. So it means that they're not as able to return back to work. Their wages and stability of employment suffer. And so does their long term health, which then has knock on effects for the economy. So I think it's how can we maximise people's performance using flexible working rather than seeing it as like a perk or.
14:37
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yes. We have a forum where we are getting employers to swap stories, if you like, about what works and what doesn't, because I think it, you know, the perception can be flexible. Working isn't right for this role without really thinking about it. I mean, I'm not saying that's not the case. I think I can I completely agree again with with you because I think what we see is, is, is the layers of disadvantage when someone is coming to the point where they need to ask their employer for a flexible working arrangement . And for we hear that employers, for employers, that's the bit they struggle with the most.





































 Usually it's a line manager receiving that request. But to get something which is actually structural and organisational signed off is a whole journey up through the organisation. So then you get an employee who's frustrated because they're not getting their answer through their line manager, their their line manager is waiting. So we often see that a lot of the managers at line manager, mid manager level, they're up for this because what do they need? They need their teams functioning. They need their teams working in, you know, get the job done. But I think as as Daisy said, at the end of the day, there is a human behind this.

















 And when it goes up, the very many layers, what you that when the conversation sort of becomes too easily can become about a cost, a risk to the business, a disruption, all of these kind of this terminology we see in the reasonableness element of the era. And we forget that actually there's an employee here who, as Daisy said, might have a disability, might be caring for their parents, might be also a parent themselves and is overwhelmed, at risk of burnout, trying to hold down their job. And they are trying to just make work, work for them as well.





 So for the most part, our employers, when they get together and they're swapping stories on what works and what doesn't, it's usually about that conversation and how you get leaders on board.
14:40
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Rebecca Paul Portrait Rebecca Paul
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Yeah. Thank you. It's a really good question. So we know that there's real prevalence of poor treatment and discrimination in the workplace that disabled people experience. And I want to talk a little bit about the long waits that they face to get their reasonable adjustments and the rejection that's really common. And then maybe touch on access to work if that feels helpful. So we know there are really significant barriers. So tech research into accessing flexible, sorry, reasonable adjustments found that 6 in 10 disabled workers didn't actually make a request at all. And that's because of that fear of rejection fear of poor treatment.









































































































 So to better understand this, we surveyed 1000 disabled workers and asked them to share their experiences. Over half. So 55% who put in a request had either only had some of their requests or none of their needed adjustments implemented. And actually, 19% of them told that their employer hadn't provided any reason. And when we looked at the other reasons raised, it was that the request was impractical. The employer doubted, doubted its effectiveness or financial cost. And all of those reasons really undermine the legal obligations that employers have under the Equality Act. There was some really shocking ones, with employers saying the person wasn't disabled enough or needed to wait for further diagnosis.























































































 Someone even said that they they didn't want the person to have different furniture to other people in a, in a shared office. So we see that there are really kind of awful experiences that disabled people face in the workplace. And these are really grounded in wider poor experiences. So 49% of disabled workers experienced bullying. Bullying or harassment in the past year. And 16% left work due to that disability related mistreatment. The complaints aren't dealt with appropriately. Almost a quarter are ignored entirely. So all of this really puts people off from claiming their adjustments that they deserve and they need to work effectively.































































 And if helpful, I can talk a little bit about access to work because that can be a bit of a barrier as well. Is that useful? Okay, so the National Audit Office reviews does case reviews, which reinforce the need for employers to meet the costs of actually providing those reasonable adjustments. So the Nao did a sample of access to work cases, and 40% of the support fund funded should have been provided by the employer, employee or NHS. That was instead provided by the Access to Work programme. And they found that employers had failed to make adjustments in 18% of the cases that they looked at.













































 So public funding is being used when actually those duties to provide reasonable adjustments should be kicking in. And we also know the scheme is really not reaching the disabled people that it needs to. So while spending is nearly doubled in the past five years, it only reaches 1% of working disabled people. And yeah, the TUC does have sort of further recommendations around access to work. But I just wanted to make a really quick point about the as well, because the Ehrc kind of it does desperately need funding for the enforcement action, because when we see that people aren't getting their adjustments and there's kind of skirting going on of legal obligations, we need the Ehrc to kick in.





























 So when it opened in 2007, it had a budget of 70 million and over 500 staff. Now that's been reduced to around 17,000,002 hundred staff. So it can't fulfill its current obligations, let alone take on new responsibilities that we desperately need it to. So we need to ensure sufficient funding and also allow the Ehrc to take on first instance cases where proceedings have begun or first heard on failure of employers to put in place reasonable adjustments. So we need ring faced resources to conduct targeted enforcement of workers rights to reasonable adjustments. And also, as you're mentioning around the importance of guidance for the Ehrc to kick in there and actually boost employer confidence around using the positive action provisions in the Equality Act.







 So yeah, those kind of three key points. So the kind of treatment of disabled workers and the fact that they can't, they don't feel confident at work and then those kind of enforcement mechanisms as well.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yes. Thank you. We do agree that adjustments need to be implemented quicker. I completely identify and agree with all of the stats that Daisy has shared. Our research also shows that 1 in 8 disabled employees , out of nearly 2000 employees are waiting over a year to get their adjustments that they request. So that has to change . With regard to the two week turnaround time, we're supportive of making anything quicker. However, I think we need I think what needs unpacking is what we mean by two weeks and a decision. So what we see in our in our research, we do the great Big Workplace Adjustments survey with managers implementing adjustments and disabled employees.









































 What we see takes the time isn't the decision, it's the procurement of the adjustment and the provision. So for example, and we know that a lot of employers who contributed to this, managers are still using access to work. Well, as Daisy said, if access to work is taken between 3 and 12 months to get here, to get support in place at the moment, imposing a two week turnaround time on employers access to work needs to change first. But the other thing we see is, you know, it very much depends on the adjustment. So as an example, we know a lot of our employers, very large organisations, they'll they'll keep a lot of adjustments in stock, in which case, if you've got a bit of kit in your organisation now that someone needs two weeks is too long.



















 Sought it today because the Equality Act says as soon as you know, that's your deadline. So. But also, if the adjustment you need is a job coach or training, that's going to take way over two weeks. So I think we need to just be really clear what we're saying to employers and not penalize those who are actually making a lot of adjustments, which do bye bye, by the nature of that adjustment, take longer than two weeks to implement. But the principle itself is speeding up adjustments. We're behind whatever works. It's got to be practical and pragmatic though.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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You go first.
14:50
Rebecca Paul Portrait Rebecca Paul
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Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. So I think just to start off this, I think the law's strong around fluctuating conditions. So you're right. It's more of a perception issue. So obviously the Equality Act is really specific about fluctuating conditions. It's really specific about the fact that it's about the impact of the impairment and, and how that actually impacts the person's abilities to work in live. So energy impairments are a really good example of one where there's a lot of employer disbelief around the kind of the impact of those. So there was a report by chronic illness inclusion, and they stated that the widespread notion that fatigue is not real actually really stands firmly in the way of disability equality at work.











































 So there's there's some good research that he did around long Covid that kind of speaks to the experience of fluctuating people with fluctuating conditions in the workplace. And I want to I want to raise kind of what employers did put in place and what they didn't, because I think it's really instructive as to what people like understand that people with fluctuating conditions actually need. So we asked respondents, so people with long Covid what workplace adjustments they'd asked for and what the employers had put in place. And they actually more people got a phased return to work than had asked for it.





























 And I think that's really interesting because it shows that long Covid recovery is obviously not linear, but employers kind of expected that linear recovery, and only 32% of respondents were actually able to return to work on their first attempts. They needed much more long standing, flexible working and adjustments than they were offered in all the remaining categories that we asked for. Fewer workers received a change than had actually asked for it, and these were mostly around real, genuine forms of flexibility. So to support to support those fluctuations in their symptoms, longer, more frequent breaks, permanent home working, other changes to hours.

















 So those were the ones that are more likely to be turned down. So it kind of shows that that kind of culture around energy impairments in particular, and only half the number of requests to make physical changes to enable the person to do their job were granted. And that included improvements to ventilation. So people with long Covid really wanted to reduce their reduce that repeated infections issue that they'd obviously would make them feel much more unwell. So these had a really serious impact on people's kind of longer term health. And so I think it's really important to understand the types of adjustments that employers are offering and maybe the types that they're not offering as well.
14:53
None Portrait Speaker 2
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In terms of does sort of the, the narrative or the rhetoric that's out there, how does it influence what disabled employees ask for or not? The biggest impact we see is on what leaders think. So they hear sort of the media narrative. They here how sort of the political rhetoric is being responded to around the energy review, for example, ADHD, autism, neurodiversity, those those types of things. We have a lived experience forum at BDF, and that's where I test sort of societal perceptions and how disabled employees in work today feel about it. A lot of our lived experience forum feel that they're sort of what their employer is hearing does have an impact on how they're treated.





























 So I would say, yes, I don't have evidence that that stops disabled employees, a sort of a representative number of disabled employees not ask for support in in one, I can see one person I spoke to disabled professional who said, I need to ask because I need that and I can't work without it. But the response is, is what they feel is being impacted by what is going on beyond their organisation. And then, as I said, leaders hear it too, and so do boards and so do investors. So it does really have an impact on how what the decisions are on in supported employment schemes or schemes for disabled people.















 You know, if there's such bad rep in the media and in society, why would you know? Why would leaders think, hey, this is a great thing to do. And it's great for my reputation. And you know, my investors are going to love it. So completely agree. It does have an impact mostly on decision makers, I would say.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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To come in on.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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So from my perspective, I've just come from a panel this morning talking about how employers can do more supported internships. And I think we did that. BDF led that conference and we did that because what we were hearing, we asked our members the question and they said, there's actually quite a lot of jargon around this. What is a supported internship? What is pathways to work? What is what is even access to work? And so I think when we start talking about schemes and they have lovely names which are engaging and, and led by local authorities, for example, and, you know, they're really well structured, but businesses aren't keeping up to date with all of these different names of different things.

































 And I think also, it's really hard when a business is in like a business plan cycle, they're in their procurement contracts. This is our recruitment partner for the next four years. And then we come along and say, have you thought about supported internships and partnering with someone you know, it doesn't always fit or speak a business language, but to answer your question, so that Daisy can come in as well, I think it is that thing of we've got to not talk in riddles. And one of the things we were talking about on our panel this morning about this was we need to get to a place where this is just another way of recruiting people to fulfil the jobs that you need done in your business.

















 So language, and I think the other thing is all of these different schemes are run in different ways, have different structures and are based in different places. Connect to work, great programme, but that's in local authorities. Some are led by the non for the not for profit sector. Others you know, you can partner directly with, you know, further institutions. You know, there's so many different ways of doing it and employers can't keep up with it.

And they certainly don't know which is best for their organisation. So I agree with you.
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Rebecca Paul Portrait Rebecca Paul
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Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you. Yes. We are calling on this legal duty to publish flexible working options in job adverts and also for workers to then take up that advertised flexibility from day one. There is a kind of support there for employers. If they can't accommodate that, they can just kind of transparently set out the reasons for that. So I'll just kind of set out the current landscape like you asked for. And then we've got some TUC polling of HR managers that speaks to like acceptance levels within the field. So we already know that there is an issue with this advertising as it in its current form.























































































 So too many jobs are not advertised as flexible. And we know that 58% of disabled workers, in terms of TUC polling at least, were unlikely to apply for a job if they didn't know that it could fit around their condition. And a third of disabled respondents are only a third are likely to ask for flexible working in the first few days of the job. So what that shows is the advertising duty would do a lot there to make sure that people who otherwise wouldn't request it actually are able to access it. If if jobs do advertise flexible working, they attract up to 30% more applicants.









































































So that's really, really positive as well. But kind of looking at the current landscape, there was some research from timewise that showed only about 30% of jobs currently are advertised with that flexible working options included. This is better in unionised workplaces. So our equality audit that we do every couple of years showed that already 62% of reps from the public sector and 44% from the private sector did display flexible working options in job adverts. So that's really, really good to hear that . That's already been quite a lot of take up there in both of those sectors.





























































 We've also set up some practical kind of steps around it, but I'll I'll kind of leave that for now and focus on the polling. So this is really important because it's of HR managers. So it's that employer side of it. And it was conducted for the TUC by YouGov. And it did show that employers are willing to advertise flexible working arrangements in job adverts. So 59% of over 900 HR managers polled said it would be easy to include specific information about the types of hours based, flexible working arrangements available in each job advert or that they already do this, and this rose to 62% of HR managers when asked about home or remote working.













































 So really, really a lot of acceptance there, people saying that it would be easy to do and also easy to identify what they were going to advertise as well. And I know that there's interest in kind of how this impacts on smaller businesses. So again, we looked at HR managers for businesses of 1 to 249 employees and 59% said it would be easy to include specific information about the hours based flexibility they could offer or that they already do this. And 63% said it would be easy to kind of identify that before advertising or that they already do this.

































And 75% said that about home or remote working. So we're not asking for a massive culture shift. We're not asking for a big change. It's something that employers seem ready to kind of take on, and it's something that would really help around that. The time when the worker requests the flexibility is when we know that discrimination does really kick in. And just to finish with an example of one company that's already done this and the impact on them. So Zurich are the first company in the UK to advertise all vacancies with the option of part time or full time job share or flexible working.



















 This led to a 66% boost in applications. 1 in 4 of the new hires chose to work part time, so actually really big impact on their workforce as well. They also use gender neutral language in their job adverts, and as a result of both of those changes together, they saw a 16% rise in women applying for jobs and a 20% jump when we looked at management roles. So that's really helping with diversity, inclusion. And also it's really not complicated to enforce this duty. So it will be done through the EHR. And we've got like all our policies set out around that as well.
15:03
None Portrait Speaker 2
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And I, I don't disagree with with that at all. I, I think , and it's a question, it's not disagreeing. I think in, in terms of being pragmatic, I think it's there's a difference between a job advert and a job description. And forgive me, I don't know what AUC are asking for. I think we in terms of which you're saying, but I completely 100% agree with Daisy that this this isn't much this isn't a huge shift for employers. If we think about what a good job description should have in it anyway. And but it does take me to a place where I think, well, this is about better inclusive guidance from the Ehrc, as you say.































































































 Does it need to go all the way through to being mandated through legislation? I, I don't have any evidence for or against that, but I think what a lot of disabled people tell us is job adverts are so long and they feel like even when they're applying for a job, which is not about reading and writing or is desk based, they've got to read a hell of a lot to just understand what they need to be, what they're applying for, and what they're going to need to be in the job. So I don't disagree at all.

















































































 I think there, you know, subject to detail and practicalities. But to come back to your your question about employers duties beyond reasonable adjustments, out of the out of 1480 disabled employees we spoke to in our research, who both have a disability and have adjustments in place, just 19% of them said their adjustments remove all barriers that they experience in the workplace. Just 19%. And that's to your point. What else should employers be doing? Because, as I said earlier, reasonable adjustments are about an individual, the individual's barriers and what is being experienced right now in the job they're doing.































































 If you think about your workplace, it's not just your job that you experience. It's getting to the building around the building. It's socialising, it's eating, it's moving around from the entrance to all the length. You have to walk every day. It's your it's the perception leaders have of disability, let alone disabled people. It's how your policies are structured. All of these things create and disadvantage and barriers that reasonable adjustments duty does not touch. So that's why this this haunting number of just 19% of disabled employees say adjustments are removing all barriers in the workplace for them.









































 I think the other thing to mention is, is, of course, health and safety legislation where employers are required to provide a safe working environment. Now, when we think about disabled employees, what safe means is very different. It does mean, you know, making sure I don't fall flat on my face when I'm moving around my work, my workplace. It does mean, am I safe because of my body and my disability, moving around, doing my job, all of those things. So what we see is that the EDI and workplace Adjustments agenda, for want of a better phrase, has focused almost with exclusive, razor sharp vision on only the Equality Act.























 And, and I think we, we employers, our sector even do miss a lot of really good stuff that employers are already have a responsibility to fulfil under the Work and Health and Safety at Work Act. And then we even get to working conditions when we look through that work health and safety lens as well, which go into what impacts the need for flexible working. If we look at the the stresses that the Health and Safety Executive talks about, do you have on autonomy over how you work? I mean, this is what we're talking about , flexibility.









 So I think there there is a lot of there's a lot more that employers can and should be doing and should be aware of in terms of legislation and statutory guidance, which which necessarily has to reach beyond adjustments because adjustment, reasonable adjustments for an individual in a specific role only goes so far to make work doable for disabled people.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yes, I think it depends what flexible means. Are we talking. So for example, I'll I'll talk about my own team. So it's it's pretty fundamental that. So I'm a stroke survivor. I work with a million adjustments. And without those adjustments I wouldn't be in a job. One of the things that is non-negotiable is being able to come and work across Westminster, travel in whatever way I need to go over to Westminster, over to be in person and come to these things. It's non-negotiable. You could say a a flexible working request. I am going to ask for my role to be carved so that someone else in my team does the in person stuff, and I can stay at home, preserve my energy, or stay in the office, and I'll do the other elements of the role.





































































 However, we are a tiny team. There's me, there's me and Hamish behind me. So what? What is flexible and reasonable for flexible is really different to if we were a team of ten people now, as I said, organisations change a lot. So it might be in that same team over the course of five years, you do move between 1 and 9 people. It could also be so we have other roles in our organisation. We're a small to medium organisation where, for example, our advice service is available to members. It's a phone line between 9 and 5.













































 You've got to be on that phone between 9 and 5. Can I work from seven till three? No, sorry, you can't, because then we wouldn't be covered. We're a small team. So I think flexibility is sometimes about times. Sometimes it's about, as has already been said by a colleague about fluctuating conditions. I need to work like this when I feel like this, but I need to work like this when I feel like that. So I think the the bit, the biggest issue is knowing at the point of a job advert, what do we mean by flexibility?

























 Flexing a role, timing. So as as an example, I can I might have just started my day at 12 today, but then I might work till 11 at night. That's flexibility and and, but also I know others who have got flexible working arrangements to start from six in the morning, then they'll work till 11, then they have some a few hours off, then they work from three till seven in the evening. Now that's fine for a person who in their job just purely desk based and they're auditing and they're doing a data auditing job. But if you did my job, that wouldn't be okay.







 So I think I think it's about what do we mean by flexibility at the point that we are asking employers to write on the job description in a flexibility by default way. Daisy, what do you think?
15:14
Rebecca Paul Portrait Rebecca Paul
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Yeah. So obviously the TUC holds that flexibility should be the norm. And we agree that there should be this default right to flexible working. So again, that would be like I was saying, with the job adverts, flexible working legislation would reflect that objective justification that we've got in the Equality Act. Most disabled people already should receive flexibility at work via reasonable adjustments. But the reason this is so important is because of the discrimination and the stigma around flexible working, like I was mentioning earlier. So if there were stronger rights, flexible working, then it would become more normalised and then there would be less stigma around it.







































 So also, I think it's really important to highlight when we're talking about disabled workers and the requests that they're putting in for flexibility and the discussions they're having at work. Some of our polling has shown that 34% of disabled workers don't want to talk about their health, including their disability or long term health condition with their manager, and 20% actually hadn't disclosed at all because they were worried about negative repercussions, losing their job, unfair treatment, etc.. So when we talk about stronger rights, flexible working that would benefit disabled workers hugely, even though it wouldn't be necessarily aimed at them.



























 And I just wanted to say, we really do welcome the changes in the era around reasonableness and the duty to consult. I just wanted to flag a little bit of research that we've done around those eight business reasons that remain. So the T, C and flex for all partners asked members of the public to send in responses to the previous government consultation on flexible working in 2021, and 87% of almost 6000 respondents felt the business reasons meant employers could turn down requests too easily, and unions agree with that as well from their experience. So replacing these with criteria for rejection, mirroring the objective justification and the Equality Act would be a fairer process.















 So that's what we're calling for. And our consultation response to the flexible working consultation outlines how we think that that could be improved. So like how the legislation could be improved, which includes right to accompaniment, right to appeal, which employers often already have in place. But it just empowers workers through the process as well. So we're just trying to break down those barriers that disabled workers feel when they request flexibility.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Thank you, Richard.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Start again.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Evidence around those kind of desired outcomes. And in fact, we do have some really good research from the FDA, which shows that members felt the blanket increase in mandated office time that was introduced in 2023 hadn't led to any of those desired outcomes in productivity or support for younger employees. And actually, that managers felt that they were forced to then micromanage their waste time doing that. And there's also, I think this this bit of evidence is really key. So it's supported by prospect union, by public first research. And it showed that employers who didn't offer remote working were the least likely to think that improved productivity.

































 And I think that's really interesting because it shows it's not based on evidence, it's based on a lack of trust or bias. And also, if you reverse it, it shows that employers that do offer remote working think that it does boost productivity. They talk about a perception gap, and they say that it actually stunts businesses ability to maximize. productivity of hybrid work. Some University of Birmingham research found that. 71% of line managers found home working was a performance enhancing tool. So another really strong piece of research there. So essentially back to the office. Mandates are often rooted in negative perceptions of hybrid working.













 Despite the wealth of evidence we have, that home working has a lot of benefits. And I also think that, again, thinking back to the disabled workers that we've been discussing and their experiences, that discrimination and reluctance to put in place. arrangements is maybe part of the reason for the mandate. So not seeing how that could impact different parts of your workforce. So yeah, I think this also really ties in and reinforces our calls for those stronger .
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Rights to .
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Conscious of time.
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So I just wonder .
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Of .
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And that was 80% for.
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These things and to .
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Alex Brewer Portrait Alex Brewer
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Backgrounds, and situations. 100% agree with that. I think. I do think return to office mandates get a bad name by default. I think what we see is that the. reason for wanting people. together sometimes isn't evidence based, sometimes it's not. necessarily wrong though. I spoke to a business leader just a couple of months ago who are still trying to get that that. 60% time in the office back. And, and, and this person said to me, is it bad that we just want our people to be together? And so now I'm not saying there isn't there aren't other ways to bring people together.































 But I think it's it's this thing of. leaders and that we've spoken to do sometimes feel that they are somehow being, by default. non-inclusive or doing something wrong or bad by wanting people back to the office. And we actually see very, very few. Employers who are demanding that their workforce come back every day. A lot are offering a lot of flexibility. And with at least one day a week in the office, and people can choose, some of those. organizations have been so open about how people choose that . They've seen flexible working requests go down because they've left it to employees to choose.









 I think the key thing here, I mean, as a disabled person myself, what I don't think is right is disabled people can work from home because inclusion is about, okay, how can we get you to the office? And if it doesn't work or it's not what you want, or it's going to be easier for you to stay at home, that's different.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Of .
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In .
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Alex Brewer Portrait Alex Brewer
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This area. I'm happy for me. So I think one of the key things is, as I said earlier, there are a lot of initiatives and. programs that are available. Employers don't understand them, though. And so I think what we are trying to do is, is sort of make employers more aware of their. options and the support that's there for the employer as well. For a lot of for to onboard themselves and be part of these schemes. The big thing for employers that we hear about is the fear of getting it wrong and the. reputational risk that could happen.























































 And I think our members do watch for each other. Oh, they're doing it. Let's let's just see how it goes for them before we do it as well. There was a very big case about I will not mention the name of the business, but big retailer who was doing work. experience for a person with a learning disability. That case was huge. And some retailers told us as a result, because of how big and it became on social media, they're not going to take part in those. So I think we've got to get rid of we've somehow got to back to one of the questions earlier, try to sort of quieten.































 quieten the media. response to when some things do go wrong, because things do go wrong in everything. businesses try to do. That's life. But I think the other thing we need to do is really. demythologize how employers can. start by on this. And it's usually with those. schemes that are really supportive for the employer and the individual.

 So that's what we're working on at the moment. The other thing is just about as we as we were saying, just how employers talk about work, how they say this is the job, how. accessible job adverts and.
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Said,
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And .
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Be .
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Up your,
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And,
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You're .
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Because he doesn't .
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Employer of .
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This debate has concluded
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