It’s inevitable that many employers will now find themselves facing an increasing number of flexible working requests from employees who have been able to work remotely from home in recent months and wish to continue to do so in some form.   

Under the current statutory framework there are eight grounds on which such requests can be refused including where this would have a detrimental impact on quality, performance or the ability to meet customer demand. However, the question arises – do these grounds still stand up to scrutiny for organisations that allowed employees to work from home during the pandemic? Employment Associate Louise Keenan explains.