How to Handle a Flexible Work Request: What Small Business Owners Must Do

An employee drops a message in your inbox: they'd like to start at 10am three days a week so they can do the school run, or work from home on Fridays, or drop back to four days while a parent's in care. Plenty of small business owners treat this as a casual chat. Sort it out over coffee, shake hands, move on.

Here's the catch. For certain employees, a request to change their working arrangements isn't a favour you're free to wave away. It's a legal right under the National Employment Standards, with a strict clock, required steps, and real consequences if you fumble it. And no, having fewer than 15 staff doesn't get you out of it.

So let's walk through what a flexible working request actually is, who can make one, and exactly what you have to do when one lands.

What counts as a flexible working request

A flexible working arrangement is a change to how, when, or where someone works. The Fair Work Ombudsman groups them three ways:

  • Hours of work, like cutting back hours or shifting start and finish times
  • Patterns of work, like split shifts or job sharing
  • Location of work, like working from home or from another site

Anyone on your team can ask for flexibility, and you're free to agree to whatever suits you both. But some employees have a specific legal right to request it, and that's where the rules kick in.

Who's actually entitled to ask

Two boxes have to be ticked. First, the reason. An employee can make a formal request if they need flexibility because they:

  • are pregnant
  • are the parent of, or responsible for the care of, a child who's school age or younger
  • are a carer (as defined in the Carer Recognition Act 2010)
  • have a disability
  • are 55 or older
  • are experiencing family and domestic violence, or
  • are caring for or supporting an immediate family or household member who's experiencing family and domestic violence

Second, the service requirement. A full-time or part-time employee needs at least 12 months of continuous service with you right before they ask. A casual can ask too, as long as they've been working regularly and systematically for at least 12 months and there's a reasonable expectation the work keeps going on that basis.

If someone doesn't meet both tests, you can still say yes. You're just not bound by the formal process below. When they do meet both, you are.

The 21-day clock starts the moment it lands

An eligible employee has to put the request in writing, spelling out the change they want and why. Once that written request reaches you, you've got 21 days to respond in writing. Not a phone call. Not a nod in the corridor. A written response saying you've either approved it, refused it, or agreed to some alternative arrangement instead.

Three weeks sounds generous until you're mid-quarter, short-staffed, and it slips your mind. Diarise it the day the request arrives. Silence isn't a neutral option here, and I'll come back to why.

You can't just say no

This is the part that trips people up. You're allowed to refuse a request, but only on reasonable business grounds, and only after you've genuinely worked through it with the employee. Before you can land on "no", the Fair Work Ombudsman says you have to:

  • discuss the request with the employee
  • genuinely try to reach an agreement on alternative arrangements that would suit their circumstances, and
  • consider what refusing would mean for them

A refusal that skips these steps is a problem even if your business reasons were perfectly sound. The process matters as much as the outcome. So does the refusal letter itself: it has to set out the reasons you're saying no and how those grounds apply, mention any changes you would be willing to make (or state there aren't any), and point the employee to the Fair Work Commission if they want to take the dispute further.

What "reasonable business grounds" really means

There's no fixed checklist, because it depends on your situation. The Fair Work Ombudsman says it turns on things like the size and nature of your business, the person's role, and what they're actually asking for. The examples it gives include:

  • Cost: the arrangement would be too expensive to run
  • Capacity: there's no way to shuffle other people's hours to make it work
  • Practicality: it'd be impractical to rearrange other staff, or hire someone new, to cover it
  • Impact: it would likely cause a significant loss of efficiency or productivity, or hit your customer service hard

"It's a bit inconvenient" won't cut it. The bar is genuine business impact, and you should be ready to explain how the reason actually applies to this request, not just name-drop a category.

It doesn't have to be yes or no

Here's the bit that takes the pressure off. The rules don't force you into a straight grant-or-refuse. You and the employee are encouraged to talk it through and find a middle ground that works for both sides.

The Fair Work Ombudsman's own example says it well. Greg wants a 10am start three days a week for pre-school drop-off, but his boss is worried he'll miss the daily national meeting. They talk. They land on Greg working from home those mornings and joining the meeting by video after drop-off. Everyone's covered. If you agree to something different from what was asked, just make sure those agreed changes are written into your response.

Get it wrong and it's a breach

Not responding within 21 days, refusing without reasonable grounds, or skipping the required steps all count as breaches of the Fair Work Act. And the dispute pathway is open to employees.

The first stop is a chat at the workplace level to try and sort it out. If that doesn't work, either of you can take it to the Fair Work Commission, and the employee can do that if you've refused the request or if 21 days have passed and you've given them nothing in writing. That second trigger is exactly why silence is risky: ignoring a request can hand the employee a reason to escalate. The Commission can run conciliation or mediation, and in some cases arbitrate, which means it can order you to put alternative arrangements in place. There are also discrimination laws that may apply to how a request is handled, which is another reason to keep the process clean and documented.

A quick note on working from home

Working from home often comes up inside these requests, so worth clearing up: there are no specific working-from-home rules in the Fair Work Act. It's something you and the employee agree on. That said, check your award, any registered agreement, the employment contract, and your own policies, because those can set conditions you need to follow.

The practical version

Strip it back and the whole thing is manageable. When a written request comes in from an eligible employee, log the date. Sit down and genuinely talk it through. Look for a workable arrangement before you reach for "no". Then put your answer in writing within 21 days, and if you're refusing, explain the actual business reason and what (if anything) you'd offer instead. Keep notes of the conversation along the way.

Handled like that, most requests never become a problem. They're a retention win, frankly. The owners who get caught out are almost always the ones who treated a legal entitlement like a casual favour.

This is general information to help you understand your obligations, not legal advice. Every workplace is different, and your award, registered agreement, or contract may add to what's set out here. For advice on your specific situation, check the primary sources below or speak to a qualified workplace relations professional.

Getting flexible work requests right is really about one habit: following a fair process and writing things down. That same habit is what protects you when a situation heads the other way and you need to manage someone's performance formally. If that's where you're at, our Performance Improvement Plan Template Pack gives you an editable, Australian-made starting point so you're not staring at a blank page. No pressure, just there if you need it.

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