Flexible work arrangements - taking individual circumstances into account

In this case, an employee in a regional centre sought to start work 20 minutes early each day in the interests of efficient time management. This was due to the employee’s need to drive her child to an apprenticeship which started early.

The employee was working in a client contact centre but was undertaking processing work rather than directly dealing with client inquiries. The proposal was refused by her managers on the basis that staff were not required at work until 10 minutes before client contact commenced. In her manager's view, it would be inefficient for the employee to undertake processing work at the time she proposed commencing work as she would not be able to contact clients to clarify aspects of their case prior to client contact hours commencing.

The MPC was of the view that the agency had not provided reasonable business grounds for refusing the employee’s request, including because she had limited client contact and only a small percentage of her clients required contact by her.

We considered that the employee’s proposed arrangement presented a very low risk on the ability of the agency to provide the required level of customer service and meet customer demand and recommended that the decision be set aside.