The eight business reasons

A request must be considered objectively and can only be rejected for one of the following business reasons (section 80G(1)(b) ERA 96):

• the burden of extra costs;

• inability to organise work among existing staff;

• inability to recruit extra staff;

• detrimental impact on quality;

• detrimental impact on performance;

• detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand;

• insufficient work for the periods the employee wants to work; or

• a planned structural change to the business.

It is not enough for the employer simply to assert one of these reasons. Instead they must investigate whether the request can be complied with, including listening to the views of the employee. Although a tribunal will not second-guess an employer’s assessment that a new working pattern would be detrimental to the business unless that judgment is obviously unreasonable, it will expect to see the employer’s evidence for making that assessment (Commotion v Rutty [2006] IRLR 171).

The Acas guidance contains some scenario-based examples of business reasons under each category.