London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Government taskforce urges permanent job flexibility for all workers

Government taskforce urges permanent job flexibility for all workers

Millions could benefit from new rights to work from home once the pandemic is over

Millions of employees could be given the chance to switch permanently to more flexible working arrangements under forthcoming guidance designed to encourage firms to make long-term some of the emergency changes ushered in by the pandemic.

The government’s flexible working taskforce is drawing up guidance – before the expected lifting of the remaining lockdown restrictions, including the requirement to work from home, on 21 June – to support the emergence of new, hybrid ways of working. For example, staff might come into offices only occasionally and work at home or at a neighbourhood cafe for the rest of the week.

Peter Cheese, the co-chair of the taskforce, said the pandemic had demonstrated that people could work productively away from traditional workplaces, with 71% of firms reporting that home working had either boosted or made no difference to productivity. “This is an opportunity to shift ways of working, which have barely changed for generations,” he said. “It will allow more people with other life commitments to participate in work and it will improve wellbeing.”

While a consultation on strengthening flexible working rights is expected after the local elections this week, some of the government’s most senior figures, including Boris Johnson and his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, have suggested employers should reopen offices to help the recovery of city-centre businesses. One unnamed minister went as far as to brief the Telegraph last summer that workers should be sacked if they did not return to the office.

“There have been mixed messages from the government,” said Cheese, who is chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). “If the cities have far fewer people, local businesses are going to have to adapt.”

Waterloo station in London at ‘rush hour’ on 3 September 2020.


The taskforce, which met last month, is considering whether employment contracts need to change to enable more ad hoc, hybrid working in different locations. Employers will still need to ensure employees have a safe place to work.

“We need to understand what the law is and what might have to change,” Cheese said. “But we are going to have to learn as we go along.”

There are concerns, however, that these new ways of working could become the preserve of middle-class professionals with office-based jobs. Another member of the taskforce, Sue Coe, who is a TUC policy officer, said employers should offer different kinds of flexibility. “We are concerned about the potential for a two-tier workforce emerging with the flexible working haves, who can work from home, and the flexible working have-nots, who cannot,” she said. “These workers need access to flexitime, part-time working, job shares. We need flexible working for everybody.”

Research by the CIPD shows 44% of employees have not worked from home at all during the pandemic as their jobs do not allow it – yet only 30% of employers are planning to introduce other types of flexible working in the next six to 12 months.

The taskforce may recommend that new recruits should be able to apply immediately for flexible working instead of waiting the current 26 weeks. Cheese believes that firms should be forced to publish flexible working data.

He said: “We could say to organisations we want to see better evidence about how you are enacting flexible working practices and how many people are working in flexible ways. It is not just about employment law [changes] – it is about encouraging these behaviours by requiring greater transparency.”

Although the right to request flexible working was extended to all employees in 2014, the proportion of the workforce actually allowed to work flexibly has flatlined at just over a quarter of workers.

Coe said: “The right to request is a right to be turned down.”

The TUC would like the taskforce to propose a duty on employers to include flexible options in job adverts. “It would mainstream flexibility,” Coe added. “Instead of workers going cap in hand to managers and flexible working being doled out sparingly as a perk, people would have the right to take up the advertised flexibility.”

The pandemic has shown how quickly employers were able to identify the roles that could be performed at home. “It was done for one of the more complex areas of flexible working,” Coe said. “Why can’t employers do that, for, say, flexitime or job shares?”

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been approached for comment.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×