Working Flexibly vs Flexible Working: A Practical Guide for Employers

We’ve all heard the terms ‘flexible working’ and ‘working flexibly’. Same thing, right? They sound like it, but they’re quite different, both from a legal standpoint and a cultural one. Many organisations often blur the lines around it, which creates confusion and can lead to mixed expectations for both employee and employer.

In the words of Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy, co-founder of the Global Survey of Working Arrangements conducted by King's College London, “remote work has [become] a defining feature of the UK labour market”. With somewhere between 40% and 44% of UK adults working remotely, managers and those responsible for hiring need to make sure they’re getting this stuff right. It’s particularly important from a legal perspective, but there’s also an internal culture standpoint to consider, and the effect that your organisation’s approach to flexible working has on your employees.

We’ve built this guide to break down the differences, so leaders can create workplaces that align with what modern employees want, and ensure they’re meeting all the necessary legal requirements along the way.

 

Defining the Differences

Flexible working

Flexible working is a legally defined term. A flexible working request is a formal request made by an employee to change the terms of their contract. Since April 2024, employees can request flexible working from day one of employment. This can be something related to the times they work, where they work from or how their hours are structured. Types of flexible working can include remote working, hybrid working, job shares, flexi-time, compressed hours, and part-time hours.

This is a statutory process that an employer must follow: the request must be considered reasonably, and can only refuse it for one or more of eight legal reasons: 

1. The burden of additional costs
2. A detrimental effect on the ability to meet customer demand
3. An inability to reorganise work among existing staff
4. An inability to recruit additional staff
5. A detrimental impact on quality
6. A detrimental impact on performance
7. Insufficient work available during the periods the employee proposes to work
8. Planned structural changes to the business

Common types of flexible working include remote working, hybrid working, job sharing, flexi-time, compressed hours, and part-time arrangements.

 

Working flexibly

Working flexibly, on the other hand, is what a lot of people mean when they say ‘flexible working’. It refers to the informal ways of working we see in a lot of businesses that do not require a statutory flexible working request.

These typically are cultural agreements and internal norms within an organisation that shape day-to-day working patterns. Take, for example, if a business lets all employees work from home on a Friday, this is working flexibly. If one of their staff wants to add Tuesdays at home and submits a formal request to do so, this becomes a flexible working request with the statutory legal process behind it.

"One key stat that everyone should be aware of is the fact that nearly half (48%) of UK professionals would consider leaving their role if they were forced back into the office full-time."

 

Key Differences

Why the Distinction Matters

When employers confuse these terms, problems can follow. Teams can start to think they have a flexible culture, but their reality might feel restrictive. Managers believe they’re being generous, but employers feel they’re being monitored; HR thinks things are all running smoothly, but quietly, grievances might be growing.

Making sure you understand the distinctions between formal and informal flexible working will help you:

• Protect yourself by following the legal process correctly
• Create a culture within your organisation that values autonomy and drives trust
• Improve retention by offering clarity and consistency to your employees
• Strengthen your offering as an employer by providing flexibility that people actually need
• Avoid accidental favouritism or inconsistent decision-making

 

"Over 44% of UK adults now work remotely. Remote work has [become] a defining feature of the UK labour market.”

 

5 Common Mistakes That Employers Make

• Treating informal flexibility agreements as a replacement for proper flexible working rights
• Allowing managers to make inconsistent decisions that can feel unfair for other employees
• Creating policies promising flexibility but that don’t actually provide staff with real autonomy
• Agreeing to informal flexibility until they find it inconvenient, then backtracking
• Assuming flexible working is only about location rather than hours, patterns and workloads

 

How to Get it Right

• Separate out policy (flexible working requests) from culture (working flexibly). Then communicate both of these and what they mean clearly, checking understanding.
• Train managers to know when formal processes are required and how to instigate them
• Set expectations that are based on outputs, rather than presence in an office
• If you’re passionate about flexibility and you want it to work, you need to design your roles with that in mind
• If you change things, communicate it clearly – and be prepared to say why
• Promote flexibility consistently across teams

Flexible working and working flexibly are two sides of the same coin. Getting the distinction right creates workplaces where employees thrive and businesses succeed.

If you want to talk further about building your flexible working culture, our team can help. Contact us for expert support and recruitment advice.