smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

Government plans to extend flexible working rights and introduce a new system of flexible parental leave will hurt small firms, according to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

The lobbying group has been calling for the need to reform parental leave for some time, but believes that proposed government changes could allow both parents to take off time in chunks, rather than in one block, which would make administration of the leave far more complicated than it already is.

Parental leave should be tailored to suit each individual since a ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work for small businesses, says the group.

While the FSB understands that parental leave should be flexible, small businesses need their staff to give information about what time they will have off up front. In doing so small firms will have more clarity on when that invaluable and skilled member of staff will return to work, according to the organisation.

The government is also planning to consult on extending the right to request flexible working to all employees, but the FSB argues that small businesses already offer flexibility in the workplace and that formalisation of these rules would be another bureaucratic burden on small firms, especially given that they are already doing it.

FSB national chairman John Walker says, ‘The government has committed to reducing the amount of red tape that small firms have to wade through in running their businesses. Yet, it wants to introduce additional complexity and new legislation, making it even more complicated and time consuming in the process.

'For a small firm, organising cover and workloads for a member of staff that has decided to take chunks of parental leave from work – not a continuous period of time – will be extremely burdensome and difficult to administer.'

Walker adds, ‘Small businesses already provide flexible working for their employees and so we would urge the government not to formalise this process as it would just add to the red tape burden on small firms.’

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