Your flexible working policy works perfectly for everyone – on paper. But how does it hold up in practice?
Since 2024, employees have had the legal right to request flexible working from day one of employment. It’s a policy change that was designed to give everyone more control over when and where they work.
However, uptake in flexible working suggests that something different may be happening. Women make up around 75% of part-time workers in the UK, and men remain far less likely to request flexible working arrangements, even though they have the same legal rights to do so.
In this article, we’ll look at what’s driving this divide and what you can do to make flexible working work for everyone in your team.
The Current Picture
Research shows that women are significantly more likely to work part-time or request flexible arrangements, whereas men, despite having the same legal rights, rarely make similar requests.
At first glance, this could look like a personal choice. Look closer, and you’ll find a more complex picture shaped by workplace cultures, manager attitudes, and persistent assumptions about who ‘should’ be responsible for the school run.
Why Men Request Flexible Working Less
Concerns around career progression. Men often worry that requesting flexible working signals a lack of ambition or commitment. In many workplaces, particularly traditional industries, this concern isn’t unfounded. Men who work flexibly may find themselves more likely to be passed over for promotions or excluded from high-profile projects.
Gendered assumptions about caregiving. This doesn’t play out the same way in every workplace, but the pattern is clear enough. When a woman requests flexible working for childcare, it fits expectations. When a man makes the same request, responses vary more. Some managers are brilliant about it. Others seem surprised. Some ask more questions than they would of a female colleague making an identical request.
Inconsistent manager responses. Whether a man feels comfortable requesting flexibility often comes down to one factor; their manager. Some actively encourage it; others view men’s requests with suspicion or worry about setting precedents. This inconsistency means men’s experiences vary dramatically based on factors outside their control.
These reasons may lead men who might benefit from flexible working to either not request it at all or do so with anxiety about how it may affect their career.
The Impact on Women
When mostly women work flexibly, and men are penalised for making requests, it strengthens assumptions that women should be the primary caregivers and that flexibility indicates reduced availability or commitment.
These assumptions shape organisational decisions beyond any individual case. They can influence who’s considered for leadership roles and who gets assigned high-profile projects. A woman working four days might deliver identical outputs to full-time colleagues, but the visible difference in hours becomes a proxy for assumed lack of commitment to the role.
Why This Matters for Your Business
Not only is this a matter of fairness, but it also could be costing you. The gender divide in flexible working creates real business problems:
Limited talent pools. When flexibility is implicitly or explicitly gendered, you restrict who feels able to apply for or accept roles. Talented candidates who need flexibility but don’t want the stigma associated with it may look elsewhere.
Problems with Retention. People leave workplaces where they can’t balance work with life, or where doing so damages their career prospects. Losing experienced employees who could have stayed with the right flexibility arrangements is an expensive and avoidable mistake.
Challenges with attracting talent. Younger employees increasingly expect flexibility as standard, regardless of gender. Organisations that expect “ideal workers,” whose commitment means constant availability, will struggle to attract emerging talent.
What You Can Do About It
Make flexibility available to everyone. Position flexible working as something that benefits everyone, regardless of their gender or their role in the company.
Lead from the top. Senior leaders, particularly men, need to visibly use flexible working. When male executives leave for school pickup or take paternity leave, it signals to employees that flexibility and ambition aren’t mutually exclusive.
Demonstrate that flexibility doesn’t limit progression. Actively promote people who work flexibly and assign high-visibility projects to part-time workers. Show through actions, not just words, that flexible working and career advancement can coexist.
Train managers properly. People management training should cover how to handle flexible working requests fairly and build team cultures that support flexibility for everyone. Managers’ attitudes can shape whether employees feel comfortable requesting flexibility.
Apply policies consistently. Being denied flexible working due to gender can constitute sex discrimination. Ensure requests are assessed on business grounds alone, not assumptions about who “should” be caring or whose career is more important.
Track the data. Monitor who’s requesting flexible working and whether patterns in who is approved, denied, and the reasons why reveal unconscious bias beneath your policy statements. You can’t address what you’re not measuring.
How to Close the Gap
The test of flexible working policies isn’t what’s written in your handbook. It’s whether people across all genders feel comfortable requesting flexibility and whether doing so affects their career trajectory.
Can a man request part-time hours without worries about tanking his career? Do people who work flexibly still get promoted? Would your team feel comfortable using the flexibility you’re offering?
If the answer to any of these is “no” or “I’m not sure,” there’s work to do.
This requires challenging and reshaping the unwritten rules about availability, commitment, and career ambition that shape our workplaces. The organisations getting this right see the benefits; better retention, wider talent pools, improved productivity, and progress toward workplace equality.
Need help creating flexible working policies and cultures that work for everyone?
We can help you make your policy, practice with approaches that fit your business and support your people.
Key Takeaways
✓ Don’t blame policy for problems with culture. Your flexible working policy could be brilliant, but if certain employees feel as though they can’t make use of it, there is an issue to be solved.
✓ Leadership visibility matters. If senior leaders don’t model flexible working, employees will be less likely to follow.
✓ Track the data. You can’t fix what you’re not measuring. Monitor who requests flexibility, who gets approved, and who still gets promoted.