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Employment Relations Act 2000

Flexible working - Duties of employer

69AAF: Grounds for refusal of request by employer

You could also call this:

“An employer can say no to a worker's request for different work hours only for certain reasons.”

You can ask your employer to change your working arrangements. Your employer can only say no if they can’t make it work for one or more of these reasons:

They can’t change how the work is shared among the staff they already have.

They can’t hire new people to help.

It would make the quality of work worse.

It would make how well the work is done worse.

There isn’t enough work to do during the times you want to work.

They are planning to change how the business is set up.

It would cost too much.

It would make it harder to give customers what they need.

Your employer must say no if you are part of a group agreement at work (called a collective agreement), and your request doesn’t match what the agreement says about working arrangements.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM1398217.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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69AAE: Employer must notify decision as soon as possible, or

“The boss must quickly tell you if they agree with your request to change how you work.”

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69AAG: Role of Labour Inspector, or

“A Labour Inspector can help workers and bosses with flexible work problems.”

Part 6AA Flexible working
Duties of employer

69AAFGrounds for refusal of request by employer

  1. An employer may refuse a request only if the employer determines that the request cannot be accommodated on 1 or more of the grounds specified in subsection (2).

  2. The grounds are—

  3. inability to reorganise work among existing staff:
    1. inability to recruit additional staff:
      1. detrimental impact on quality:
        1. detrimental impact on performance:
          1. insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work:
            1. planned structural changes:
              1. burden of additional costs:
                1. detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand.

                  1. However, an employer must refuse a request if—

                  2. the request is from an employee who is bound by a collective agreement; and
                    1. the request relates to working arrangements to which the collective agreement applies; and
                      1. the employee's working arrangements would be inconsistent with the collective agreement if the employer were to approve the request.

                        Notes
                        • Section 69AAF: inserted, on , by section 5 of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Act 2007 (2007 No 105).
                        • Section 69AAF(1): replaced, on , by section 28 of the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2014 (2014 No 61).