Since the 2022 amendments, staff don't need to just informally ask for different hours anymore — the Employment Act now gives them a formal right to apply for flexible working arrangements, and gives you a specific, timed obligation to respond. Most shift-based employers have never actually run this process, which is exactly when it's easiest to get wrong.
What counts as a flexible working arrangement
Section 60P covers requests to vary any of three things: the hours of work, the days of work, or the place of work. For a shift-based business that's a genuinely broad scope — a request to swap from rotating shifts to a fixed pattern, to compress hours into fewer days, or to work part of a shift remotely (for back-office or admin-adjacent roles) all fall under the same provision.
The request has to be in writing — and so does your answer
An employee applies in writing, and the employer must respond in writing within 60 days. The response can approve the request, reject it, or approve a modified version — but a rejection has to come with reasons. There's no prescribed list of acceptable reasons in the Act itself, which in practice means genuine operational grounds (coverage gaps, cost, safety) hold up far better than a rejection with no explanation at all.
Why this is a scheduling problem, not just an HR one
The 60-day clock starts the moment a valid written request lands — which means an approved change has to actually get reflected in the roster, not just filed away in an HR folder. For a small team, one staff member moving from rotating to fixed shifts can ripple into everyone else's pattern; the practical failure mode here is usually a late or half-implemented change, not an outright unlawful refusal.
It doesn't override other statutory rules
Approving a flexible arrangement doesn't suspend the rest of the Act — rest-day entitlements, overtime thresholds, and spread-over limits still apply to whatever new pattern is agreed. A "flexible" arrangement that quietly creates a rest-day violation or an uncompensated overtime pattern is still a compliance problem, just a newer one.
The practical takeaway
Treat a written FWA request as a clock starting, not a casual conversation — track the 60-day deadline, put any rejection reasons in writing, and make sure an approved change actually lands in next week's roster, not just in a file.