Years after the Covid-19 pandemic, remote working remains an important fixture of the UK employment landscape. Whilst the proportion of employees who work remotely has fallen from the days of lockdowns and social distancing, ONS figures from May 2026 suggest that working from home (in some form) remains in the lives of roughly 41% of working adults – with about 13% being fully remote and around 28% working in a hybrid way.
Clearly, remote working is here to stay. This makes it all the more important for UK businesses to stay on top of the legal implications of having remote workers in their organisation.
Do employees have a legal right to remote working?
There is no automatic legal right for employees to be able to work from home. However, they do have a right to ask for flexible working.
As their employer, when you receive a flexible working request you must:
- Consider it reasonably and fairly; and
- Give your decision in writing within 2 months (unless you both agree to extend this)
If you wish to refuse the request, the basis for your decision must be one which is allowed by law. These are that:
- The extra costs involved would be harmful to your business
- It would affect the quality or performance of the work
- Other staff could not be reorganised or recruited to cover the work
- It would mean your business was unable to meet customer demand
- There is a lack of work at the working times proposed by the request
- There are planned changes to the workforce
Since April 2024, employees are able make a flexible working request at any time during their employment – even on their first day if they wish to – as there is no longer any requirement for a minimum period of employment. They are limited to a maximum of 2 requests per year, however, with only 1 ongoing request allowed at any time.
There are also more changes coming to this area of law. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025 (which is expected, at the time of writing, to come fully into force in 2027) employers will be required to explain why their decision for refusing a flexible working request was reasonable.
Offering remote working
If you wish to offer home or hybrid working arrangements to your employees, you can do so at any time. However, they will not be obliged to accept them, unless these arrangements are already stipulated in their employment contract.
The legal matters to consider for remote workers
Health and safety
Employers still owe a duty of care towards their remote employees. This means you must still take reasonable steps to make sure their working environment is conducive to their health and safety. This can include:
- Conducting Display Screen Equipment (DSE) assessments and workstation assessments to check for safe and comfortable screen use whilst working from home. These checks can often be completed virtually through a video call, or by the employee filling out a self-assessment questionnaire.
- Checking that employees are complying with the Working Time Regulations in respect of their working hours.
- Carrying out other risk assessments, for example regarding mental health, isolation, the risks of burnout, or the failure to maintain a healthy work/life balance.
Avoiding discrimination
There are several ways in which remote working could lead to potential discrimination.
It is important to be mindful of any unconscious bias towards employees who are on-site. With on-site employees being more visible, it can lead to an unwarranted sense that they are more productive, or more committed than their remote colleagues. Similarly, this proximity can result in on-site employees being consulted more frequently, and given greater involvement in decision-making.
If remote workers treated in this way share any ‘protected characteristics’ under discrimination legislation – i.e. age, disability, gender reassignment, marital/civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation – then they may have grounds for a discrimination claim.
In addition, remote workers cannot be targeted for redundancy just because they work remotely.
There is also a possible overlap between flexible working arrangements and accommodations made for disabled workers. A disabled worker can make a flexible working request (in the same way as outlined above) or they can request flexible working as a ‘reasonable adjustment’. An adjustment will be reasonable if it is:
- Practical
- Affordable
- Effective in removing or reducing the disadvantage from the employee’s disability; and
- Not harmful to the health or safety of others
You are legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments for disabled workers – and this can extend beyond ‘employees’ to include people classed as ‘workers’ and ‘independent contractors’.
Data protection and performance monitoring
Employees working off-site can create greater challenges with regard to keeping data secure. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) must be complied with throughout, with steps taken to assess data security risks from remote work, and to reduce them through software, hardware, and procedural safeguards.
Performance monitoring of remote employees should also be handled carefully to ensure that any measures are proportionate and transparent.
Practical tips for handling remote working
Create and implement a robust work-from-home policy
A strong, comprehensive work-from-home policy allows your business to set expectations for how remote working is handled, and ensures a consistent approach is taken with each employee. It should cover:
- When employees will be considered eligible for remote working
- The steps of the approval process
- Any expenses and benefits that will be paid for remote work
- What is expected in terms of data and equipment security
- How performance is monitored
Keep employee contracts up to date
If you agree to an employee’s flexible working request, you should update their contract of employment within 1 month to reflect the changes. Any terms which set the employee’s place of work should reflect their new remote or hybrid status. This helps to prevent contract terms from becoming outdated, which can lead to confusion and employment disputes.
Get expert legal advice
If you are unsure on how to handle the legalities of remote working, seeking specialist employment law advice can make matters clear.
At Ison Harrison, alongside expert legal advice, we offer an outsourced employment law and HR service, to guide you in setting up or updating contracts, policies, procedures, and handbooks. This allows you to be certain that all of your organisation’s employee materials are straightforward, comprehensive, and legally compliant.
If you would like to discuss this, or anything covered in the article, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
