Back in 2002, Woman’s Hour asked me to speak about my experience as a lawyer trying to persuade my law firm employer to allow me to work flexibly. This interview was in the context of whether or not women in the City were still being discriminated against either in terms of their pay levels or in terms of how their career progresses.

I am far more interested in the fact that it just makes business sense for businesses to encourage flexible working rather than the discrimination issues and was disappointed that the programme did not focus on the business case and explore that in detail; I think it would have made for a more interesting debate. In my view, the only way to move the idea of flexible working forward is not through legal penalties but through encouraging employers to see the benefits for their business.At the time, the only way I could appeal to them was through the law - now I have the experience of how to make the business case work and can appeal to them through the economic, real estate, environmental, human resources and business benefits.

Although I appreciate that this programme is a while ago now, the debate still continues.

The link is to a Real Player audio file, hence you will need Real Player installed. If you are having problems then here is the direct link to the BBC Woman’s Hour web page.

This programme was in 2002 - the same year that the Employment Act 2002 came into force introducing legislation giving parents of children under 6 (under 18 if disabled) the right to request a flexible working pattern. The circumstances surrounding my own request were prior to the introduction of the legislation. The only redress I had at the time was to bring a claim for unfair dismissal under the Sex Discrimination Act due to indirect sex discrimination. This claim was on the basis that to insist on me working full-time without reasonable justification, was tantamount to discrimination because the courts recognise that it is still harder for a woman to work full-time than a man. This is because our culture is still such that the "burden" of childcare still falls mainly on a woman.

To win my case, I had to prove that my job could be performed on a flexible basis and not just on a full-time basis. It was whilst I was trying to obtain objective evidence as to my ability to perform my role flexibly that I realised that nobody was providing this evidence - I therefore set up Time4balance.

I settled the case a week before the trial but lost my career in the process. I felt that if I didn’t do something about it, the firm would continue to make it impossible for their lawyers to work flexibly with the resultant loss of careers for all those  other lawyers.  It is still an issue in 2007 in law firms, but it is becoming very gradually more acceptable to work flexibly in some of the firms.

I intend to do a post on the legislation governing flexible working: in particular the link between the "Right to request" legislation under the Employment Act 2002 and the indirect sex discrimination provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 as many organisations do not appear to have made the link that these pieces of legislation run in parallel.

Anna Kavanagh - Feb 07

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