Graduates may be interested to learn that the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has urged the government to extend the right to request flexible working to all workers.

This comes after reports suggested that Gordon Brown is to extend the right to request such an arrangement to parents of children up to 12 years old.

Commenting on the issue, Mike Emmott, CIPD employee relations adviser, said:
"We wholly support moves to extend the ‘right to request’ to more parents. But the government should be bolder still and extend the right to all workers.

"The danger with ever larger groups of people entitled to request flexible working, and a smaller number not entitled to do so, is that divisions will grow up in the workplace."

He added that numerous "enlightened" employers already allowed their staff to work flexibly irrespective of their family status, noting that an extension of such a right to all workers would "level the playing field".

Recent research indicated that small and medium-sized businesses are leading the way in flexible working practices.

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