KEY POINTS:
A campaign will be launched at Parliament today to extend flexible working hours proposals to all employees, not just those with dependent or disabled children.
Labour Minister Ruth Dyson will also release a discussion document looking at options for NZ and what has happened overseas, particularly in Britain, where employers have been made to consider requests for flexibility.
About 20 groups will form the Quality Flexible Working Hours Coalition, among them unions, parenting organisations and business groups, to extend the bill before Parliament to all employees.
Their campaign would see employers having to consider requests from all employees for more flexible working hours, as set out in a private member's bill.
The bill, in the name of Green MP Sue Kedgley, has been parked at a select committee for a year while Department of Labour officials have studied impacts on New Zealand.
The success of the bill depends on Labour's position, which has not yet been decided. The committee is due to report back on the legislation next year.
Ruth Dyson said flexibility encompassed everything from changing start and finishing times, to compressing work days to a four-day week, to working from home.
The UK experience showed that 90 per cent of requests had been accepted, boosting productivity and morale.
Business NZ chief executive Phil O'Reilly said the UK scheme had unintended negative consequences.
"In particular, what it has led to is queuing behaviour. So if I'm the first or the second employee to ask for flexibility I get it, and that's fantastic, but if I'm the 20th employee to ask for it I don't get it and that's actually not a good outcome."
Flexibility was something that most employees might need only temporarily and yet the consequences of the UK law meant there would be less flexibility when it was needed, he said.
"We think the idea of flexibility should remain utterly flexible. There is a need for a lack of rigidity in black letter law here."
