For some roles and organisations, remote work might be impossible. With that said, an employer can refuse an application if they have a good reason for doing so.

If you do choose to refuse a flexible working application, as an employer, you must inform the employee that you’ve rejected their application.

Employers can reject an application for any of the following reasons:

• extra costs that will damage the business
• the work cannot be reorganised among other staff
• people cannot be recruited to do the work
• flexible working will affect quality and performance
• the business will not be able to meet customer demand
• there’s a lack of work to do during the proposed working times
• the business is planning changes to the workforce
• work physically cannot be done from home