Every summer, the requests start coming in.

“Could I work from home on Fridays while the kids are off?”

“I need to shift my start time for six weeks.”

“Can I drop Wednesdays during the holidays?”

Here’s what you need to know before you say yes or no.

What U.S. employers need to know

With a few state and local exceptions, there’s no law in the U.S. that gives employees the right to request flexible work arrangements or requires you to consider a request on any particular timeline.

Vermont, New Hampshire and San Francisco are among the places with right-to-request rules, so it’s worth checking your own state and city.

As an employer, you generally have broad discretion to approve or deny flexible work arrangements.

One important exception: if an employee asks for a schedule change or remote work because of a medical condition, that’s a reasonable accommodation request under the ADA, not a discretionary one.

That triggers a different process, so it’s worth getting advice before you respond.

For everything else, that discretion comes with real responsibility.

The biggest risk for most small businesses isn’t the law itself. It’s consistency.

If you approve one employee’s request but reject another in a similar role without a clear business reason, you could create discrimination risk, particularly if the pattern affects employees based on gender, race, age or caregiving responsibilities.

The EEOC treats caregiver discrimination as unlawful when it’s rooted in sex-based stereotypes. For example, approving remote work for fathers but not mothers in similar roles (or vice versa) can attract scrutiny.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and other federal laws don’t require you to offer flexible working.

They do require you to make decisions consistently and without unlawful bias.

Legitimate reasons to say no

You don’t need a statutory list to decline a flexible work request, but your reason should be genuine and linked to the needs of your business.

Common legitimate reasons include:

• The role requires an in-person presence to serve customers or clients.
• The proposed schedule would create coverage gaps you can’t fill.
• It would place an unreasonable burden on other team members.
• The reduced hours don’t match the workload the role requires.
• You’ve already approved similar arrangements and can’t reasonably accommodate another.

What you shouldn’t do is refuse simply because it feels inconvenient or because you’d rather not deal with it.

An inconsistent pattern of undocumented decisions is where the real risk lies.

How to handle requests

When a request comes in:

• Consider it on its own merits.
• Respond in writing.
• Be consistent with previous decisions for similar roles.
• If you’re saying no, make sure you can clearly explain why.
• Before refusing, explore whether a temporary trial or a small adjustment could work instead.

Having that conversation demonstrates good faith and can reduce your exposure if your decision is ever challenged.

If you refuse a request, document the business reason and why it applies in that specific situation.

If you don’t already have a flexible working policy, now is a good time to create one. Even a simple policy explaining the factors you’ll consider puts you in a much stronger position than making ad hoc decisions with nothing documented.

Get ahead of the summer requests

Handling flexible work requests well requires:

• A clear policy.
• A consistent decision-making process.
• Documented reasons for every decision.

That’s exactly the sort of practical support we help business owners with every day.

If you’d like to get your approach buttoned up before the next request lands on your desk, get in touch.