Flexible Work Arrangement Requests Singapore: Employer Steps

Singapore’s Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests (TG-FWAR) expect every employer to have a process for formal requests, to consider each one on business grounds and to give a written decision within two months of receiving it, with the reason if the answer is no. You do not have to approve every request.

An illustrative case. On Monday 12 October 2026 an accounts executive who finished probation last year emails her office manager to ask for Wednesdays and Fridays at home from 4 January to 30 June 2027, giving a long commute as her reason. Is that a formal request, and when must you answer? If your firm has stipulated no requirements of its own, a written request with the date, the arrangement, a reason and start and end dates is formal, and a written decision is due within two months of receipt. It is general information from MOM and TAFEP pages rechecked on 17 October 2026, not legal advice.

What counts as a formal flexible work request?

Largely, your own process decides. The guidelines say employers should have a process for formal requests, such as a work portal or email to a supervisor (paragraph 10). If you stipulate requirements, such as a format, template or required information, the employee should follow them by default (paragraph 11); MOM’s page says you should tell employees upfront, and its FAQ says a company form asking for more or less information may still count as formal. Where you have no requirements, the employee can make a formal request in writing with four items: the date; the arrangement requested, with expected frequency and duration; the reason; and the requested start and end dates, if relevant. A request without them is not formal and not covered (paragraph 12).

The guidelines’ own examples show how much turns on your process. An email asking to move daily hours from 8am–5pm to 10am–7pm to take a child to school, for a stated year, is formal if you have no process: it is in writing, gives the frequency and duration and the reason, and the message date records the date of the request. If your process requires the HR portal, the same email is not valid, and the guidelines say the employer may remind the employee of the process and encourage her to resubmit. A spoken request is non-formal: you may process it, but if you have no process and do not accept such requests, the employee can submit a formal one.

MOM says you should still have a process for employees who want to file a formal request, and the FAQ on the guidelines says TAFEP will not look into complaints that fall short of a formal one.

What should your request form capture?

Start from the four items above, which TAFEP’s employer guide says your process should tell employees to include. The guidelines’ Annex A template adds current and requested days, location, times and frequency, and TAFEP links Word versions of it, an employer response form and a sample policy. We would add four lines, as suggestions:

• Received date: the day the request reaches you, logged by a named person.
• Channel: a role and an email address or portal, so it is clear whether a request is valid.
• Approver: the FAQ PDF says employers can choose who approves and suggests stating it in the process.
• Review date: when the arrangement will be looked at again, which the FAQ PDF says employers and employees may agree.

How long do you have to give a decision?

Two months from receipt, in writing. The guidelines say employers “should provide a written decision within two months from receiving the request”, which includes engaging the employee on clarifications and discussions as well as communicating approval or rejection (paragraph 21). MOM’s page puts it as “You have 2 months to respond”. The wording is “should”, but the guidelines call their minimum requirements ones all employers “are required to abide by” (paragraph 2) and MOM’s April 2024 release calls them “mandatory”. Our inference: treat two months as a deadline, not a target.

An illustrative timeline for a fictional 24-person bookkeeping firm in Tampines, whose process sends requests to the office manager by email. A request that follows it, for Wednesdays and Fridays at home from Monday 4 January 2027 to Wednesday 30 June 2027, reaches her on Monday 12 October 2026. Only the two-month period comes from the guidelines; the counting and interim steps are our suggestions.

• Monday 12 October 2026: request received and the date logged.
• By Friday 16 October: written acknowledgement, and a meeting booked with the employee and her supervisor.
• Week of 19 October: discuss what it would change and which alternatives she could accept.
• By Friday 13 November: draft decision tested against the grounds below, leaving four weeks in hand.
• Friday 11 December 2026: last weekday inside the period.
• Saturday 12 December 2026: two calendar months after receipt.

The guidelines do not say how to count. Calendar months is our reading, and 60 days from 12 October also lands on Friday 11 December, so Friday is the safe date either way. The Annex A template asks for a decision “within 2 months of the date of this request”, while paragraph 21 counts from receipt, so if a form is dated before it reached you, planning to the earlier date is the cautious course (our suggestion).

Which reasons for refusing are reasonable?

You are not required to approve every request (MOM’s FAQ), but the guidelines say a refusal “should be based on reasonable business grounds and not personal bias against FWAs” (paragraph 18). They and TAFEP’s guide give these examples of reasonable grounds:

• Cost: a significant increase in the cost burden to the employer.
• Productivity or output: a significant decrease in the quantity or quality of individual, team or organisational productivity or output, or a negative effect on the organisation’s ability to meet customer needs.
• Feasibility: not feasible or impractical because of the nature of the job role, no capacity to change other employees’ work arrangements, or a need to hire new employees to accommodate the request.

And these examples of unreasonable grounds, which are not directly linked to business outcomes:

• Belief: management does not believe in FWAs.
• Sight: the supervisor prefers direct sight of the employee in the office to see if they are working, even though performance is consistently satisfactory.
• Custom: the organisation has never allowed FWAs, or does not want to start because others may ask too.

MOM’s FAQ on demonstrating business grounds calls the list non-exhaustive and lets you add reasons specific to your company or sector, focused on the employee’s job and the effect on the business. On whether you can reject because you disagree with the employee’s reason, MOM says you may reject on business-related reasons. Having no FWA policy is not a ground either: the FAQ PDF says employers still need to assess and respond to formal requests. Where valid business grounds exist, employers are not expected to approve the same arrangement for every employee at once (paragraph 7c).

Our suggested ground test (not a guideline test): before writing “productivity”, name the output affected; before “cost”, name the amount; before “feasibility”, name the duty that must be done on site. If you cannot, you may be refusing on preference.

What should the written decision say?

The guidelines ask for a written decision that, if it rejects the request, should “include the reason for rejection”, and encourage you to discuss alternatives (paragraphs 21 to 23). Annex B’s response form covers the arrangement, the employee’s reason, the impact on work, team and clients, the outcome and justification, and for an approval the agreed work expectations, start date, duration and next review date.

A reply that states the reason and offers an alternative could run like this. The facts are fictional, with feasibility as the ground.

1. Reference: “Thank you for your request dated 12 October 2026 to work from home on Wednesdays and Fridays from 4 January to 30 June 2027.”
2. Outcome: “After we met on 21 October, we are unable to approve the request as made.”
3. Reason: “Friday is our client-filing day and the filing desk needs two people on site. No one else can cover that desk without a new hire.”
4. Alternative: “We can offer Wednesdays at home from 4 January to 30 June 2027, with a review on 1 April 2027. Please tell us whether this works for you.”
5. Next step: “If you would like to discuss this further, please let us know. You can also raise a concern through our grievance procedure.”

MOM says you can review an approved arrangement early for unforeseen operational exigencies, but advises saying so upfront.

What else do MOM’s FAQs settle for employers?

The FAQ PDF (which carries no date) and MOM’s web FAQs answer several practical cases:

• Disagreements: MOM strongly encourages resolving them through the company’s grievance handling; our guide to setting one up for the Workplace Fairness Act shows how. If a rejection gives reasons that are not business-related, an employee can approach TAFEP, as a potential breach. The FAQ PDF adds that an employer is in breach of the TG-FWAR if it has no process to consider formal requests or rejects one without reasonable business grounds.
• Injury working from home: work injury compensation turns on whether the injury arose out of and in the course of work, wherever it happened, and the regime is no-fault, so you may be liable even if the employee ignored your safety advice.
• Working from overseas: the guidelines generally apply to formal requests within Singapore, and the FAQ suggests legal advice on the right to work and on tax, and a check with your insurer, before you grant one.
• Frontline roles and flexi-load: fixed on-site timings may rule out types such as telecommuting; for round-the-clock services such as healthcare the FAQ suggests flexi-shift or flexi-load roles. Flexi-load that changes total hours typically means a proportionate reduction in pay, agreed before it starts.
• Number of requests: MOM says there is no limit on how many requests an employee can make.
• Fairness law: the FAQ PDF, which calls the Workplace Fairness legislation “upcoming”, says approving or rejecting an FWA is not covered by it or by the fair employment guidelines, but people should be assessed on relevant factors, not on whether they ask for flexible work. Our fair-hiring decision log shows the same job-related habit.

A checklist for your request process

• Write down how a formal request is made (channel, form, required information, who receives and who decides) and tell staff upfront.
• Check the probation period in each employee’s written terms; our first-employee checklist covers where it is recorded.
• On the day a request arrives, log the date and diary the last working day inside two months.
• Test every refusal ground against the job, then decide in writing with the reason and an alternative where one exists.

Our guide to writing a process people use shows how to turn this list into steps a busy manager follows; more employer guides are under operations.

Common questions