There is a general recognition that organisations need to be able to change and adapt as time passes and organisations have a certain amount of flexibility to change work practices where required, particularly in times of challenging economic circumstances. In this regard employers often include a “flexibility” or "variation" clause in an employee’s contract that purports to allow them to vary the terms and conditions of employment without any input from the employee. While this clause can be of some comfort to employers, it’s not a panacea and any changes implemented on foot of such a clause would need to be limited to changes to work practices such as changing certain duties of the employee, assigning new duties or changing the employee’s location of work.

For example, it would not normally be reasonable to try to reduce an employee’s pay, change their hours of work, or their holiday entitlements or pension rights without the consent of the employee. Such changes would most likely constitute a change to an employee's terms and conditions of employment, rather than a change to a work practice. An employer has more latitude to seek to rely on that flexibility clause to implement changes to work practices irrespective of the employees' input. But life in HR is rarely that simple – regardless of any such clause, employers must always ensure that any changes to work practices are implemented reasonably. While it may be reasonable to require an employee to work in a different building or as part of a different team at the same general location, it may not be reasonable to require that employee to start working from a location some distance from their current location or doing a substantially different role from that which they were hired to do.

The simple fact is that there is never a straight answer to this question and invariably the overarching requirement for employers to act reasonably would envisage some level of consultation being considered.