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An employer’s expectation that an employee will work long hours may be a provision, criterion or practice subject to the reasonable adjustment duty.

This is so even if the employee is not ordered to work them nor coerced in the sense of being deprived of any real choice.

The Court of Appeal so held in United First Partners Research v Carreras, www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/323.html
The claimant was an analyst. He had a cycling accident, and when he returned to work he experienced dizziness, fatigues and headaches. He initially worked a maximum of eight hours a day, but the employer then started asking him to work later in the evenings. When he agreed (despite finding the longer hours difficult) an expectation began to develop that he would do so.

By the time he resigned, there was an assumption he would be working one or two evenings a week, with the employer asking him which nights he would be working late rather than whether he was prepared to work at all.

The Court of Appeal held this was was a provision, criterion or practice subject to the reasonable adjustment duty under the Equality Act 2010.

More: Examples of reasonable adjustments>Expectation of long hours.