The survey of 600 people found that that many mothers feel that employers are unsympathetic towards their need to work flexibly, with 39% saying that they would prefer to work from home some of the time.

Even taking into account the source of the survey, this does seem to be a very high figure and suggests that some employers are not alert to the dangers of discrimination claims for refusing requests for flexible working.

This was demonstrated in British Airways Plc v Starmer EAT/0306/05 [subscription required], where the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld an employment tribunal's finding that British Airways' refusal to permit Mrs Starmer, a pilot, to halve her hours amounted to indirect sex discrimination. She had brought her sex discrimination claim in the employment tribunal after the employer had agreed to only a 25% reduction in hours.

One of the striking elements of this case is that British Airways followed the statutory request procedure, but was still found to have discriminated against Mrs Starmer. The case was settled [subscription required], so we didn’t get guidance from the Court of Appeal on this subject.

It’s instructive that, when making the announcement that it was dropping the appeal, British Airways said that Mrs Starmer had been able to maintain high standards of performance, even though she was having less flying time. It shows that employers that fail to accommodate working mothers can miss out on a huge pool of skills and experience.

Read more about the findings on the BBC website.