to think that large organisations, such as universities, may have decent flexible working policies

[choufleur]

I've seen a job that i would really like, and obviously would be great at. So I called the large university to ask what their flexible working policy was and whether they would consider less than full time working (i mentioned 30 hours over 4 days) or job share for a job that was advertised as full time and was told "No, sorry it's full time".

well job share would be full time, and 30 hours is practically full time.

[MrsMattie]

I can't see why they wouldn't consider a job share. I think more employers should think about this. It is a win-win situation, as it means mums don't end up doing part time work they are over qualified for because that's all that they can get, and organisations don't lose staff they have invested in once they have kids. No brainer.

However, if it's full time, I can see why they wouldn't consider 30 hours.

Do they really have no flexible working policy?

[flowerybeanbag]

YANBU to hope they'd have a decent flexible working policy. Indeed they might, for existing staff.

But the trouble is, in this climate, they are probably getting hundreds of suitable applicants all willing to work full time, meaning there is very little immediate incentive for them to go through the hassle of either adjusting the job to reduce the hours or starting a recruitment campaign to get the other half of a job share.

[Fairynufff]

From my experience education is the worst place to get flexible working. They bend over backwards to accommodate all the students needs but never the staff.

[choufleur]

They did say the possibly would do job share but only if someone else applied at the same time as me wanting to do the other half of the job and we were the two best candidates.

don't fancy my chances on that one.

[flowerybeanbag]

My sympathies but you can see their point about that. If they ran a recruitment campaign looking for a full time position, then offered you a job share, they'd then have to do another campaign to get the other half of a job share.

Two or three months down the line, if they still haven't found anyone suitable, they are back at square one, having forked out more recruitment costs and the full time candidates they did have will be gone, so they'll probably have to start again.

[marialuisa]

I work in a large HEI and we have to make a case for not advertising posts as open to job share and there is a great deal of flexibility about working arrangements. However there is no single flexible working policy as the organisation is so diverse it wouldn't be practical.

I find jobshare a bit of a nightmare (as a manager) though as IME applicants have very set ideas about what hours they would do and don't really think about how likely it is that we would be able to find someone suitable to fill the remaining hours.

[choufleur]

i know the pros and cons of job share, as i've done it before and manage people who job share. I can see their point flowery. i just think that many employers get out of offering any flexible working to new employers because they don't want to think about the benefits.

I work 4 days a week at the moment doing a full time job. It's hard and i generally work a lot harder when at work than i did when i worked five days.

[flowerybeanbag]

There are benefits to offering flexible working generally, yes, but most of those benefits are about recruiting and retaining good/better staff by offering it.

It is likely that at the moment, neither of those things is a problem though, so it might not be a case of 'getting out' of offering flexible working, more a case of why on earth would they. I'm not saying they shouldn't, obviously I think they should, in an ideal world, but if there are hundreds of qualified full time candidates, you'd be hard-pressed to be able to demonstrate that there would be any benefit to them recruiting you on a job share or part time basis.

If they could easily do it and were turning away excellent candidates in favour of less good ones, absolutely agree, it's then very short-sighted.

[Reallytired]

The difference is that you are competing against people who are prepared to be flexible rather than people who are asking for flexiblity. An employer will take the person who is best for the job.

My job has a degree of flexible working, but I have to be flexible towards my employer as well as my employer returning the favour. For example, I might stay late to do an IT update, but on a different day my employer would let me have the afternoon off to take my son to a medical appointment.

"They bend over backwards to accommodate all the students needs but never the staff. "

Aren't the students what a university is there for? Or am I missing something?

[FairLadyRantALot]

if you could do 30 hours over 4 days anyway...is there nt maybe a chance to do full time...like you say, not much difference anyway...
I mean, if this is a job you really would like to do, and al that....

[flowerybeanbag]

What fairlady said. Could you not do full time for six months and then be in a perfect position to request a reduction to 4 days?

[choufleur]

Perhaps i'm just spoilt at the moment as my employer is really flexible. However, reallytired i can be flexible too, for example i do switch my day off and come in early, work late.

I take everyone's point that employers would have to make changes to accommodate someone who was asking to do something other than that advertised. I just think that employers should be a bit more open to flexible working and its many benefits (of course i biased).

[choufleur]

what happens if they refuse flexible working after six months though?

30 hours means that i get to spend an extra day with my son: which is important to me.

if i could guarantee being successful in a felxible working request after six months i would go for it, but i can't.

[flowerybeanbag]

You can't guarantee it, no, but they must consider it properly and can only refuse for a proper business reason.

If you are already confident that the job could be done in 30 hours before you even get there, demonstrating that it can be done once you are there should be much easier. If you are doing a fabulous job, are valuable to your employer and can easily demonstrate how your hours could be reduced with no negative effect and in fact with a positive effect on them, it will be difficult to say no.

[MillyR]

Reallytired, no a University is not there mainly for the students. They are also research institutions. In some departments undergraduates will not even be one of the top 3 funding sources. The main job of many academics is not teaching students.

[Reallytired]

Even if undergraduate students aren't the principle source of income they still pay thousands of pounds in fees. They are paying customers and it is reasonable for them to expect a good service.

Anyway if you were going to research in the real world you would not get the levels of flexiblity of a university. I used to work for the scientific civil service and there were deadlines that had to be met and I had core hours of 9.30 to 4pm and if I took any time off ie. flexi/ annual leave I had to give notice.

In non research jobs there is even less flexibility. I have some flexibility in my job, but nothing compared with what I had in the scientific civil service.

An employer employs someone for a job of work. Its one thing to ask for flexibiltiy when you have proved yourself in a job, its quite another to expect it when a new employee.

[BoffinMum]

Reallytired, it's irrelevant really what the undergraduates pay and what level of 'service' they expect, because this is only half of most academics' contractual roles. So we are expected to be available for students half the time, in other words, and half the time for other duties. Taxpayers and commercial organisations also have demands to make on us, and they pay universities a lot more money than the undergraduates do, if you are going to look at it in strictly commercial terms. However between you and me, most of us are partial to the students, and like to put in a bit of extra effort to help them, although that's not officially the setup.

[BoffinMum]

Also choufleur, universities are a bit more family friendly than many organisations, but at the end of the day it is very competitive and you have to put the hours in to succeed.

One of my staff members recently arranged to come back off maternity leave and decided to work three days a week, timetabling it for her own convenience and so on, without a great deal of liaison with the rest of the department. So far so good.

However she managed to physically timetable herself out of a lot of key university and teaching activities that would help her career in doing this, leaving other people to take over those important roles for her because there were various sensible organisational and logistical reasons why, with the best will in the world, they couldn't fit around her baby's childcare timetable (messing hundreds of other people around drastically for a start, and forcing loads of student parents to reorganise their own childcare at great expense to attend university at odd times in the evening).

This honestly hadn't occurred to her as being a potential problem until I pointed it out. I basically said she had a choice - spend time with her child on her own terms, or compromise a little to advance her career. It all depended on which she wanted more. They weren't completely mutually exclusive, but a degree of common sense needed to prevail.

The fact of the matter is that both employees and employers have to work towards flexibility and there is never an ideal solution IME, only compromise.

[stickylittlefingers]

Reallytired - I work as a lawyer, so obviously I work for my clients and "bend over backwards" for them, but wouldn't you find it odd if the managing partners didn't try to make sure that we were protected from our clients' needs to a certain extent? Otherwise I would never go home! I think academics (who have a more diverse portfolio of stakeholders to serve, if we are going to use the whole customer service jargon) deserve some protection from the students too!

Not sure if OP is talking about an academic or a support role? If the latter - agree with Boffinmum - it's clear from dp and his colleague's workloads that the idea of keeping the hours down would be career suicide. They work late, work weekends for a fraction of the pay that e.g. lawyers do. Makes you wonder why they do it! But on that logic we wouldn't have a whole lot of other highly qualified public sector workers. I do find it ironic that he's the one with the double first, but I'm the one (with my "solid" 2:1) making all the money.

[BoffinMum]

Stickylittlefingers, it's because research is actually quite addictive, and most of us really like teaching at that level too, as it's generally pretty creative. But of course if people want to pay us along the lines of lawyers for doing this, I am sure we would all be delighted!

[stickylittlefingers]

Yes, dp doesn't ever stop thinking about his subject it seems! And he loves the teaching too ... You're a funny lot . I wish he was paid the same as me tho - we'd be so RICH!! But one of us has to be the good guy

[BoffinMum]

All my lawyer friends are very unhappy though and say they're only doing it for the filthy lucre. That's a bit of a disincentive. As is the thought of working your butt off to make partner and watching young whippersnapper males overtake you. As is billing by the 60-second slot in such an anal fashion, knowing that sometimes it will almost cripple people settling your bill, but having to ignore your conscience. Stuff like that.

However, Sticky, I am sure you are a completely different kind of lawyer, content, placid and beloved of your clients.

[stickylittlefingers]

That's right, a content and placid corporate lawyer! I sold my conscience to the highest bidder when I realised dp had expensive tastes but a love for the moral highground.

Sigh!

[BoffinMum]

At least you can live a corduroy free life and you won't have to ring your clients on their mobiles to find out whether they have died of meningitis or not.