If your employer agrees to you returning to work 4 days a week, SHOULD they reduce your job description by 4/5 and can they ask you to work 5 days when necessary?

[artichokes]

I wrote to my employer asking for to return 4 days a week and to work 'normal' hours on those days (10-6pm). Before my maternity leave I was fulltime and although my conditioned hours were 10-6pm I regularly worked longer than that to do the job (I was not payed overttime but this is normal at my work where we have long holidays to compensate for long hours).

Today I got a reply that says yes I can work 4 days but they will not reduce my job description at all and I may occasionally have to be flexible and work 5 days a week. The letter also says that my conditioned hours will be 10-6pm but in certain circumstances I may have to stay later.

So basically they are saying I can do 100% of my old job for 80% pay and I cannot rely on being home for the kids' bedtime or being off on a Friday. This is obviously a nightmare for childcare.

Am I wrong to feel this is unfair? I am reasonable senior in a public sector organisation and the letter implies that at my level of seniority some flexibility is required (i.e. they would not expect senior staff to complain about hours and days etc). I am not really sure how to respond.

Is it normal to go back to a full job description when you are working reduced hours? What does employment law say about this?

[GREENTREE]

try the acas web site www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1360

self tool it will give you all the answers best of luck

[LyraSilvertongue]

Completely unfair. 80% pay for 80% work is fair. You need to renegotiate with them or they will take the piss.

[MarthaFarquhar]

I work in the public sector, and received a written confirmation of my flexi-hours (0.6WTE). My contract remains the same, but I have the letter as additional verification that my hours are now limited to 21pw.

With regards to your comments about doing 5 days' work for 4 days' money, this is the reason I have chosen to work 3 days.

Colleagues who work four seem to have a barely (if at all) reduced workload, and are not really thought of as part-time, but take a pay cut. At 3 days per week the boundaries seem clearer.

[AxisofEvil]

Well I'm not so sure that it is completely unfair - will depend more on the circumstances.

If you hold a senior position then it is unrealistic to expect that there will never be a position where your input is needed on your day off, in the same way that neither before nor after children can you expect to have a guarantee you'll never need to work past six. So I don't think its unfair to expect a degree of flexibility of you when there is an urgent situation although I appreciate this is a childcare nightmare. This should though very much be a very occasional thing rather than a regular matter. Certainly the senior people I've known who have managed to negotiate a 4 day week have had to come in on their day off in the same way that they've had to come in weekends.

On the workload front whilst they might not be willing to reduce your responsibilities, are you not in a position to delegate more work meaning that you still end doing 80% of the hours you did before. Its not clear from your post whether you have suggested how the 20% reduction could be handled - if not you'd be in a stronger position if you went back with specific proposals as to how specific work could be dealt with. For instance could you sell (to your boss) a junior reporting straight to your boss on a specific matter as a "development opportunity" for the junior?

If you don't think this is workable is there any option to drop to 3 days and get a job share for the other 2?

[flowerybeanbag]

Don't know which of your two threads you will be using so I'm cutting and pasting my response from your other thread:

Employment law doesn't get involved in the content of job descriptions, that's between the employee and the employer.

If you were the one who proposed working reduced hours you obviously felt that your job could be done like this. How were you proposing it would work? Just bearing in mind your comment that you regularly worked longer than your contractual hours to get the job done, how were you proposing to do it in less time? Were you proposing some tasks that don't need doing at all, or that could be adjusted, or similar?

I ask because although it's not necessarily fair to ask you to work the same number of hours for reduced pay, whether or not your job description remains the same is something up for negotiation. If you only want to reduce your hours by one day, then a job share obviously isn't a possibility, so if you want this to work, you are going to need to propose how it will work. You can't just expect your employer to take some of your job away. What would happen to it?

You need a constructive proposal as to how it will work with you doing your job in less hours.

Oh, and again the flexibility is something to be negotiated between you, that would be something to discuss further and compromise about.

Might they be a bit more amenable to reducing flexibility if you took a different day off? I only say because everyone wants Fridays off, so if you are prepared to compromise on that, they may be prepared to compromise on how flexible you need to be.

[jkklpu]

Public sector orgs are often in the position to be more flexible than private sector for lots of reasons. But the employees need to be flexible, too.

I agree with those who suggest that you should make suggestions about how the job can be done at 80% and where the remaining 20% ends up. But the employer can't really be expecting you to do 5 days at the drop of a hat. Are they proposing that you'd get time off in lieue for the odd extra half-day around the place, perhaps that could be done from home? Or are they trying to say that they will ask you to work on your 5th day the night before if there's a deadline coming up?

At the moment, I'm working net 4 days/week but on a 2 weeks full-time//2 weeks 3 days/wk basis. The full-time weeks are good for both parties as I can cover meetings that happen on days I'm not always around and also get to plan doing loads in that fortnight; but then I have 2 nice short weeks at home with my 2ds.

It's never ideal for everyone but I think it's important that both sids show flexibility: flexible working isn't just rigidity of a non-traditional timetable; it has to have flexibility from both, which could incldue making up some hours at home in the evening at busy times, but making sure that you're paid for what you do, so maybe having time off in lieu, which exists in standard terms and conditions in the public sector.

Good luck with it.

[rookiemater]

I work 4 days a week ( requested 3 and was turned down) and like you my job description and delivery expectations were unchanged from full time. It was a price I was willing to pay as the alternative was full time.

The upside of 4 days a week is that you are almost full time so get included in interesting projects downside is you are almost full time so get more or less the same work load as a full timer and its up to you to either put your foot down or try to make it work.

If you routinely worked extra hours before you went on maternity leave and that is the expectation at your grade then I think its normal enough for them to expect you to do some on your reduced hours, maybe pro ratad in line with this. However I don't think it is fair or acceptable to say that there is likely for you to have to come in on your non working day on a random basis. That means you would have to organise child care just in case so effectively you would be better off going full time.

As flowerbeanbag says maybe different day off might help. I have Mondays off and whilst its nice to have a longer weekend and more time with DS I find that a) by Tuesday I'm quite keen to get back to work but by Friday I'm aching to spend time with DS and b) It feels like a big gap in the working week and mid week might be easier to manage.

Bit of a long response, but in short for me 4 days a week is a bit of a toughie with full time expectations but part time salary but I'd still rather do it than work 5 days a week.

Good luck, hope you get it sorted.