Are Pricewaterhouse any good with flexible working for (fairly) senior staff?

[ritherdon]

Am thinking about a job at pwc; they seem to make a big deal about flexible working but is it something they practice as well as preach? Would they let me do 3 days in office and 1 or 2 at home? I'm a lawyer - so not the case that I'd have to visit clients regularly.

[EldonAve]

Not sure how they are on home working
My friend was able to get part time term time only

[employeenamechange]

Have namechanged as don't want to out myself. Don't know about PwClegal as I am in the main PwC bit but in my dept there is lots of parttime working and quite a bit of working from home/other offices a few days a week.

Minimum (realistically) for parttimers is 3 days per week, but if you wanted to be full time but work 1 or 2 days from home (or 4 days including 1 day from home) tbh I would be staggered if that was a problem. Do you want me to ask around in PwClegal discreetely? What area do you work in?

[ritherdon]

hi namechange - very helpful info. I'm in regulatory.

[changeofnameforthispost]

Not an answer to the question but I'm in a similar position, thinking about a job with the Government Legal Service. They say some really positive things about flexible working arrangements but I'd be interested to know how common part-time or working one day a week from home really is. I'd have quite a long commute so being able to work one day a week from home could make all the difference.

Hope things work out for you with pwc, ritherdon.

[staffmember]

I also work there and work 1 day a week from home and there were no issues. Quite a few of the female partners/directors/senior managers with kids work 4 days or a day from home so people are used to it. Obviously you do get the odd tosser implying that you sit and watch Jeremy Kyle all day but they're never anyone who actually matters.

It's written into my contract that I work from home that day but I also have quite a few colleagues who work from home on an ad hoc basis and that doesn't seem to cause any issues either.

Can't think PwCLegal would be any different from the rest of the firm in that respect.

[employenamechange]

Have asked - yes Legal have both parttime people and people who work from home, including a partner who works parttime. I think from the discussion I had it is slightly less common than in the 'PwC' bit, and probably doesn't have as much of an established track record of parttime people being promoted simply because it is much smaller. But I would think it is absolutely fine to have a robust conversation about it and I can't think it would be a problem; quite a lot of the time PwC are the 'clients' for PwC legal and it is perfectly normal for us to work flexibly.

[Parmageddon]

I have a friend who works in law for E&Y, she has negotiated part time and from home working - not sure exactly what the balance is though, but would have thought PwC would be the same.

[anotherperson]

Another namechanger here. I know of one person who left PWC because their preferred hours (shortened working days) meant that partners would not book them out to clients, so even though their hours were OK as far as PWC were concerned it meant she was bored to tears doing adminny stuff, rather than being out at clients. Not sure that would be applicable in your case.

My experience has been that after I was offered a job there (ie full-time, non-flexi) one of the partners mentioned in passing that of course it was absolutely fine to work at least one day a week from home if I wanted - it was definately not a carrot that they used to try to tempt me to join, but simply that they seemed to think it normal to work from home part of the time if you had kids. And that is at all the levels I think (I joined at director level).

Having been in a number of firms I have to say that PWC are one of the few firms that do seem to 'walk the walk' and don't just pretend to be family-friendly.

[Oblomov]

Same as anotherperson. Close friend very senior in Pwc. She does Tax. Post maternity leave, Not booked to clients, meaningless admin stuff, left after 15 years, with HUGE HUGE pay out.

[fairyteapot]

Thanks all - you've given me the confidence to broach the topic with them. We'll see.