A 9 hour day not too long?

You might find it will help your case if you can make clear to your manager

• that you can manage to leave your last appointment, do school pickup, hand your child off to evening childcare, and be at your desk ready to work, all within the half hour break (sorry I might have misunderstood and it might be longer)
• what your childcare arrangements are for when you are back home i.e. that you won’t be juggling childcare and work.

Blimey! Where do people work who think 9 hours is a long day?? I want their job 🤣🤣

I teach (primary) and am in my classroom by 7am and never leave until around 6pm. Rarely get even 5 minutes to myself from the second I'm in the door and haven't actually eaten lunch since about 1995! Not even joking, sadly 😢

Work day isn't even done when I leave school premises either...so I'd say 9 hours over 4 days is an absolute dream!! Ignore the negative naysayers, go for it!! 🙌🏼

Surely the point of compressed hours is (often) 4 longer days then day 5 as non-working, in which case the OP’s proposal sounds ok to me?

A relative of mine does 8/6 shifts at the nursery she works at with 1 hour 30 commute each way. Not every day but it absolutely does her in.
I honestly think it depends on the job. A very physical one like that is not really comparable to a sit down job and a shorter commute.

But firstly, do they know she works later? And secondly if it’s an issue that she works beyond her ‘formal’ end time, then that’s a performance issue they should have brought up but haven’t – so they can’t bring it up now.

Seeing as OP currently stays late every night to do her job (over five days) - it doesn't sound like it would be that difficult to justify why she can't drop her hours even further.

I agree. Most of my jobs have been 8hrs + a mandatory unpaid 1hr lunch (not including overtime in this which I worked v often), so at a minimum I’d be at the office for 9hrs a day. 9-6pm is a short day for me.

When I worked in retail 9-6 was pretty standard, with a total of 1.5hrs break in that.

Currently work in an office, after having DS I negotiated to do my 32hrs over four days, so 8 hours a day plus a minimum 30 minute break. Worked really well for me, things changed when Covid hit and I started WFH.

It's not too long but as a manager I would need to be able to be convinced you actually had the capacity to work properly until 6, school pick ups, supervising children etc doesn't count towards the hours. Wfh (or hybrid) is something that is easily abused which would be my concern. Dp doesn't have hybrid except in exceptional occasions for this reason, simply didn't work

Any manager up to the job of being a manager would know that’s not adequate though.

The onus is on the business to prove it will be detrimental to the business – the proof has to be hard proof. At the very least they have to allow her a trial to then establish it harms the business.

Well I worked more than 9 hours, some days in full time job , in public service role, nothing unusual, but I’m not sure what the routine is now.🤷‍♀️

They can't decline flexi-working for that reason though.

No, but they can just easily deny it because it doesn't suit the needs of the business.

Yes I do know that, but it will likely be the reason, hence the initial vague manager response

Now that you’ve said you work for the civil service,..that then explains it all!!

12 hr shifts are not unusual in the nhs! I was in a non nhs healthcare role with annualised hours, my first manager was fine and I flexi’d my hours for 5 years as 9-6 meant I didn’t then spend extra time sat in rush hour traffic. …..but on returning after mat leave and a change to a dick head manager who took a dislike to me suddenly it became a “ concern”. It’s utterly dependant on job role and your own work circumstances/ needs of the organisation so good luck with arguing your case.

I work a compressed week. My contract is to do 9 h 15 a day, 4 days per week. I usually do 10h 30 m per day and build up Flexi time. I much prefer having the extra day off. I don't have any children or caring responsibilities so much easier for me to manage than it might be for people with different circumstances.

I would request it as trial period and see how it works for you and your employer.

My compressed hours are 9-7, 4 days a week. Can't see any issue with what you're proposing.

They can't decline flexi-working for that reason though.

Agreed. 9 is normal.
My working day is usually between 10 and 12 hrs.

Yeah, and they have no right to do that. If they are declining, they need to provide a business case in writing. They need to demonstrate how agreeing to this will negatively impact on their organisation from the operational perspective. Hypothetical scenarios or vague comments about "too long a day" are not a valid reason.

It sounds fine especially if you get a full 5th day off.
There's usually a trial period built in to flexible working requests so if your manager has concerns you can suggest a 6 month trial and if you feel like the days are too long then revise the plan

9 hours is the standard working day in my industry, however I’ve seen a lot of people slide into working an extra day for free because they look at mails and do admin on their ‘day off’. You need to be very clear that you’re not available unless there’s an actual emergency, not just an inconvenience.