To think my flexible working request will not unreasonable?

The right is that the request cannot be unreasonably denied. There is no right as a parent to work part time!

what about another day? Say Wednesday? Then you can complete whatever it is on Thursday?

They could still turn her down for regular days off though - employers have every right to dictate when you take your annual leave.

It’s a guarantee delay on each project irrespective of the client cares or not indeed
its obviously been brought to their attenti

This was my thinking too unfortunately. Your team (especially given they also have young families to navigate) may have been turned down for the same reason and may feel unwilling to take on the additional work without compensation for it. I think I'd be sticking it out until your Al runs out and looking elsewhere for something for that point. It's sad you are in a position to have to do that but unfortunately some jobs just don't lend themselves well to part time. I think the alternative is you look at a further drop and suggest a job share that one of your colleagues might go in with you on?

@Didimum except her boss has made to quite clear that it doesn't work

It hasn’t been a year. It’s been 3 months with another 3 to go.

The ongoing experiment is proving it, based on the OP’s own words!

@Didimum but as OP says in her opening post, it does not work.

Another option could be to claim up to 4 weeks per year of unpaid parental leave you are entitled to. You have to take this as whole weeks, but you could then use your leave not for holidays but for regular days off? Wouldn't stretch to weekly tho...

Yes, I have read all of the thread. As I said, I have also been on the employer end of this argument a great many times, with a strong HR team who know how this would play out if it came to a tribunal.

The reasons the company may want to refuse do not make it legitimate. The OP is currently working 4 days a week for a year – that is demonstrable proof that the arrangement works. The company do not have demonstrable proof that it doesn't work. They can't just 'think' it won't work – they have to robustly prove it.

If I was one of your colleagues with young kids I'd be annoyed that I had to finish your work as well as my own while you swanned off to spend time with your child when I couldn't spend time with mine.

I think management will worry it will set a precedent.

Could you do two 1/2 days from home this your generally around. I do that and love those days.

Can you take Monday off instead?

If so, wait until new regulations to apply.

Lol what universe are you in where you think any company runs its staff at 80% capacity? It doesn't make any kind of business sense to do that, and most companies can't hire as many people as they would like anyway.

I have seen it time and time again that excellent employees that are bulwarks of their teams leave because the management of the company can't get their heads out of their bums to sort out resourcing.

It's not that the company can't accommodate, it's that they won't.

The OP has already said that there have been some problems during the trial period while she has been using her annual leave. She's having to pass work on to other colleagues and there have been delays to time sensitive work that have impacted on their clients.

A Friday replacement wouldn't be feasible or desirable in many industries. The employer might be more willing to recruit a job share or second PT worker if the OP was willing to reduce her hours further to 0.5 or 0.6FTE.

Did you read the thread?! The first post spells out multiple reasons it could be refused.

employment threads in AIBU are just the pits. <goes back to the work and legal boards where advice is not based on opinion>

Can you request 4 days ... but say take Wednesday off rather than Fruday. That way work is only waiting 24 hours rather than 3 days. Gpid luck. Yiu e nothing to lose by asking.

Oh I agree, but she has the right to request it, so I was just setting out their options for refusal.

As OP says though, she is already working 4 days per week at the moment, so this is an opportunity to discuss with the employer what the issues currently are with that 4 day arrangement to see if there are ways around it. i.e. if it's the fact that she's currently taking every Friday off that's an issue, would it be better if it was a different day instead? Or is there a further compromise to do, say, a 9 day fortnight and take every other Friday off instead? Or a half day on a Friday, rather than a full day.

It is tricky for employers though (I'm one myself), because there's a few immediate thoughts that come to my mind:

• if it's possible to do the same work in 4 days anyway, why have we been paying someone for a full time job;
• if I agree and others have to pick up an extra day's worth of work between them, am I going to piss off the rest of my staff who have to do it?
• What if they all suddenly decided that they all fancy doing a 4 day week? It would get to a point where I'd have to recruit another person to make up the missing work, or at some point I'd have to start saying no to someone, and then it's not fair on whoever's request came in last.

Ultimately OP needs to be aware of the possibility that they might say no and not budge, so will need to either be accepting of that, or look for a part time job instead.

It does have to much stronger than this. You are correct. Most people do not fight their companies with denials, but if they did and external organisations got involved then their reasonings wouldn't hold up. Employees often don't want to go through this, however.

It’s not even new laws. It’s a draft bill - they are PROPOSALS and will undoubtably change (when someone with any level of business nous and sense reads them).

I haven't read the whole thread, but I think a lot of these responses have been very harsh! I work 4 days with a Friday off. My key stakeholders have come to learn my working pattern, and know if they want something doing by the end of the week they need to get it over to me with plenty of time on a Thursday. Or wait until the Monday. No-one cares. Like you say, it's an office job, not life or death. If employees want to retain good staff they need to show some degree of flexibility.

Again, it only doesn't work (and I can basically guarantee this) because management is incompetent. The team is evidently operating away from optimal resourcing levels. Those in charge of managing resourcing and timelines are bad at it.

The reason I make this point is that we have a tendency to view bad management as inevitable. That, as employees, we should just expect businesses to be completely incompetent at resourcing and timelines. The structure of a business isn't an accident. It's not a universal constant. We can and should expect competency.

The equations are genuinely really simple. You can produce so many units with so many manhours. If you have less manhours, you can produce less units. It's not a difficult idea. What they risk by denying flexible working is instead of losing 8 hours labour a week is losing 40 because OP leaves to go to a competitor that will accommodate her (and believe me, there are flexible businesses out there. Given OP seems to be so massively crucial to her team, any good business would jump at hiring her).

Incompetent, inflexible management lose staff.

(Again, not saying that OP will have her request granted. It's unlikely they will because they're probably massively incompetent).

Your boss's answer is not a justifiable reason to refuse. If you have a decent HR department, then they will advise your boss of this and the very least they have to offer is a trial period.

Did they recruit a mat leave replacement for you? How are they absorbing the work now you are having Fridays as annual leave for a year?

The latter point is very important, as if they are managing this, they cannot claim that the team/business cannot cope.

They should also be expected to attempt to recruit for a Friday replacement for you, if necessary, to prove that they couldn't.

I don't work flexi, but I am a director in the company I work for, have dealt with a lot of flexi work requests, and we have a very robust HR department who know their stuff and know it's extremely difficult for a business to refuse.

I agree with previous poster who said change your day off, avoiding Mondays and Fridays as your day off, then you don't have such a big gap