To think people who work part-time shouldn’t get the same promotion chances as full-timers?

Yeah you are being unreasonable, as someone who’s worked in different office settings, I have came across a concerning amount of lazy people, and most the time the harder workers are the part time parents or someone retiring but yet they do way more work and put more effort in to it than those full time. I understand maybe how long youv been there, like an employee who’s been there 10 years over someone who’s been there 2 “may be” a better option but it’s down to the person and their quality of work hopefully been able to prove themselves and not just been handed to them

No it seems that you have an issue with a person who is part time, better at the job than you are, but you feel entitled to the promotion because you work more hours…. Wait until you have childcare responsibilities

In my view, promotions should be awarded based upon experience and ability. The number of hours / days worked in a role should not have any bearing upon someone's ability to gain promotion - it should be a merit appointment.

Can’t believe this thread is still running but judging by the number of comments that time served/presenteeism is a core requirement for promotion the problem with UK productivity seems obvious.

You promote people on ability to do the job well both currently at the next level, self investment in skills/experience acquisition and performance/contribution pro rata’d against their contracted hours.

Promoting people for rocking up, spending eight hours each day to do the same relatively unvarying job is how you end up with mediocre departments and poor productivity. You might as well promote the office chair.

@ThatCandidBear I’ve ready your posts and I think you are coming at this from the point of view that if a role is “full time” then it needs someone there 37.5 + hours a week. Rather than about the capability of an employee.

What you are confusing is presenteeism with capability. In my experience employees and managers are quite limited in exploring creative options for flexible working. This includes job design and redesign.

I have seen women be constantly rated as outstanding who go part time after having a baby and their rating drops to above average. As they increase their hours and go back to full time their rating slowly moves up to outstanding again. This is unconscious bias based on presenteeism.

Some people work 60, 70 hours a week - that’s not full time, it’s doing two jobs. We have some jobs that need 24/7 or even 07:00 to 21:00 coverage, which one person is expected to do by working unpaid overtime. Technology has played a part e.g. emails, mobile phones, the ability to be contacted 24/7. As has the drive for efficiencies and the bottom line.

Everyone should be given equal opportunity for promotion and the best person should get the job. If the successful candidate works part time, has a disability etc. then either the role needs to be redesigned to accommodate that or creative solutions like job share, reasonable adjustments etc. should be used.

Even if they are better at the job than a full timer? Just ridiculous.

Do you mean men being in higher up positions? Yes, I dont know the stats but I would imagine that's very much the case. However there are a lot of women in managerial positions that perhaps wouldn't have been able to get there if they had not been able to climb the ladder because they went part time to care for their families. In my work, most of the higher positions are held by women and a lot of them are part time and job sharing.

Huh? But that IS exactly the way it is in real life. It's definitely not a "would be" situation it's reality.

Huh? But that IS exactly the way it is in real life. It's definitely not a "would be" situation it's reality.

Huh? But that IS exactly the way it is in real life.

I know people that are more productive working 3 days than the majority of their coworkers are in 5 days. How many hours one works has very little, if anything, to do with performance - it's what a person DOES with their work hours that matters.

You'd hate me OP.

Began my role full time.

Went off for maternity 2 years into role.

Went back to work part time.

Got promoted last week, but kept part time hours.

Many people have been at my place of work for 10+ years, but different people have different aspirations. I've made it clear that I'm ambitious and have always tried to demonstrate my abilities when working. I feel my efforts have been seen and that I am the right person for that promotion (if I do say so myself).

You seem to have an defense for any situation any commenters present because you're not getting the answer you want, that, under no circumstances, should a part-timer be promoted over a full-timer. And that just can't be because there may be other factors playing into it.

Maybe the part-timer is more or less assertive, maybe handles her time better, maybe is less pushy or a better people-person. It depends on what the promoted position requires, and which the 'boss' thinks is a better fit. If you honestly believes you're more qualified and deserving, you should ask your boss directly 'why'. Would you have the same beef if a new hire was brought onboard?

It is, but you have to admit that whining about promotion for part timers, being unaware of the law on discrimination and then producing poor written work is rather an indicator of someone who might not be getting promotion for other reasons, no?

Not only are you out of order and wrong, it is against the law to discriminate against part time workers so are you being unreasonable? Totally unreasonable and not aware of the law surrounding this. Educate yourself.

If things operated this way, then you'd see lots of women being passed over because they work part time to fit in with family life and lots of men in all the senior positions. I think you are being incredibly unfair to part time workers. Yes they contribute less time, but that is reflected in their pay. If the position can be carried out part time or job share, then there is no reason not to give it to someone who doesn't work full time.

The number of hours worked does not equate to being good at the job.

Are you bitter? Do you need to do some work on yourself to be able to get a promotion?

I didn’t apply for promotion in my
last job as I was part time. Since moving to a new job I have done 5 different roles and advanced 2 pay grades, currently working on advancing another pay grade. This says to me I wasn’t incapable of promotion when I was part time, just that it was infinitely difficult to find a part time job at a higher pay grade.

Promotion isn’t a ‘given’ in most roles, it is learnt by having the right skills for the job.

Certain people seem to think age/time served means they deserve a promotion when they actually do the bare minimum in their current role and don’t take any opportunity to develop themselves.

It's partly due to so many women working part time that we have unequal pay and more men in senior posts, as average across nearly all paid work. So suggesting only full time workers should get promoted perpetuates unequal pay and men more likely to be managers.

I worked three days a week in my post, when my children were young. A promotion came up at work, it was a post I had been doing all the work for over the years. I applied, did an interview and got it. I had to go full time, which was ok since the children were older. It would have been unfair if I couldn’t have been considered for the post, part time does not mean we’re lazy - statistics showed I did as many examinations as my full time colleagues- added to that I did extra work related to the post I have now!

The managers at my first job job-shared. It was a fucking disaster. The Director had returned from mat leave and the only way she could get to go part time was to agree to it permanently.

So when my boss (who worked to the Director) wanted to come back part time, the Director said she would only agree a job-share and on a perm basis. They found some money to appoint a job-share partner for 2.5 days a week, with original post holder doing 3 days and they had half a day together in the middle.

They struggled to find someone with the right skill set who wanted 2.5 days a week so they appointed based on the 2.5 day element rather than someone qualified for the role.

So, both job-share partners had young children who started nursery to facilitate their return to work. In 18 months neither of them managed a full week, either due to holidays, child sickness or their own sickness. Clients got bored of not knowing who was meant to be working which day, the lack of consistency, there were rarely handovers between them because of missing the shared days more often than not, and so me and a colleague ended up doing their work as well.

Luckily for me I was able to jump several ranks due to the experience this gave me and I left soon afterwards. Clients started leaving and the organisation had to make redundancies. The second job-share partner was made redundant, at which point the boss discovered that she had started her own business and had been sneakily poaching clients. Original boss is still there nearly 30 years later doing the same job part time and is just waiting to be able to retire.

Job shares can work really well, but they aren’t easy to get right.

Please don’t be a twat
as someone who who has always struggled with literacy
child of the 70’s so you were on the slow table when it came to English
I never understand why people feel the need to be so fucking rude and point peoples short comings
It’s a cheap shot

Hopefully your job doesn’t involve writing as your spelling and grammar is atrocious.

In truth working part time does stall career progression. This is one of the many reasons women get the short straw because it’s normally women who reduce their hours when they have children, but men don’t. It’s actually unethical and discriminatory to not consider or facilitate training and promotion for part time workers, there are lots of reasons people don’t work 5 days a week, many of them family/caring/health/disability related, but these people are still capable and intelligent, it’s deeply unfair to keep them in ‘junior’ roles because if it.

Haha, OP. My manager made your very comment to me in about 2002. I replied that the fact that I worked part-time was already being taken care of by the reduction in pay and it was unreasonable and unfair to have a presumption against promotion in addition.
Your logic is flawed. Contribution is not related to hours worked, as others have pointed out. And promotion opportunities should be driven by skills and ability.

@PrissyGaloredo you get your FT staff to arrange cover for their own annual leave too? Just seems an unusual stance, PT staff will get pro rata AL so they won’t be off more often than your FT staff