To only work very part time?

They are being unfair.

OP this is a genuine question - are you being deliberately obtuse in your responses?

As others have said, you appear to be in a senior role, where you would very reasonably be expected to be proactive and take accountability for delivery of your service - pushing for additional resource etc. That doesn't make your colleagues' bitching etc ok, but you seem to think that the fact that your working arrangements have been ok'd as a FWR means you have a right to be passive in all this. You don't.

I assume that Kinship fostering means you have taken on a relatives children? Which is such a kind and selfless thing to do. I have utmost respect for you doing all you can to keep these children together and to give them stability, safety and security.

I cannot believe your colleagues, whom I presume have some knowledge about your change in circumstances, are being so vile about it all.

I think you need to start keeping a log of all comments and issues and go back up to the chain of command to senior management and report this.

You need to dig deep and keep your head down, you have done nothing wrong here.

As you are senior then you need to address this.

I don’t think you should be a line manager though - you can’t deal with issues if you aren’t available for the majority of the time.

Why are you ignoring all comments about what you could do to help manage the situation?
All you keep doing is repeating the same point about how it was approved.

As I have said above, if your colleagues all go above your head and say it's not working, then there is a good possibility you will be pulled in and told that you cannot continue with the reduced hours/the job will be made redundant and you will then lose out.

For someone who is in a senior role you sound pretty useless in being pro active. Maybe this is the real issue that you are out of depth in this role and were fine when everything was going well, but now lack the skills in managing people.

It’s none of their business. You’ve enough going on at home.

What staff are employed on what hours are up to the employer, and they certainly shouldn't be talking about it openly. The only thing I would caution is that there is an overhead in employing anyone and if the hours are very small then the sums don't add up. While three days a week is pretty normal I can't recall anyone on less, especially term time only. That doesn't mean it doesn't work in your case.

They're not going to. If I were your colleagues, I'd look for different jobs. It sounds very difficult for them. You're doing a good thing fostering, but management has failed them trying to accommodate you.

I get what you're saying, but are you not quite senior, based on what you described? I guess I figured I am in a similarly senior position and I view it as part of my role to make sure my team (including me) has the capacity to deliver what I have agreed with my organisation. And that might mean pushing for a job share for me, if I wanted to go part time, or advocating for an additional member of staff if some chunks of my role could be delegated downwards, or rejigging my role and what my team does so a small amount extra ends up spread across lots of people. In fact, this is something I'm looking at at the moment - going to 50% hours, and this is something I'm working through in collaboration with my boss before we actually make it happen.

Apart from the fact that in a global organisation the headcount is very often fixed, and from a very high level. And by headcount I mean number of people not FTEs. So her being there is blocking her manager from employing anyone else.

I mean, that is spectacularly shit for your colleagues, but it's a failure of management.

So is your issue you just don't like the gossiping? As really as others have suggested you need to ignore it, or as I have said be pro active and do something about it!
As a head of the team why not take in cake one day and hold a meeting to address the concerns. Take any useful suggestions back to someone more senior and explain how you are trying to address the negativity.

Yes you have done something admiral, but seems to think this excuses you from now being pro active at work and supporting your colleagues who you have later added you line manage! As a line manager surely part of your own performance management is how you manage your team, so if your colleagues do go above you and say that they feel the workload isn't being managed well by you, then your line manager will be following that up and your role will be up for discussion and whether your part time hours work. So it is for everyone's benefit if you do something rather than just say everyone is being mean to you.

Yes, I’m sure you do and I’m sure you work hard. But from their perspective you are not achieving anything, so having you there is pointless. Worse than pointless, because if you weren’t there they might be able to employ someone else. I can absolutely see why from your perspective you want to continue, but you are going to have to have a much thicker skin because their feelings are very valid and not going to go away.

You keep asserting it’s not your problem, but in the real world it is. (Otherwise you wouldn’t be posting).

@Seelybe I think the same poster although they seem to have gained another child this time.

Well, your pay and holiday is calculated pro rata accordingly, so don't feel bad about it.

There's nothing to stop the manager from proposing to get in another PT employee in for three days a week. That's if they were interested in actually managing, not bitching.

I don’t think anyone is saying that, but a management role with time sensitive work on two days a week school hours and term time only is going to be impossible to pull off in reality. The request should never have been approved, and I suspect senior management felt forced into it given the job title. It would take half the op’s working week just to get back up to speed on what’s going on, and the other half to do even a cursory attempt at decent management. Of course she’s not a “proper part” of the team, she’s never there!

So I’m not surprised people are grumbling especially as there’s no end in sight. If it was expected to be for a year or so while the children settle then fine, but it seems op expects it to be long term. They’ve probably been told by HR there’s nothing that can be done, so they’re going to continue to let off steam between themselves.

I would bet redundancy/settlement is around the corner. (It won’t be much though as will be based on your current hours.)

You are doing a good thing for society so deserve some slack, but surely you can see their point?

It is the employers problem, but the employer reacted to you by trying to be supportive. You have taken a huge drop in hours and you admit that there is work not being done, do you honestly expect your colleagues not to discuss or question the situation?

And they can now decide that it isn’t working. What happens then?