would you be annoyed if a new person at work did this

[durdur]

I have started a new FT job. DH became redundant just after I got this job which now means I have to do the school run and dh used to work completely remote from home anyway so this was never an issue for us.

So I've asked to reduce my hours to fit in with school times.
I have only been there a few weeks. Would they refuse? I would leave if they did as we need one of us to do the drop off and pick ups.

I honestly feel bad for asking to reduce my hours.

A lot of people commenting on these threads seem to have no understanding that companies don’t employee people as some kind of goodwill gesture-they pay them to fulfil a role and meet the business needs of the company. That applies to both women and men. A huge part of the problem is that women repeatedly allow their male partners’ jobs to take priority over their own, from the moment they have their first child, then expect to be valued in the same way as their male co workers. That’s what creates grass ceilings for women. There is asking for reasonable flexibility and there is being a complete cf and expecting your employer to offer terms which are completely at odds with the role you took on very recently.

It would be lovely if employers were falling over themselves to offer part time hours, term time only etc but they’re not because as a PP pointed out, it costs a company more to employ two people part time than one full time. So as long as there are plenty of full time candidates available and willing to work full time, of course people who can only work part time are disadvantaged. The only solution is for families to share the childcare, the school runs etc equally. If men were needing to ask for that flexibility on a regular basis, that would mean the majority of the workforce was and so things might change. In short, if you want a career alongside kids (and of course many people don’t and that’s fine) then we as women have to stop having babies with men who don’t pull their weight in this way.

We’d all love a job that allows us to do the school run each day and then pick up the work in the evening but the real world doesn’t often work like that. We need to accept that no one, male or female can have it all. If you want to be taken seriously in a career that will require some sacrifice at home whatever your gender. And we also need to stop talking about employers like they owe us something. Employment is a transactional relationship and is based on business considerations only. People talk about how one good part time employee is worth more than one crap full time employee but that’s not the only option - there are plenty of good people out there who are available full time, especially in the current climate! It’s unpalatable but it’s true and we can only bring about change if we face some of these hard truths.

Indeed georgina

@durdur I’m really glad things have worked out for you - I’m 100% behind flexible working for those roles that can do it. I once had an employer who refused me leaving 5 mins “early” to get to a Nativity, even though I was regularly doing 10+ hrs above my contract. I left.
I must pick you up on this though: “Things haven't really changed much in the workplace over the last 50 years.” I don’t know how long you’ve been working, but believe me, things have changed massively in the last 50 years. There’s still some way to go, that’s true, but if you can remember clocking in, skirts & heels for ladies, smoking in the office and incompetent men being promoted “because they have a family to support” you’ll know we’ve come a looong way!

I am confused: I thought it meant DH worked from home when you said remote working. If so, he could do school run and you would not have to reduce your hours. Did you mean something else? Or do you mean that he is looking for a job post-redunancy?

I wouldn’t have a problem, because life changes happen and most work can accommodate someone wanting a grown up and honest conversation.

I’m not sure it always felt I was more junior but I’m at a stage of my career when this absolutely isn’t an issue and my experiences influence how creative and willing I am to accommodate this type of thing for different roles.

So good luck!

I'm the higher earner but I do more school runs than OH.

When I advertise a job with specific hours it never ceases to amaze me when people apply for it then want to have flexible work options soon after starting. I advertised for the hours the business needed - not the hours they now want and yet they get pissy when I decline.

I assume the OP means she leaves early, say at 3.30 instead of 5, then in the evening when her DH is home she does the rest of her hours.

It sounds like it has worked out ok which is fantastic! The just started did worry me, tbh I've had 2 full time jobs since having kids and have successfully reduced hours in both after circumstances changed. I took ft hours as it is all that's available and just worked hard for a while and hoped for the best, luckily we can share school runs so it gives me some flexibility.

Any employer would be piss*d off at a request so soon . Presumably you saw / discussed the advertised hours when you applied. You need to honour what you agreed to really.

You’ve been extremely lucky although I know a lot of people who have struggled with the lack of wraparound care. Our workplace would have found a temporary accommodation for you on the understanding that when wrap around started up again you used it. We would not have agreed a permanent change. We’d have looked at wfh options, staggering hours but not a split of 1h30 wfh of an evening.

Long-term, I think it was an error that your husband didn’t explore pick/up drop-offs at one end. There are plenty of people starting work at 10am in London following drop-offs and a commute. It’s really not that unusual a request.

OP, you seem to believe you should be automatically entitled to flexibility by virtue of being a parent, but you still haven't said anything about who's supposed to pick up the slack if you reduce your hours.

I can't help suspect that perhaps your 'lovely' manager is going to facilitate this by offloading more work on to colleagues that don't have childcare responsibilities. I may be wrong/overly cynical, but I have seen and experienced this all too often in my working life.

@feistyoneyouare

OP, you seem to believe you should be automatically entitled to flexibility by virtue of being a parent, but you still haven't said anything about who's supposed to pick up the slack if you reduce your hours.

I can't help suspect that perhaps your 'lovely' manager is going to facilitate this by offloading more work on to colleagues that don't have childcare responsibilities. I may be wrong/overly cynical, but I have seen and experienced this all too often in my working life.

Me too. It often happens with maternity leave too. I used to work with a woman who chose not to have children who was utterly pissed off with it. She said she’d lost count of the times she’d had to pick up the slack, she was particularly angry about a member of the team who had three lots of maternity leave in five years.

VinylDetective Her anger was misplaced and makes her sound bitter. It is not the woman who has gone on mat leave’s responsibility to provide cover. The manager should have recruited a post.

She said she’d lost count of the times she’d had to pick up the slack, she was particularly angry about a member of the team who had three lots of maternity leave in five years.

In that situation I would be annoyed with my employers for not getting cover, not my colleagues for taking the maternity leave they were entitled to by law.

A lot of people commenting on these threads seem to have no understanding that companies don’t employee people as some kind of goodwill gesture-they pay them to fulfil a role and meet the business needs of the company.

No, really? Thank goodness you posted to explain that jobs are exactly that, jobs, not some sort of charity. None of us who support flexible working had any idea that this was the case before you so helpfully pointed it out to us...

If an employer cannot meet a request and has reasonable reasons for this, that is absolutely fine. What has annoyed me about this thread is the angry and spiteful comments made to the OP for even daring to ask, and the "well we have to struggle so you should too" type answers.

And we also need to stop talking about employers like they owe us something. Employment is a transactional relationship and is based on business considerations only.

Employers who can offer flexibility, or even if they can't do not behave as if asking for it is some sort of terrible crime that proves an employee assumes they are owed it and does not care about the business, get repaid in droves. If I work for people who take an 'all that matters is the business, there is no room for flexibility' approach, they get what they pay me for and not a jot more. When I work for people who make me feel like something more than just another cog in an endless machine and can recognise that there are times when life is not perfectly tidy and some flexibility is helpful, I bend over backwards to repay that- if they offer more than the bare bones, they get more. It does indeed go two ways.

Absolutely an employer should provide cover for maternity cover or a change to someone’s working hours if it impacts on others.

But the reality is they often don’t.

And for me I wasn’t bitter. I was bloody exhausted.

@TheLadyOfShallnott

Absolutely an employer should provide cover for maternity cover or a change to someone’s working hours if it impacts on others.

But the reality is they often don’t.

And for me I wasn’t bitter. I was bloody exhausted.

Absolutely. And my colleague wasn’t bitter at all. She was sick to death of never having a complete team of the staff she’d hired.

Cover is rarely as good as a perm employee and every time someone goes on maternity leave time has to be spent recruiting and carrying out induction for that cover.

Add into that trying to balance a departmental budget while double paying and surely anyone could see why she was pissed off?

I’m afraid to say that when the next pregnancy was announced, I left for another job. The thought of staying and being further broken didn’t appeal.

It had been my first job after leaving the forces and perhaps it was a culture shock but I was more burnt out after that job than anything in my forces days.

It was a pity to hear that the boss folded up the business within 18 months . The two taken on didn’t care for the workload and didn’t stay on to finish the work for that day. (Clearly more sensible than me). And because our work was time critical, things went downhill quickly.

A shame. And the boss blamed it on me leaving I hear. Nice.

TheLadyOfShallnott It sounds like that employer wasn't keen to pay for an extra staff member.

I completely agree with the poster upthread who said that when she feels valued, she contributes more to the workplace. If she is treated like a cog in the wheel, she acts accordingly. In my experience, many people feel like this, particularly full time employees. Its one of the reasons that public servants in lifelong jobs get such bad press.

Its also my experience, that flexible workers put their all into their jobs because they appreciate the flexibility and work/life balance.

thismustbelove

I wouldn’t disagree with you. A happy employee is a productive employee.

I was there for years but the expectation to battle on through maternity leave and then have to pick up the busiest parts of the day to allow for school/nursery pick ups got to be too much.

The more I did, the more my boss took.

Not my colleague’s fault at all.

And we also need to stop talking about employers like they owe us something. Employment is a transactional relationship and is based on business considerations only.

Employers who can offer flexibility, or even if they can't do not behave as if asking for it is some sort of terrible crime that proves an employee assumes they are owed it and does not care about the business, get repaid in droves. If I work for people who take an 'all that matters is the business, there is no room for flexibility' approach, they get what they pay me for and not a jot more. When I work for people who make me feel like something more than just another cog in an endless machine and can recognise that there are times when life is not perfectly tidy and some flexibility is helpful, I bend over backwards to repay that- if they offer more than the bare bones, they get more. It does indeed go two ways.

I fully agree. But this absolutely underlines my point that the relationship between employer and employee is a business transaction-employers might offer flexibility because they understand that happy employees working hard is good for business. They won’t be making that offer just to be nice. Retaining good staff is a key motivator for offering flexible working because employers know that it will encourage employees to go the extra mile if they’re treated well.

Yes, I would be annoyed. I would consider the request but it would be a black mark against that employee.

Why are you working AND trying to do school run when DH is out of work? It's really flakey to start negotiating different hours when the job is new, regardless of current circumstances. Apart from the fact you knew the hours when taking the job on you aren't in a position to negotiate until you've shown your worth.
Sounds like the main point is that you want to stop working and be the at home picking up children person. A bit of a contorted way of saying so....