Can you usually drop working hours to part time, on a temporary basis?

[Beetawix]

Due my first baby this year and thinking about going back to work after / how long I’ll have off

I think I want 9-12 months off, if possible. Say if I went back at nine months, is it possible to go back part time for a few months and then full time hours again when they’re 18 months ish? I work in local government if that’s relevant.

Thank you

This is common where I work

That’s between you and your employer, you’ll need to talk to them.

Thank you. Do they just amend your contract temporarily? Or is it unpaid leave to make it part time.

Pretty common where I work too (NHS) we'd be expected to submit a flexible working request and then it'd be up to service managers to decide if they can accommodate. Good luck 😊

I am not sure - sorry
I have never done it myself (have no kids) but certainly had others come back part time for a bit then return to full time

You’d likely need to put in a flexible working request. My employer allows for a temporary part time reintroduction to work after maternity

Often people use annual leave they accrue on maternity leave to do this, by agreement with the employer.

For example, on my last maternity leave I found out I was pregnant at the end of the annual leave year. I rolled over the maximum amount we are allowed to roll over (5 days) and used barely any annual leave from the new entitlement until I went on mat leave. I then took a year off on mat leave, accruing annual leave during that period.

When my maternity leave ended, I had 74 days of leave to use. I used this to extend my maternity leave (meaning I got paid full pay for a period while still off with my baby) and then work 3 day weeks for a bit and then 4 day weeks before returning full time. This kind of set up is common where I work, and plenty of my friends who have done it too. I have only one friend who was asked to use all her accrued leave before returning.

You can always submit a flexible working request when you are approaching the end of your mat leave and see what they say. If not, you should have some annual leave to fall back on too.

I'm in the public sector and it's usually no problem to reduce hours but there can be a delay in resuming full time hours because payroll budgets have been set. It took a colleague more than a year to resume full-time after she requested it.

I used parental leave to resume work part-time after returning from mat leave and there was no issue with going back full-time as the parental leave was not considered part-time; so if that's an option for you, it might be a safer bet.

People normally use their accrued public and annual leave to do this. They wouldn’t be changing your contract - once contracted on shorter hours you might not get them back!

There's no usually about it, it's very employer dependent. You can request to go part time when you return, they tend to grant this but it not guaranteed. But then asking to return to full time hours will be more dependent on whether the person they have employed to cover you is leaving. Bigger employers with lots of staff turnover obviously are more likely to be able to accommodate this than a small company

Agree with others this pattern is entirely possible and is common in local government. But being local government, money is really really stretched right now. have an honest conversation with your manager so they understand you are wanting to return full-time later so your salary is not taken as a saving. I worked part-time at a council when my kids were little and built hours back up, but it was all round bigger organisation then, with bigger budget to allow this.