Going to 4 days but everyone saying may as well stay full time

[strawberryjeans]

Has this been your experience?

I want to drop to 4 days after maternity leave. Either 0.8 (7.5 hour days) or 0.9 (8.25hr days)

Lots of people have said I might as well work full time. My job has hectic and calm periods. Some weeks I’m running around like a crazy person and other weeks I have a couple of very quiet work from home days where I’ve done all my work in a matter of two or three hours and then it’s just a matter of staying online and available. I am hybrid so some days WFH and some out and about. Changes weekly but the proportion is usually 50/50.

I have had a few people say to me that working 4 days is basically full time anyway, I wouldn’t have any less work to do etc. For me it makes a difference as I might have been scheduled to be out that day or in the office but I would instead get to be off with my little one.

It’s such a tricky choice! What would you do?

I will add that we can’t afford for me to be any less than 0.8, realistically. Possibly 0.75 but that’s an absolute push.

Taking Monday off works against me, Friday is ALWAYS the quietest day. I would be looking to have Wednesday off.

I think it very much depends on what your job is. If you're a hairdresser or work in retail for example then you'll likely only be doing 4/5 of the work compared to being full time. But if you work on projects etc then that might not be the case unless you're definitely only going to get given 4/5 of a full time workload, which quite often doesn't happen in practice.

100% this. In my workplace you really have to drop down to basically 3 days or under before you see any obvious decrease in your work load because it’s one of those jobs where the work just waits for you to get back, so it wouldn’t be worth it for me to do 4 days as you’ve suggested because I know I would still have a full time workload regardless, just with less pay.

Unfortunately it never works. You end up doing five days work (or more) for four days pay. I'm assuming it isn't a job where you can clock in and out easily with strong boundaries over working time. Have seen many female colleagues burn out under these types of arrangements. It's not that the employer puts overt pressure to work day's off. It's more the feeling of necessity to keep on top of work and protect reputation that causes it to happen, but employers never take you to one side to say you're working too hard. Had a colleague resign this year in fact because it didn't provide the advertised work life balance she had hoped for. She was burnt out from logging on after kids bedtimes to 'protect' her agreed days off, and then basically felt she had to be on call and responsive for clients any way. Sorry to be a pessimist.

If you feel that your workload won’t be reduced, I’d look into compressed hours where you do the full time hours over fewer (longer) days. Or see if your employer can offer a trial period before you commit to the reduction. See if it fits in reality before committing.

I will say that work PT and don’t regret it. I work far more hours than I’m paid for but that’s normal in my field of work so is still an equivalent reduction.

Why does taking Mondays off "work against" you?

Be aware that part-time employees are usually given pro rata'd annual leave and bank holidays. So for example if full timers get 24 days AL and 8 days BH, if you work 0.8 you will get 19.2 days AL and 6.4 days BH.

Most bank holidays are on a Monday, eg in 2024 5 out of 8 are Mondays. So if you don't usually work on Mondays, you would end up with extra annual leave (3.4 days) to use when you choose.

If Mondays are not significantly busier than other days, and you can get childcare Tue-Fri, I would strongly advise having Mondays off.

Also, do you have colleagues who can cover 20% of the workload during the busy periods??

I work 4x7.5 days a week after coming back from maternity leave and it's fine. No-one bothers me on my day off and anyone who's emailed gets a response when I'm back in.
Projects still have deadlines and sometimes I end up working more than 30 hours in a week but there were weeks when I was working full time and was working more than 37.5 hours so there's no difference.
I enjoy my Tuesdays off, just me and my little one! I think you should go for it - you won't know if it works for you until you try it.

Even when I dropped to 3 days in my last job I had to cover pretty well the same workload as there was no one else to do it, I imagine that's even more likely with 4 days as that isn't amenable to job-sharing.

In my line of work, I would not do this. They wouldn’t employ someone one day a week to cover the work I do and they wouldn’t take tasks off me as there is nobody to give it to as everyone is at capacity. I would be doing the same work for less money, pension contributions would drop, etc. can you ask to do compressed hours and have Fridays or every other Friday off if they are quiet?

Are you in the office or WFH?

Everyone I know says the same, if you have an office-type job, it's not like your work will cover that 1 day so you end up doing your same job in less time and less pay. I wouldn't drop my hours, I am looking into compressed hours instead - my job is similar to yours, has busy and quiet periods. And I figure it costs the same for a full day at nursery so I'd rather work for that full day, but only do 4 days. And if it's your first baby, and you think you might have another, better to keep your full time salary for possibly having another maternity leave. That's my plan - then may look to go part time once kids in preschool or school.

I worked 4 days per week until DS was at school, I've always worked in roles which aren't a traditional 9-5 and overtime was expected so I probably did closer to full time hours but then colleagues on full time contracts were doing over and above that. I liked having a day off in the week (I had Thursdays) and I was pretty good at protecting that, not least because I normally had a small child to look after! I no longer have 'targets' but when I did, they were reduced to 80%

I work 4 days with a wednesday off. I think being off mid week works pretty well. I was forced to that day initially due to nursery availability but kept it after my second mat leave as liked that it meant my kids weren't doing a four day stretch of nursery. I am strict with myself to keep my weds protected and won't look at any work or emails on that day. I must admit it is hard sometimes but I think clear boundaries are needed to get the best of the set up. Agreed with everyone however in terms of workload/portfolio doesn't ever get adequately adjusted for a 0.8 contract. And in my experience you sort of have to be ready to accept that you may not be able to deliver for everyone at the same standard you did when full-time (IF you want to avoid burnout and working regularly in evenings - I'll let you know if I ever fully achieve this balance!). There are pros and cons to both. For me, the day with my kids has absolutely been worth managing the politics and implications of being 0.8. however every female senior leader I know works full-time. So in my experience going 0.8 absolutely has an impact on promotion opportunities.

I'd request compressed full time if possible op. Especially with what you say about having quieter periods where's there's no work, just visibility required. If you're doing that for 4 hours at the end of the day, you just as well do it for 6.

I work a 0.9 contract across 4 days in a job that has some similarities to yours as it's sometimes very busy leading up to deadlines and then calmer. It's nothing like working five days. I have Friday's off and can clock off on a Thursday night and then not think about work until Monday morning - it's made a huge improvement to my quality of life and I've got no interest in going back to working five days if I can possibly help it.

One of the reasons I've done it is I run a small business on the side with most of the work for that being done at the weekend and so I was really tired working full-time on top. Having more time away from my main job makes a big difference.

This totally depends on the culture at your work. I work in a sector with many women who work 4 days a week and expectations are that people are not available on their day at home (I was normally in baby swimming on my day 'off' so certainly couldn't answer the phone). In my sector, people are generally trusted to work hard and if they/we say that we need more time for something then that's usually respected. I know that's not always the case and that in some sectors you couldn't possibly be seen to 'push back' on a deadline or not answer your phone out of hours, but that's not universal.

I work 4 days p/w, with Fridays off. I used to do 3 days in a slightly different role.in the same team, so the expectations were already soe.whst managed, if that makes sense. I'm fortunate to have an understanding line manager and a good team - we all cover for each other when needed and generally it works well, and I really appreciate Fridays off! Sometimes I do check emails/work a bit of it can't be avoided, it it's a price I'm currently willing to pay.