Calling HR/Office Managers please

[RightSideTwisted]

(NC for this.)

For legitimate business reasons you are about to turn down a request to drop to four days from a highly valued staff member. Roughly 75% of staff at the same level are part time.

How do you stop them walking? Is there a compromise?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thank you.

Or offer a 9 day fortnight (4days compressed are very long days).

Now imagining all of the PT colleagues going to work in a Go Kart

If you run a business, you should be consulting an HR professional, not Mumsnet 🙄

Sorry just read the full thread! Oops.

Definitely try compressed hours either 4 day week or 9 day fortnight. 4 days can be tough as long days, but 9 days is not too bad e.g. 37.5 hours a week = 8 hours 20 minutes so less than an hour extra.

Make to NWD a Monday and point out if it’s a BH Monday they don’t use leave so get the hours to take another time. Do an example calculating leave in hours to illustrate. Point out if they take a weeks leave on the 4 day week it stretches annual leave.

What exactly is the business reason why it was declined. It has to be explained.

The op stated “For legitimate business reasons” so knows that they have to explain it. We don’t need to know what they are.

The op is asking how to retain a valued member of staff by offering flexibility the business can support.

Depends what the job is surely?

@Harassedevictee
eh? Op says she's the employee.

Sorry missed that as the original op appeared to be from an HR person.

I genuinely missed this post. Sorry.
This puts a completely different slant on what you need to do.

A lot of HR and managers lack creativity when it comes to flexible working. What you need to do is solve the problem for them.

You have a lot of knowledge which they will lose when you retire or resign.

Work out what you want, not just now but into retirement. Is it shorter days or less days? I personally dropped Wednesdays then Tuesdays and Wednesdays but I have known people go for 6 hour days I.e. they start early and finish mid afternoon. If you end up staying late dropping full days makes more sense.

Fridays are always popular NWD but Monday’s are better for leave and BH. Have a look how many colleagues currently work Monday to Thursday, if it’s most then opting for Monday means they can’t argue to few staff.

Your work load has gone up because so many work part time. This is not fair - what you need is a business case that illustrates the business is understaffed due to PT and they need to recruit someone you can train and develop to take over some of your increased work load and also cover on your NWD. Plus they can help cover the other PT staff on their NWD. This person could be PT.

Point out this allows you to do knowledge transfer before you retire and is good practice in business continuity and succession planning terms.

Yes there is a cost but point out if they recruit on the basis of FT and appoint PT they are saving salaries against budget. Plus if you drop a day they save 20% - It’s not quite that much. If you can do the headcount, FTE actual costs that strengthens your case.

Yes it’s doing their job for them but, as you say, they have painted themselves in a corner a business case where your NWD is different to most PT removes a lot of the argument as others are working on your NWD and can pick up the extra work like you do for your colleagues on their NWD

Sorry this is long

HTH

Thank you Harassedevictee for your very helpful post.

A lot of HR and managers lack creativity when it comes to flexible working. What you need to do is solve the problem for them.

This is kind of where I was going with my OP. I realise it was a bit clumsy but I was trying to work out what might be acceptable to them (and me hopefully!).

Absolutely incorrect. If, at this moment, the business needs her full time they don't have to permit part time, no matter how many other staff are part time.

Perhaps send an email round to see if anybody wants extra hours - to try and cover the work first. I'd try my best not to lose a good member of staff.