to think that so many public organisations forget people work?

[cricketballs]

Just to set the scene as to our lives; both DH and I work FT. I teach, DH skilled worker (often has to work away) and we have DS2, 15, who has MLD & ASD.

so, in the space of 5 working days we have had 3 day notice of an interview af SEN college that parents have to attend (which I did, but was left outside as they wanted to talk to DS2 on his own!
A shitty toned letter from Chamhs about the fact we have not taken up a parent course that takes place 1 day a week over 6 weeks (middle of the day) and then finally came home to a letter from DWP that as I completed a form sent to us stating that as DS2 is not capable, when he is 16 I will continue to act on his behalf they need to do a home visit in 3 days time - this home visit will take place between 9am - 5pm! For some reason they couldn't work out that he will be at school therefore he nor I will be waiting in all day. Had to leave a message on their voice mail to say I would not be keeping him off school and they need to arrange for school holidays.

We work, DS2 goes to school - why is that so difficult to comprehend? rant over

I am a dentist I only work till 5.15 as there is nowhere within 20 miles that offers childcare after 6 so I have to leave at 5.15 to get back DH starts late to drop off at 9,
While I appreciate some would prefer Later appointment I just can't do it.

I don't think public sector (or anyone else) needs to change their shifts to accommodate people, but I do think they need to demonstrate significant flexibility and notice when appointments are booked. And some appreciation of how hard it can be to get time off!
For me, it's the assumption of unemployment that irritates me, especially when linked to gender or social class. For example, my local children's centre has one activity for parents on a weekend but explicitly signposts it for men

Public sector worker here. I absolutely think our shifts should be changed to accommodate people. Wouldn't take much to change the basic working day to 8-8, with people's shifts fitting around that.
But it will never happen, due to people's inflexibility, and the fact that many public sector workers have lost sight of the fact that their job is to serve the public.
Certainly where I work, people are in it for the flexitime, mat leave and relatively secure job .

Hang on a second, so I should change my 9-5hrs job to accommodate other people's 9-5hrs jobs????

If we want flexibility from employers, there has to be flexibility from employees - including those with children.

If we want services open after 5pm, we have to be prepared to work those hours ourselves and at normal pay rates. That is all of us - Drs dentists, hospitals, admin, nurseries, whatever.

As mums we can't expect to have the services but someone else to provide them eg people who are not parents, and we can't expect employers to bear the cost of that by paying extra wages for unsociable hours.

We als should not expect time off for personal appts, child sickness to be paid- it is nothing to do with the employer.

As frustrating as it can be when something doesn't fit in with your 'timetable' - I feel that we should acknowledge that for every person who doesn't get the appointment/schedule/time they want, there is someone that does.
As a teacher, yes, my Parents Evenings start at 3.30pm but will also go on until 8.30pm. For Example, before Half Term, I had a Year 8 Parents Evening and as I teach 3 classes of Y8, it is a struggle to fit in 90 sets of parents in that time. I was also 29 weeks pregnant then and had been in work from 7am. I was in pain, hungry (we don't get breaks at PE) and exhausted yet still had to field complaints from parents (about how the evening was structured) from the ones who didn't get the exact appointment times they wanted.
A little bit of understanding that as one parent in a year group of 210, they may not all get exactly the schedule they want.

I think Yanbu - the number of letters I get booking one if the dc in for an appointment. It's always in the middle the day and there is never an option to rearrange the app (I do get it changed but the assumption is you will just drop everything and attend).

Agree though that you can't make things more convenient for one group without extending the working hours of another group.

I personally would like to see loads more flexibility at work. Much more availability if flexi hours and working from home.

McDog - IMO, yes. It's bizarre to now work in the public sector after years in an industry where working weekends and evenings was the norm.

In my local authority building, you struggle to find anyone around after 5pm or before 8am. Its a completely different mindset.

I think if we had shifts and offered services up to, say, 8pm, each night then we could better serve the public who, in theory, it is our job to serve.

Police, fire, health workers etc - they work 24/7. As do reporters and several others who aren't emergency services. But ask a council worker to man the desk for a couple of hours in an evening and it would be uproar.

I completely get that it's very difficult to get time off work for lots of people who have inflexible jobs.

I work in education on a teacher's contract so yes, I get lots of lovely holiday, but I also have virtually no flexibility about when I work and can only make time back and change my days because I work part time and my DS is now at school. I also do a job that involves home visits which have to be between 9.30 and 2.30...why? Because I drop off and collect my own child and that's the hours I work currently.

I do think GPs, dentists, CAHMS, Speech therapists etc should be more flexible and understanding about appointment times but at the same time, everyone in these jobs has their own restrictions about where and when they work. As said up thread it is pretty ironic to be expecting lots of other people to take on more difficult shift patterns to accommodate your 9-5 job. And schools are probably the less flexible employer of all both for teachers and parents.

I keep getting texts from my doctors surgery advertising various weight loss support programmes, healthy eating and exercise classes and support groups. I am really struggling with my weight at the moment and would love to try out some of these groups but they are all at 1pm, so really only accessible for people who don't/can't work or are retired.
Why can't they do something similar after 6pm or on a weekend? Even just once a month.

The thing is, that sometimes life is simply inconvenient.

My oven is stuffed, and the company that repairs it will only give you a day, not a time. I can't take a day off during term times to sit around, so the oven will wait until the next holidays. That's life. I don't stomp and moan and expect the repair person to work extended hours and take time away from his family just to fit in with my working hours. I need his services, so I fit it around mine.

Public sector worker here.

In my authority we don't have core hours anymore, its a 7:30 to 8pm window to get the job done.

I'm contracted 5hrs a day - its very flexible and I work to demand, I get recognition for this.

BUT because we are cut to the bone, I end up keeping within core hours the majority of the time as I can only accrue so much flexi and will not get paid for any additional hours I do.

It ends up in a vicious cycle,

Its also the services we commission, local authorities are stingy, out of hours services tend to be more expensive so when a budget gets trimmed its assumed that those who need the service most will get to it - it sucks, I don't like compromising on services.

If you are motivated to change things when you hear about service user panels, questionnaires about changes to service delivery be vocal! Its so hard fighting for an out of hours service when you don't have evidence to back it up, even in the rare case where you do have the budget to cover it.

If we can support out of hours, something like clinical staffing will have to be trimmed - its a rock and a hard place.

Some of the antiquated attitudes on this thread made me want to pull my hair out.

OP YANBU. I suspect a situation where you book your own appointment online thus making your own choices about whether to wait longer for the holidays or to choose start or end of of day being more convenient is not far off. That will help.

Appointments should be offered at variety of times, including weekends and evenings. It wouldn't cost more because the office would shut times when no one is using them e.g. Tuesdays and Wednesdays so the overall hours bill is the same. I wouldn't expect to pay staff more to cover these kind of hours either. For many people working out of office hours is a perk, they can reduce childcare costs as the other parent can cover and they get days off in the week when life is generally quieter.

I disagree hiccup. I am a teacher. Our teachers and Heads of Year and Senior Staff are available early in the morning until 6pm for one to one meetings with parents and our Parent evenings go on until 8 or 9 pm. We try to be incredibly flexible. Many parents never turn up, despite having made appointments.

As an employer the school is as flexible as it can be but some staff forget it operates for the children, not for them. They expect the school to be flexible to their needs (some of our support staff are the worst for this) but we don't exist for their convenience.
eg 1. I'd like to start at 10 am becase I want to take my child to school in the mornings. (And what does she want us to do for the child with special needs she is employed to support?)

1. My 16 yr old daughter is poorly and I want to look after her (15 times in a year with a variety of minor things)
2. I would like to take two days off to go to a friend's wedding in Scotland.(What would she like us to do to support the child with special needs that we employ her to support?)
3. I am unhappy because my contracted hours end at 3.30pm but the school gates don't open until 3.40pm so I can't leave until 3.40pm. (This is for safety reasons so cars can not come into or leave the site until the children have gone. Would she like us to ignore safety so she can leave the site? It was suggested she park in a nearby street and she would not hear of it. Seems to think we have to provide her with a car park.)
4. Caretaker - I don't want to work on weekend mornings to open the site - (for football, badminton, disabled basketball, model making and netball clubs that hire the site. So, shall we just tell them to go somewhere else then?)

I work in the NHS providing clinics to children and can see both sides here. My most 'in demand' appointment times are after school but I can only work until 6 because the surgery closes then. To be honest, the age group I see would struggle much beyond 7 anyway. I try to offer the after school slots to those having blocks of treatment and the daytime ones as one-offs so that it is less disruptive.

I like to think I am understanding of parents who work and I have tried to arrange school holiday appointments or had parents who have popped out for their lunch hour to bring their child but if I didnt appoint some of these people during the day I would never get through the waiting lists. It would be too expensive for my service to employ four people to work 4-6pm rather than one person to work the whole day and probably impossible to recruit to.

There is quite a big push in the NHS towards 7 day working (particularly now they are scrapping unsocial hours payments!). I do think we should be offering at least a saturday service but have to admit that I dont want to have to work those hours though I am resigned to the fact that at some point I wont have a choice any more.

Do you really think that an appointment system online would conveniently end up with Tuesday or Wednesday free petalunicorn? Course it wouldn't my mate works Thursday and Friday so those days would suit her. Otherwise you end up in a situation where you would get a poster annoyed they can't get an appointment then.

Flexibility costs money a lot of the time.

I think it's the lack of decent notice that's the main problem, if they'd given you a couple of weeks then you could have worked something out.
The other problem for a lot of services is that if you have a hundred people to see in a week and only a certain number of sppointments, there will have to be many at times that don't suit.
They should be able to give you a far more precise time though, within an hour rather than 9-5.

i remember the nurse who ran the parenting group, a colleague, was really upset with me when i pointed out that it would be easier for me to attend in the evening, so I agree that perhaps staff should be available, on the other hand, booking appointments we do tend to think that parents should manage to take time off for them, your child is important to you, we only tend to offer weekend appointment when the managers demand the waiting list is Sorted Out, and that entails opening up a clinic and paying staff extra

This drives me to distraction.

Want a delivery? Sorry, can only offer an all day slot 9 til 5. (I now don't buy online unless it's Royal Mail, as the local post office will hold it for 75p, or I can click and collect.)

Want to attend a bus user forum, we really want to hear from commuters? Sorry, it's 10 til 3 and not even held at the bus station.

Want a hospital appointment? Sorry, we've sent you a letter to be received on the Friday for a Monday appointment.

I've changed Dentist and GP to those which do offer some late and weekend appointments. A little bit less juggling makes life so much easier.

Appreciate that not all services can offer more flexibility, but a little thought about the issues service users face in accessing services would be hugely appreciated. Make it clear on the letter how to rearrange appointments and give more than 27 minutes of notice.

Yup, it's all about the money. And lack of it.

Especially when you need skilled lndividuals. Even the latest crop of desperate graduates can't fill the gap if you need more than the basics.

I agree with PP 'Flexibility costs money'. It also has a cost to employees expectations of working conditions. If we want it, we have to accept those two things - especially as parents. It will have an impact on work life balance for many and probably result in lower wages in many businesses.

maddening

If you change the hours that people work you are going to increase their costs.

As with many on this thread they are paying for child care etc. if you slide someone's hours up an hour from 9-5 to 10 - 6 they will have to find an extra hours childcare. they are not going to do that unless you pay them more.

Where I live, the local hospital has a lot of Filipino workers who are also parents and work alternate shifts so that there's always one parent with the children. Or they work together with other parents and one will collect a gaggle of several children at school and take them home to feed them.
Likewise with getting children to after school activities.
It's a very different way of working that ensures that the children are catered for, and the children love being with friends and different adults.
But the parents have to put their own needs on a back burner.