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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think you can’t really get a decent PT job unless you already work there

245 replies

Metoodear · 20/08/2018 08:22

So following on from my post about working PT I getting loads of people saying yep rally easy to woke pt I get 30, 40k pro rata blah blah however these are often women who have worked for a company for a number of years then reduced after maternity leave i am also not talking about PT were you drop one day but are still working 9-5 four days a week

This kind of PT working is not what I was talking about I am talking about after having done a qualification then after having 2-5 years out of work after being a SHAM trying to find a PT job that is under 25 hours a week that is not in a school admin or retail in a company you never worked for
i am a support worker but have had to take a job at the lower end of the pay scale in order to secure 20 hours a week working i have friends that have degrees in physiology ect who work in admin and a friend who has a degree in a second language but is really struggling to find anything other than admin or work in a school for less than 25 hours after being at home for8 years

I myself have been looking for another job since I got my curroone and you just don’t see PT ones

OP posts:
ferrier · 21/08/2018 09:29

2 ft working parents wasn't "introduced". It is because over time more and more people opted for that model, thus outpricing the single working parent household.

Well actually it was introduced by successive government policies encouraging women to return to work by subsidising childcare, giving child tax credits and awarding child benefit to a higher threshold in two working parent households than one.

50 years ago, 2 working parents was astonishingly rare. And further back in history women worked while the children played around them.

Cherubfish · 21/08/2018 09:38

50 years ago, 2 working parents was astonishingly rare - really?! I'm genuinely surprised by this statement. I'm 44 and both my parents worked full time, I didn't think it was that unusual?

blueshoes · 21/08/2018 09:41

Well actually it was introduced by successive government policies encouraging women to return to work by subsidising childcare, giving child tax credits and awarding child benefit to a higher threshold in two working parent households than one.

The government can encourage shifts in behaviour over time through tax, fiscal and other incentives but it cannot introduce them if people don't take it up. IMO the childcare subsidies don't go far enough in the UK for many working parents to make it an incentive, unlike in many of the European countries with lauded benefits. It is merely a subsidy in UK and a small one at that.

JustMeHere1 · 21/08/2018 09:42

I agree. It's what puts me off looking for another job.
I started full time and dropped to part time after babies.

I know the company wouldn't hire a part time employee. They just don't do that.

blueshoes · 21/08/2018 10:05

I also don't know where this waiting till 40 to have children is relevant. I waited till I found the right person to have children with, and my job does not figure in it.

However, I did work hard whilst I was single/childless to build up the skills, experience and goodwill with an employer to be able to continue after maternity leave in a reasonably lucrative pt role. I was turned down by my employer for my first choice of pt role, which did piss me off, but offered another less remunerative one which I took.

It has to work for the employer too. Now I am a manager and hire staff, I see it even more. We bend over backwards for good employees with proven records to keep them after maternity leave with pt/flexi working.

I agree with queenvaris that recruitment is a risky business particularly for an employer to hire a pt employee sight unseen who comes with strict requirements of what hours they can work and no flexibility. This potential employee is by definition is already stating they are less committed than a ft employee.

I will prefer to advertise a job ft (even if I was prepared to offer pt) because I only want people who are prepared to consider ft but will drop to pt for the right candidate with the right skills.

I would only advertise pt if I was desperately short of candidates (rare skill) or I was only going to pay peanuts. None of my jobs pay peanuts, we pay above market, so this is out.

Thehogfather · 21/08/2018 10:40

The way I see it one of the biggest barriers to pt/ flexible work are all the ridiculous 'I want to work term time only in between the school run' attitudes. And the entitlement of some in rl who seem to think the childless, those with older dc who should plug the gap.

Those in my field at around my age and experience are just starting families, so if they all have the free choice to come back doing 10-2 term time, who do you expect to do the rest? It isn't a field that can serve it's purpose without work outside home and outside school hours.

I want a particular role that just now, I can't apply for, at least not until dd is an age where I feel happy leaving her overnight for on average 2 nights a week. Expecting an employer to find someone else to cover that part, plus some extra time so we can exchange info on our shared job, as well as giving me the pay rise and progression that role has is just as ridiculous as some of the requests for pt.

Momo27 · 21/08/2018 10:46

And interestingly, the countries which people seem to be holding up as shining examples eg Holland and some Scandinavian countries have govt policies which have encouraged women back into the workplace to a far greater extent than the U.K. In Holland a vastly greater proportion of women work than in the U.K., I think it may even be over 90%. So given that people on this thread are hankering after a world where a parent can stay home full time, I’m not sure why they’re simultaneously wanting what these countries do

Since2016 · 21/08/2018 10:49

Glad to see there is some realism on this thread @thehogfather

blueshoes · 21/08/2018 10:55

Momo I would agree with that.

As Since2016 alluded to below, there is cherry picking of the most family friendly parts of other countries' policies, throwing it into the wash and magically coming up with a solution that must surely work for the UK if we try hard enough/have more imagination, not recognising that everything is a trade off.

I cannot believe that a world with limited resources has to organise itself to revolve around their specific particular needs.

blueshoes · 21/08/2018 10:57

It makes sense that blair cannot move to Holland or Germany to take advantage of their pt working. That would after all involve adapting herself to the circumstances, which should never have to happen.

BlairWaldorfsHeadband · 21/08/2018 11:22

Why would I abandon my family? I know some people like to only see theirs twice a year (that thread about it was depressing) but some of us actually enjoy spending time with our parents, siblings, grandparents etc.

Momo27 · 21/08/2018 11:29

I was assuming blueshoes means move with your family Blair.

BlairWaldorfsHeadband · 21/08/2018 11:32

I can’t move my parents and grandparents though, no matter how much I would like to!

Momo27 · 21/08/2018 11:43

Well, that’s the same for all of us isn’t it Blair? We all make decision based on what we want within certain parameters. I don’t live near to any extended family because i made a point of moving out of London early in my career because I wanted to afford a house. I could have moaned about how unfair it was that my parents could afford to live in London and I couldn’t, but I just got in with it and established a life elsewhere (while thanking my lucky stars that at least I had a career, unlike my mum.)

My point is, as PP have said, there are more choices than many people realise. Whether to work hard at school, what career to train in, who to pick as a partner, what sort of partnership you want, whether you’re going to prioritise your husbands career or try to strike a balance, where to live, whether to return to work after maternity leave...

It’s not easy for any of us juggling all these things and people will face different barriers. Eg for me, being able to live near extended family was never an option; therefore I knew that once we had kids, dh and I would be doing everything between us. I also went to a pretty rubbish school where getting oneself through 6th form and off to university was not the norm.

It’s a case of accepting that life really is a lot better now for women, and then getting on with it

blueshoes · 21/08/2018 12:49

Blair, I grew up in another country and relocated thousands of miles across seas (13 hour direct flight) for my job. I have no family nearby, paid for professional childcare in UK when dcs came along and lived like a church mouse during those years whilst working pt.

I kept my foot in and was forced to re-train as my role became redundant and now work ft but flexibly, 3 days or more from home if I want and organise my time right.

I don't see how an SAHM can walk into this skilled role with no experience for pt hours. I frequently have to train people up from scratch to work in the team. If I hire people with no experience, I am looking for hunger and commitment, not just someone who thinks wants they reluctantly need the money and it fits with their lifestyle.

The issue is not so much that there are no pt roles for SAHMs in school hours, but that there people out there who are more attractive to hire and train without those restrictions. Your beef is not with employers but with your competition (which includes me who never completely took her foot off the career track).

blueshoes · 21/08/2018 12:55

I would agree with Momo again in that life is a series of choices and one thing builds on another.

You see the person with the ideal pt flexible job, and you may think it is unfair her employer does not also give you a piece of the action. What you don't realise is how much planning and sacrifice went to get there.

If the grasshopper decided to fiddle over the summer, why is it a surprise if there was nothing to eat in winter. All options were there at the start and 2 people took different routes.

Thehogfather · 21/08/2018 12:56

There's also the fact that for many of us, flexibility is something we have earned and facilitated, rather than a role we applied for or a contractual change.

All but a few days a year of my leave has been in th school holidays for the last decade. I've attended maybe two thirds of things like sports days/ presentations, all the nativitys early on, anything important etc. The role would never be advertised that way, you could never demand it of a manager and you certainly wouldn't get it granted as a working arrangement.

I've done it because I am equally flexible, and don't demand it, and will also put myself out for others. Weekends are not in my contract, neither are late evenings. Nevertheless I've worked them to help a manager or colleague out. Even though to work a Friday night it meant dd staying at a friends, and me also losing the Saturday or following Friday night to return the favour. I've changed leave from solid weeks to various half weeks and odd days to facilitate someone else's request for a last minute cheap holiday. I've done other colleagues work at home on a Sunday so they'll have time to cover me taking a 3hr break for sports day on Monday. And so on.

Admittedly it helps that having had dd young, very few colleagues had primary age dc when I did. However the same colleagues and managers have very different attitudes towards those who demand and expect but won't do anything in return.

blueshoes · 21/08/2018 15:41

hogfather that would be right. It is about give and take and earning trust and goodwill from your employer/colleagues, that gets the desirable flexi pt jobs.

PT working is not an entitlement but an employer will accommodate it despite business reasons to the contrary for the right person if both sides are prepared to compromise to make it work.

QueenAravisOfArchenland · 21/08/2018 21:18

It's fairly obvious why school hours, term time only jobs aren't going to be well paid, interesting, or plentiful. Apart from actual schools, every organisation operates for longer hours than this, so if it's possible to only do those hours, it basically means that it doesn't matter if you're there or not. That means a job that is low- or unskilled, low-stakes and repetitive. Pair low skill requirements with the fact there are far more people interested than roles available, and you also get low pay.

At my company, people have all kinds of working patterns. My boss works four days, even though her kids are grown. Many people work 3 days. Our Head of HR works school hours. My first boss, one of the directors, works very flexibly; he might take several hours off in the afternoon to spend with his (adult) children, then work til 1am. (I think he's bonkers, but that's the way he likes it.) It's entirely possible to get challenging, interesting, part time work, but it requires two things: making yourself a valuable asset, and seeing things from the employer's point of view. If you can't make yourself an asset through education or skills, you can do it by proving your worth in a job through work ethic, personal qualities, ability to learn. That is why it is often easier to do it from the inside of a company.

Fwiw, though, all roles in my field are advertised full time. I've interviewed for several and have told them I would want a 4-day working pattern, and all of them have been fine with that. If I joined them and proved my worth in 4 days, I would probably have leverage to negotiate a drop to 3.

You have choices, Blair. You have chosen to prioritise family proximity and school hours and term time only over anything else, thus limiting your choices almost to nothing. This is the natural result of your choices and not some kind of conspiracy or systematic bias.

Kookoo900 · 21/08/2018 21:21

I agree with everything on the last few pages, it is what you earn over time with flexibility. I am lucky as I am not required to be office based at all times but this has down sides that I am often asked to travel around giving guidance and support in other areas, the travel onto this has to be factored into my working day and if I had to be back at school for 3.30, I would have to say no to this element. But as I can be more flexible now my children are older, I can work evenings/weekends to make time up for an appointment or School issue.

Currently we are going through a tough time with financial and time pressures and one of the sticking points is an important role only being filled 9-3pm every day. We are trying to work out who covers this when this part time worker leaves. The answer is sadly not to get another part time worker. The operational needs are often already being compromised by part time hours

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