Pissed at my employer - flexible working

[Sharon1983]

I am currently on maternity leave and since march a colleague from my team has become a team leader. She keeps pushing me to come back to work earlier than my return date which is in November.
I spoke to my manager and requested to reduce my hours to 2 days a week and that would mean taking annual leave accrued whilst on maternity from my return date in November and therefore would officially be back in the office in March 2020.
My manager said to drop her an email of my request and that would be it and thats fine.
Today i receive and email back from the team leader (who will not be my team leader as i manage a team also) with my manager copied attaching the company flexible working policy and requesting a bloody essay of how me going part time would affect the team and the company..WTF!!

I am on very good terms with the team i manage and i have been in contact with them throughout my maternity and have been told how our colleague now team leader wants to step on my managers toes and try be “the manager”!

Advise- should i reply to my manager only and say what was agreed in conversation
Or should i give them an essay- and if so what to write without being bitchy

In my company (Energy/ Oil & Gas industry), it is simply impossible for anyone to manage or lead a team at 2 days a week over a sustained period. In fact, managers and team leads consistently work overtime hours which they are not paid for because of the size of their workload and the nature of the industry which is a 24-hour operation. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with anyone being female...the work simply will not get done and the business will be disrupted if leadership were not FT.

And our CEO as well as several senior managers are female. Not everything is about keeping women down, FGS.

Nope. A whole lot of jobs can be done on a job share basis. It’s commonplace in my industry, even at senior level. But keep peddling the myth and let’s keep women out of management if they choose to have families
What nonsense.

Nobody is saying women with families shouldn't be in management. They are saying that job share and part time working isn't always appropriate for every job/team/organisation.

You seem to be working from the position that having managers on 2 days a week should be the starting point for keeping women in management and failure to have 2 day a week team leaders is keeping women out of senior posts, when really there are other questions like:

• why does it have to be the woman who goes part time?
• what flexible working exists for all staff (who may have other responsibilities not just young children)
• does the company offer a range of hours, including compressed hours, for all? Do they encourage fathers to use this flexibility?
• is there an issue that a woman needs part time in management because her other half and childrens dad is working full time (but its her job that has to get cut)? If so and she's an ambitious woman, why can't it be her partner who goes part time?Couldn't both do 3/4 days a week to balance the childcare?

Ultimately men have to start making some cuts too and showing more flexibility in their own careers and have greater equality in the own relationships as well. If a woman is ambitious then why is the onus more on the company to make a decision that could be a hindrance to the team than it is on the couple to make more equitable family arrangements?

They all work FT and somehow manage to have children without any "special pleading"

Yes yes, it’s just so easy for F/T working mums. 🙄

Nobody is saying women with families shouldn't be in management. They are saying that job share and part time working isn't always appropriate for every job/team/organisation.

No, they are saying it isn’t appropriate for any organisation.

It might well be it doesn’t suit the OP’s organisation, but the comments here were made that she can’t be a team leader and work 2 days a week. As a blanket statement that is untrue and unhelpful.

I worked for an organisation which had been run by two job share CEOs. Shortly after they were fired, it was taken into special measures. Now, that might have been because they were both incompetent or it might have been because that particular job was impossible on that basis.

When I started back to work after maternity leave, i requested to work part-time. I had to put it in writing to my immediate boss, and then about 2 months before i started back to work, i had a semi-formal meeting with my boss and HR.

They had considered my request, and obviously as my role is full-time they needed someone full time. A job share was agreed, and they said they would advertise the job. If they could find someone suitable they would allow me to work part-time, if not, we would have another meeting to decide what to do.

Legally, they don't have to allow you to work part-time, but they DO have to consider the options and not just turn you down.

I would speak to your immediate manager and/or HR department, outlining that other people haven't had to write an essay to go part-time, and see what they come back with
x

You can do it. But you have to be able to justify how/why it’s going to work for the company
Not how it will work for you because you have a baby

I am a part time manager. It works because there is a suitable team structure and we all can cover one another. But this is not always the case especially if there are different specialities/knowledge required, distances or authorised signatories required. Not knowing the company you can’t know it will work. If you manage a team of 30 people 2 days a week clearly the workload needs to go somewhere, or if it’s a project with short deadlines you won’t meet on shorter hours

For someone who is a trained a project manager you were remarkably unclear in your OP about what had been agreed and what your new role would be. The drip feed about you changing roles completely does put a different spin on things but it’s still unclear why you talked about the requested “essay” being about the impact of you “going part time” when you now say that is already signed off?

I think that if the OP uses your list she will be doing herself out of a job completely! It will tell her bosses how other people can do her job for her.

Taking a responsible attitude to ensuring that cover is identified doesn't necessarily 'do someone out of their job'. In this case, the employer would be treading on very thin ice getting rid of an employee who is returning from mat leave simply by highlighting additional coverage is already available in- house. Pragmatically, if they are proposing to only work 2.5 days a week, it does leave a resourcing gap.

Whilst we all flatter ourselves at how much our company relies on us, let's face it we are all ultimately replaceable resources in a PowerPoint organisation chart with a number on our head! Thankfully in U.K there are employment protections in place to ensure employers take an even-handed approach to the disruption caused by women taking mat leave and re-negotiating their hours/work arrangements in the light of new family commitments.

Whilst we all flatter ourselves at how much our company relies on us, let's face it we are all ultimately replaceable resources in a PowerPoint organisation chart with a number on our head!
I think this is always worth remembering.

When I told work about my upcoming maternity leave one of the first things they said after congratulations was not to worry trying to get ahead and have things in place for when I'm off because when I'm off it is someone else's problem.
It was a really nice sentiment because that's how it should be. There's very few people whose absense would lead to a team/organisation falling apart.

A manager well may have said just send an email.

An employer has no obligation to even consider this unless it's as a formal request.

I get that you dont like this woman. But this really isnt her fault. In all likelihood she has been asked for forward the formal flexible request on to you. After your manager realised they fucked up by sending just send an email.

In all honesty, I work in projects, it's not quite that easy to just have someone in 2 days a week. Projects move on constantly and as a job share lots can get lost or changed while one is off and that causes problems.

All you can do, is submit your request, just like everybody else does. Answer all the points its asks you too.

And just wait.

When I told work about my upcoming maternity leave one of the first things they said after congratulations was not to worry trying to get ahead and have things in place for when I'm off because when I'm off it is someone else's problem

That is a really nice sentiment @LolaSmiles and is the mark of a great employer who values staff and does the decent thing by them.

Hi
Just to clarify and put things to bed. I have spoken to my manager since my posting on MN. The team were not all aware that i would be going back to work on a new post.
My colleague (who is being a busy body) took it upon herself to send me an email with the flexible working policy, as she thought she would have to cover my previous team leader role on the days i wouldn't be working!!
No excuse as she is not my manager and should not have sent it to me!!!!
So no long email request needed in writing to my manager and busy body has had a telling off :-)

Thank you all for your thoughts but i think people forget how as a parents (both sides not just mothers) we run ourselves down to the last bit of energy everyday trying to shuffle and reorganise for our children to have the best.

@Sharon1983. I cannot believe the cheek of busybody!

Sharon. Glad you’ve sorted things but still sounds to me as though your manager is the issue here.

There’s clearly a flexible working policy in place otherwise your colleague couldn’t have sent it to you so you and your manager should follow that procedure. (would def advise this from your perspective as you’d be the one penalised if an informal agreement between you and your manager is at any point challenged).

Your manager also hasn’t communicated properly with the rest of your team as to what will happen when you return and who will be covering which role.

In addition they’ve obviously somehow given your colleague the impression they will be left covering your days off so, again, sounds like poor communication and I’m not sure if 100% trust that your manager knows what they’re doing.

I’d really advise you make sure you have everything in writing and have followed the policy your company has in place to cover yourself going forward.