Flexible working just benefits middle class women who have the luxury to consider 'work life balance' - AIBU?

[Waferbiscuit]

We had a flexible working policy at my current and last workplace. In both I managed a large (20+) team of mostly women across various grades. Flexible working - normally reduced hours or term time hours, compressed hours and wfh - was available but my general observation has been that these initiatives mostly benefit the middle class.

Reduced hours has primarily been taken by people on higher grades who can afford to work part time - virtually all the grade 7 and 8 women in my team now work part time. Those in grades 3 and 4 can't afford to reduce hours and so are still in full time often providing the continuity in the office and sometimes picking up the work of those who aren't in. A few at lower grades came back from mat leave after 6 months because they couldn't afford the drop in pay. Wfh until recently was only given to senior staff so again was exclusive and that caused a situation where senior staff weren't present and more junior staff were required to be around.

Flexible working is starting to create a chasm between the haves and have nots - those who like to go one about the importance of their work life balance in the company of women who have no choice but to work full time and can't even contemplate work life balance.

Aibu to suggest we need to rethink flexible working so it benefits all?

Friend of mine works at home as an administrator/PA not highly paid, a friend's wife wfh booking holidays again not well paid. In my line of work in the public sector, no one gets to work from home as a regular pattern (maybe as an emergency if your car/boiler breaks down or your child is sick) because you wouldn't want our client base visiting you at home and they need to be seen, our CEO very very rarely wfh. So you're talking about your specific workplace and extrapolating massively.

You have to be able to get reduced hours first.
Mine were refused "noone does that" - very Male dominated environment.
We were fortunate enough I could quit when it all became too much. For us, middle class (and I'm assuming you effectively mean household income) and living in a cheaper part of the country, gave us options.

OP what you’re basically saying is richer people have more options and better quality of light and that’s already blindingly obvious.

Seems odd to call it a class thing. (And, as
Qsomeone else said, in private sector the part time stuff tends to be low paid jobs only as the ‘serious’ jobs simply won’t put up with part timers.

I would say actually it's the large administration team who have the most agreed Flexi patterns and don't work any evenings and they're the lowest pay grade. In a senior role evening duty and some weekend cover is expected.

Flexible working means that both my partner and myself can work full time. She does two days of school runs, I do three, and we work longer days on the other days. We can also work from home during school holidays.
So, for us, flexible working makes it easier for us both to continue in the jobs we had pre children.

Any employee, male/female/whatever grade is able to ask for flexible working. It's the law - not a workplace perk.

Why would working from home or working compressed hours only benefit MC women? I don't understand?

I know plenty of women in low paid jobs that have made successful flexible working requests.

I think it could just be where you work OP - NHS by any chance?

There have always been part time workers, long before the term flexible working came about. The situation the op describes isnt flexible working...its people asking to go part time, and the business allowing it.

You may have a point for the pre-school years, but surely for school age children it’s really useful for lower-waged women.

On my company I allow flexible working and part time where possible
Am not keen on compressed hours
Some full time staff do resent having to cover but I am very firm that everyone has to cover any work required when they are at work (including me !)

Flexible working is starting to create a chasm between the haves and have nots - those who like to go one about the importance of their work life balance in the company of women who have no choice but to work full time and can't even contemplate work life balance.

I worked flexibly/reduced hours at at low paid jobs as I have caring responsiblities for a disabled child (had to give up now but that is a different post). I was the only one on my floor with this working pattern. I would have given anything to go full time but could not due to extensive caring responsiblities..

We were certainly not well off, in fact it was a huge struggle financially because of the significant loss of earning well over a decade.

Hope you feel better now.

This isn't a class issue, it's just capitalism.

Capitalism IS a class issue!
It's the biggest pyramid scheme going.

Parental leave is another example. I’ve only worked with one woman who could afford to take unpaid leave, because her husband was on a very high wage. It caused a lot of resentment when she took her unpaid leave during school summer holidays, as that meant the rest of us were unable to take annual leave (only 2 people allowed off at any one time) as she was off for a straight 6 weeks.

that is poor management. In my current job, parental leave needs to be applied for as annual leave and we make sure everyone gets an equal share, esp over the summer.

I would be financially better off to take the whole summer unpaid as childcare is exceeding my earnings but it would never be approved as there are colleagues who also want a fair share of leave.

I've also used flexible working to help employees through difficult times such as illness, bereavements, etc. As long as you create a culture within your team where everyone knows they will get the same consideration, people tend to be happy to muck in if necessary.

User that's interesting that you don't allow compressed hours. I'm not overly keen on it myself but I'm not the one who can approve or decline these requests. What's your rationale for refusing it ?

confused by the OP

to me, flexible working means you get more choice about when your 40 hours happens.

I'm not a high earner - below average in fact - but can benefit from this.

I would not allow someone to take the whole summer off if it meant others couldn't take leave

Am not keen on compressed hours

I worked compressed hours (five days into three) when our DCs were pre-school, and it just about killed me!

I actually take the OP's point that the benefits of flexible and part time working do private significant advantages to those who can 'afford' to take the opportunities up.

I don't see the problem with the flexible working arrangement you have described. It's not the 'middle-class' workforce's problem that that the other women can't afford part-time. But then that's not 'flexible.' Flexible is working your contracted hours in the times that suit the worker and the employer - early/later starts and finishes. Longer days. Weekend working.

And if the person's job can be worked from home, that should be open to everyone too.

I know a number of women who work part time hours that fit in with receiving working tax credits - if they worked more or less they would not receive this benefit and they really need it to survive.

God I hope not. I'm a working class single parent who's about to apply for flexible working for when DD goes to secondary school, where there's no wraparound care which I currently use at her Primary school

I think you are creating the distinction yourself. To a “working class” woman (which by your definition a non middle class woman must be) flexible working would be the opportunity to work the same number of hours, but to move the start and finish times around or to work longer hours one day to trade for a half day off another day.

To me, and I’m quite happy to be labelled working class, flexible definitely doesn’t mean part time. I needed flexible work, but I couldn’t afford to work part time.

@Uptheduffy please don’t make this into a benefits frothing thread. It’s completely irrelevant.

Do the level 4s not become level 8s?

"God I hope not. I'm a working class single parent who's about to apply for flexible working for when DD goes to secondary school, where there's no wraparound care which I currently use at her Primary school"
Just curious, why do you need wraparound care for secondary school? Do you mean Juniors?