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?

"it's only those who don't progress who don't reap the rewards."

What an attitude. Lots of people are in jobs that are not career jobs - there are no opportunities to progress.
The hospital porter will not make consultant even if he works hard for 40 years.
I will be at the bottom forever.

However, where I work we all have flexi-time. Working part-time is a different thing. I don't earn enough to take a reduction in wages and am single so need to sustain myself independently.

We have a diverse range of employees at my work using flexible working including single mums on universal credit.

Flexible working hasn't created a chasm between the have and have nots. The chasm has always been there.

In my experience, it's the squeezed middle that,suffers - those who don't earn enough to reduce their hours but earn too much for tax credits.

From a work perspective, lower paid staff are more likely to be operational and often needed to run a service eg answer the phones, serve customers etc and it's more difficult to work flexibly when it's a matter of 'bums on seats'. Management roles can sometimes have more flexibility as they are overseeing the service and so can work outside of service hours. For example, a report can be written at any time.

My neighbours are both shift workers in the NHS and their flexible working request is that they work opposite shifts so don't need childcare. In addition, they both don't work Sunday daytime so that they can go to Church as a family.

Now that flexible working is open to all, it's not just about working mothers. I know people who work flexibly to study, spend mire time with family overseas, care for relatives, volunteer.

I don't recognise this scenario at all. Most office space is being cut so much that staff are often forced to wfh even if they'd prefer not to. And many lower paid single parents are the ones who choose to work part-time because they have no family support. In fact, often the most highly paid have got used to that level of pay and are reluctant to give it up.

Of course flexible working should benefit all.

In my team everyone on all grades are able to work from home when they don't have meetings and flex hours to suit their lifestyle as long as they do their job to a high standard. We are judged on output rather than presentism. I think it benefits everyone in the team, including the interns as they have the same perks as eveyone else. Noone works part time although one lady does compressed hours so works 35 hours over 4 days.

I can wfh where I work now in theory, though I feel that I wouldn't really be doing my job if I did that. My job includes things like helping visitors which is totally impossible from home. I'd only wfh on quiet days or if I need to go to the doctors or something like that.

I used to work somewhere where people at my level were not allowed to wfh. I didn't have a big problem with that in itself, but what really annoyed me was that in theory all levels were supposed to have the same holiday, but those who could wfh obviously had more time for actual holidays because they could stay at home and work when they were expecting a delivery or a repairman whereas the rest of us would have lost annual leave for that. I remember bringing it up in a staff meeting and getting some sympathy from higher ups with that point.

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

That's a pretty extreme compressed hours arrangement. Four into five or ten into nine are more usual (and doable).

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

Yes, but if a particular employer (civil service here, I presume) claims to offer the same conditions to all staff, then it needs to pointed out if there are inequalities.

I work primarily with men and all of those with young children do some form of flexible working. None compress a full day away but all have a combo of early or late starts to accommodate school/nursery runs.
Some do early starts on other days and some do a couple of hours after the kids are in bed.

They'd all be classed as middle class though.

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

Capitalism IS a class issue! "

Of course.

That's a pretty extreme compressed hours arrangement.

Agreed, but needs must sometimes. Employer was very supportive too.

Reduced hours are only one form of flexible working, so I think your example has limitations. Compressed hours, working from home, variable start and finish times are all examples that wouldn't involve a reduction in salary.

However, what you do does have some validity in that it tends to be lower-paid roles that are less flexible - having to be in the workplace, having to work fixed hours - also lower-paid professions generally, such as shop-floor retail - have less room for flexibility.

There will be exceptions and I am sure there are some minimum wage jobs that allow flexible working and some senior roles that don't, but in the broad sense YANBU to associate all forms of flexible working more with the haves than the have-nots.

"Do the level 4s not become level 8s?"

I don't know about where OP works, but in general, no, not everyone moves up, in some cases most people don't move up. These might be different types of jobs rather than just young and older people.

I'm not familiar with the grades you mention.
But as a general principle, if someone senior is out of the office and someone more junior steps in/picks up a few bits etc., then surely the more junior person is getting some insight into and experience of the next level up, which would enable them to apply for promotion sooner.
So maybe it isn't all bad?

Flexible working doesn’t mean part time in my world, far from it. When I returned to work I asked for part time and it was turned down (global company employing more than 150k people). Flexible working for me means I don’t have to go into the office daily and work hard, often outside of core hours, when I have put DC to bed. About to do some work now actually to save my DV having to go the breakfast club tomorrow

Heard ian duncan smith on radio 4 apparently only 15-20 % of people who join the workforce in an entry level job ever progress. So all the people saying dont they progress to level 7-8 well only 15-20% of them do.

"Most office space is being cut so much that staff are often forced to wfh even if they'd prefer not to."

Is this legal? If I was forced to work from home permanently, I'd need to be compensated for central heating, wear and tear on my own stuff, etc.

Your particular problem appears to be a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what, and why there needs to be a certain level of physical cover in the office. I don’t know what kind of department you’re talking about, so I’m making these examples up. But if part of the role and responsibilities of a level three employee is to answer the phone, and that’s why people at that grade need to be in the office, then it’s fair that all the level threes cover that evenly between them, and whether or not level seven people are there is not relevant. If part of a level seven role is to supervise the level three people while they answer the phone, then the level seven staff need to cover that between them. You need to be clear about why the physical presence is necessary for specific tasks. And if it isn’t, you need to ask yourself why you’re insisting on the physical presence.

I’m not sure about flexible working, but nationally part time positions are lower paid. Part-time working is definitely not a middle-class thing.

Median full time hourly pay: £14.80
Median part-time hourly pay: £9:94

I think the problem is some quite a lot of business struggle to accommodate flexible work as it's not compatible with there business needs and has an impact on there ability to function.
the company I work for struggles with accommodating flexi working .We has had 1 person outraged that they couldn't compress hours to three 12 hour days. reason being for saftey there work can only be done in daylight so working to 8pm on good they couldn't do there job.
Most of our support roles have the majority of calls 8-3 so no point having staff in at other times nothing to do.
They do give fixed days off for child care (amazingly always on a friday or monday) meaning the rest of us hardly get these off due to these people having a fixed day off .

Capitalism IS a class issue

My point (probably clumsily worded) was that the workplace policy OP describes does not segregate people by class in itself, but it's just part of the wider capitalist society we live in (which, obviously, does segregate people by class).

"In my experience, it's the squeezed middle that,suffers - those who don't earn enough to reduce their hours but earn too much for tax credits."

That would be me, but I don't have children so would have to be much poorer to have tax credits. Also, don't need to work part time of course, it would just be very nice.

"From a work perspective, lower paid staff are more likely to be operational and often needed to run a service eg answer the phones, serve customers etc and it's more difficult to work flexibly when it's a matter of 'bums on seats'. "

Yes, but if there is a team, some kind of flexi time can actually be beneficial e.g. the service is covered between 8 and 6 rather than 9 and 5 and there's less pressure on the car park with people arriving at different times. This kind of flexi time usually still has core hours though so people will still need to be in between say 10 to 12 and 2 to 4.

The real reason why lower level workers are often not allowed flexi or wfh is that the management want to be able to physically supervise them.

"I’m not sure about flexible working, but nationally part time positions are lower paid. Part-time working is definitely not a middle-class thing. "

You'd need to look at the spouse's earning as well or any top-up from benefits as the people who work part time can often afford it because there's another income. I know someone who works part time because she has a lodger so she has an income from that as well.

I'm a lower grade and have taken flexible working as I have 3 sen kids who cant cope with childcare (childcare cant cope with them tbh). It was that or give up working

"meaning the rest of us hardly get these off due to these people having a fixed day off ."

That's really not fair.