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?

My DH has always worked flexibly. The office has to be covered between 10-4 and apart from that, as long as they do their set number of hours, they can start and finish when they want.

In addition, he has an agreement where he works 10 days worth of hours in 9 days, so he gets a day off every 2 weeks and he can finish early to collect the DC from school a day each week.

It is available for men, they just need to ask. He is at a high grade now, but he has always been able to do this, even when he was just starting out.

"dont they progress to level 7-8 well only 15-20% of them do."

Depending on the workplace, could be much lower. If the higher ups belong to a particular profession that is hard to get into, for example.

It's about time we binned capitalism. Too few jobs that do things of value. Too many bullshit jobs. Too much consumerism that capitalism demands. We cant fight climate change effectively in a system that demands economic growth.

There has to be a better way so that everyone benefits and gets work life balance.

As others have said, it’s more about the nature of what jobs at comparatively junior and senior levels involve. A junior role typically consists of fairly short term, closely time-bound tasks, that need to be done at particular times because somebody else (often a customer) needs them at that time. At a more senior level, you’re probably working to longer deadlines that therefore give you more flexibility around when and how you do them. And when a job is senior and high paid but still has those time and space constraints- like an emergency surgeon, for example- they wouldn’t get to work flexibly either.

@SluggishSnail

I find there's a certain breed of employee who can't see past the end of their own noses in terms of experience and advancement. They'll stick rigidly to their job spec, refusing to do either lower or higher grade work. I find it frustrating in those who claim to want advancement, because I got where I am by not turning my nose up at any sort of work.

Our work place is highly flexible, and we get a lot of loyalty from staff for it. I had to beat the path on flexibility, because in spite of it being an easy win, the old managers were wedded to minimum holidays for maximum hours. Albeit with decent pay, but failing to appreciate how you can't buy yourself out of the stress of having to juggle a 40h working week with life commitments.

We need more flexitime and dads working flexible hours.
I work part time now but my old job was flexitime, and a few more hours, which was way easier.

Flexible working has benefited me as a full time worker. At the moment I do four longer days so I can leave early one day a week and other jobs have allowed me to build up time and do some working from home so I can make school plays ect.

I had some flexible working options and took them. I ended up with compressed hours, starting work an hour early and limited working from home. Many jobs can’t do those due to the needs of the business and the more front line and less behind the scenes you are the less likely you are going to be able to do it. My job included lots of statistics gathering, manipulating data and report writing.

In my old workplace there was no way every level could keep going up as like most businesses the higher up you get the less positions.

I got where I am by not turning my nose up at any sort of work.

Yes, me too!

My observation is that often women who can afford to work part-time because their partners earn well choose to go into jobs which offer flexible/part time hours - e.g. public sector after work ing in the city. The work ing class members of staff, on the same grade, are work ing full time as their partners aren't high earners. It's the single parents who generally are full time

Its flexible for senior people and those with children. The rest of us are there doing the work and are last in the queue for peak holiday times etc. I just tried to book some holiday around Easter, bet I get the cat bum face from the boss.

Compressed hours (4 long days) are very popular with those with nursery age children to save a days fees

IME "lower class" women (and men) often benefit from flexible working when their DC are at school age as it allows them to negotiate a work pattern where they either come in early and can leave in time for school pick up, or come in late after they've dropped their DC at school. I also have colleagues that work a staggered working day, so that they leave in time to pick their DC up from school and then work the extra time in the evenings.

I guess the difference with a lower grade job (not the class of person doing it) is that it's more likely to be a job that is more strictly defined or is expected to be done under supervision.

I'm low level management but what they call an individual contributor so no one reports to me. In my company everyone at my level can wfh. My contract actually states I'm home based but my manager is office based. When the previous manager left I was asked to apply for the role. But they were completely inflexible re wfh. So I didn't apply. So it's the other way around where I work.

As a part time teacher I’m not allowed to apply for promotion and there’s no flexible working allowed within teaching beyond going part time.

Totally unfair that working from home is offered only to senior members of staff. If a role can be done from home it should be offered to ALL staff regardless of seniority.

@gingersausage
Wtf? Thread is about who works less than full time. Reduced hours (as in hours less than full time) are not only taken up by middle class women, in my experience. Nothing in my post was "frothing" or unsupportive of the women, who are my friends. I am working class but in a graduate job and also work part time.

In my public sector organisation the more junior grades get flexitime automatically. The more senior dont so they need to ask for flexible to get the same flexibility. Or ask to go part time.

Those in grades 3 and 4 can't afford to reduce hours and so are still in full time

That isn’t anything to do with flexible working though. It’s not the employer’s fault those grade 3/4 choose to stay full time.

People going part time will do so based on what they earn. Those in the higher bands have presumably worked their way up, have lots of experience worth paying for and made the decision to drop salary. I take it that it all of the higher band workers have really rich partners and not all of the lower band ones have really low-earner partners? That will be a factor too.

If you’re saying that rich couples have more options and that can enable one person to only work part time if they want, then that really isn’t a revelation to anyone!

Yabu.

My workplace offers flexible working (to a reasonable degree) to all grades and it benefits more than just ‘middle class women’. There are lots of examples of people working compressed hours over 4 days with no salary reduction for caring purposes (both dc and elderly relatives).

I am a team leader to a large diverse team. I honestly don't care when, how or where people work as long as the work gets done. The team take advantage and work in a way that suits them. They are very productive and will go out of their way to help me if there is a crisis etc...Trust people and they will invariably do the right thing.

OP you seem completely ignorant of the fact that some people can't afford to work full time. If you're at a loss after childcare or have to work round a partner's hours, full time work may simply be unaffordable to you. Yours is not the only workplace in the country.

" because I got where I am by not turning my nose up at any sort of work. "

Can you understand that not every workplace is like yours though? Doing the cleaners' job for them is not going to lead to advancement for most people, and doing a job at a higher level has just been completely forbidden at the places I've worked.

Why is flexible work relevant to women and not men?

ATM I need flexible work, and have done so for nearly a decade, to care for ageing parents. I can assure you that understanding is crap and I have been penalised for this - and I'm probably at what you would call 'higher grade'.

Because unpaid care for family members is women's work of course!