AIBU to think part timers should get a better deal

[Frazzledme]

I've worked part time when my kids were small but it was so s* I've gone full time now. As a job the pay tends to be crap, there are hardly any jobs to pick from and I've worked in a few teams where they could never get over that I was into my job and wanted to do well. Where I work they're quite big on inclusion and diversity but if I ever mention anything about making things better for part timers and having more flexibility it's like tumbleweeds going past. I'm ok with my hours now, but some people might want to change if they have kids etc. I'd like to use my experience to improve things for others. Is there something I'm not getting why people are so funny about it?

Also I know some people see it as a choice thing, but it's not really. If it costs more to work than not work with childcare then part time hours often make sense. No tax to pay so hourly pay goes up.

Thinking of doing an article for our group magazine to highlight how things could be better. Is this a good idea? What sort of things should I include?

Or should I just think "I'm alright jack" now I've got my cosy full time job again and people seem to like and respect me.

I work in a university, and have a lot of part-time colleagues, including in my team.
There doesn’t seem to be a bar to progression in teaching roles, but professional services and management roles are a bit different. Things are very much dependent on your line manager; I wanted to stay full-time, but compress hours to 4 days (for health reasons) and this was refused from my line manager, as I manage a large team. My counterpart in another department has been allowed to do so, because she has children, and ‘can’t be refused’.
In my experience, the balance of additional work is piled onto full-timers, because there’s a lack of willingness to pay part-timers for overtime, but full-timers are just expected to absorb it, and do the ‘hours as required for the role’. It’s good that part-time colleagues are not taken advantage of in this way, but there’s no equity.
I should also add that, because schools here finish at lunchtime on a Friday, the majority of part-timers don’t work a Friday afternoon. It makes it a nightmare for full-timers to get a Friday off, or book any time off in school holidays. I recognise that most of these issues are problems within my workplace, and not a fundamental issue with part-time work!

I worked for a company that shouts loudly at how inclusive and modern it is on these types of issues

I was one of the most senior members of the team before having children

I returned after maternity leave on part time hours and was effectively forgotten about and overlooked for any training, development or promotion opportunities

I was still part of the senior management team but excluded from senior management meetings because I was part time

They might as well have demoted me

I think shorter working hours are really valuable to families and well-being in general. It enables people to have time to cook, exercise, read and talk to their kids
Well of course, but not everyone can afford it without support from tc/uc, and of course part time workers contribute less to taxes...which supports benefits. Also means less contribution to occupational pensions and so more likely to depend on the state later in life.

But yeah, it's great!

I agree it's unfair that there is an underpinning assumption in the world of work that young women should either "focus on their career" which actually means sacrificing having a family (where men of the same age suffer no such dissonance) or take low paid "women's work".

I got into a professional role at 19 and had children young. Instead of quitting or taking a career break, I took a variety of flexible working patterns and with my new employer took a flexible role offered at interview. Now I've had my third and final baby and because my jobs have been flexible I've been able to stay in a decent role even if progression has been paused. Now I'm doing a degree with my employer and working hard to progress.

If we placed more value and longsightedness on women in the work place then surely it would be beneficial for everyone

And how can a part timer cost the same to employ as a full timer? National Insurance and pension are pro-rata, wages are pro-rata. Training may cost the same I suppose. But you'd have to offset that against how long workers stay with you.
All fixed admin costs are the same - and if doing it properly you need extra workers. Not saying it's a cost that shouldn't be absorbed, but it exists.

PT can be tricky to manage. I have a colleague who works 4 days a week. The work doesn't stop on day 5 though. So the rest of us have to pick it up and more people need to be staffed on her projects because we need to ensure continuity. Since she went part time, my Fridays have become a lot lot busier. That's not fair on me at all. She would probably say she hates having to still be available/keep an eye on what happens on Fridays. So it doesn't really work for anyone.

In my private sector employer we have a number of roles that have only ever been part time and for which there would not be budget to pay someone full time. They work well because the role was shaped to work within the part time hours, whereas where people tend to struggle is when they try to drop a day or two or compress hours and the employer does not reset expectations or make proper provision for those hours to be covered elsewhere.

That is unfair to you whyam - your company saves 20% on your colleague's wage, you take on the work and she benefits.

@GhostCurry

“ We do young girls a disservice by guiding them into “women’s work” and away from high paid careers.”

Funny that roles traditionally filled by women tend to be low paid with no prestige, isn’t it? And that “men’s jobs” are the only ones deemed worthy of being adequately remunerated?

There is also the sideline of lowered expectations of professionalism in male professions.

(DISCLAIMER - Not All Builders Are Like That)

But I've worked with umpteen tradesmen (yes, all men), in trades that pay very well. Very few have had a smidge of punctuality, clear communication, etc. It's just expected that tradesmen can come and go as they please, and how often on Mumsnet do you hear 'builders run off butties and tea and you should provide them plentifully' etc? I can't imagine a female-led profession where the client would be expected to nanny their service provider in that way.

Ahem... back on topic...

My company is small -

@ohtherewearethen it's the law actually - for part timers to have the same benefits as full time staff i.e training, access to promotion. Also the law to consider flexible working request. What I want is for the law to be followed - it often isn't. I also think people should have more access to senior roles on pt hours.

The tax issue is irrelevant - I was addressing the misconception that people can afford or not afford to work full time - sometimes the money is the same.

@Ginfilledcats good luck. It's not all doom and gloom. Although my experience could have been better I've been able to recover any drops down the ladder I've had to go. Hopefully your request will be granted.

I think many businesses need to fundamentally rethink how they are run to be able to successfully accommodate PT workers (which I think is key to retaining female talent).

My industry was designed by and for married men with SAHM wives, who could therefore work any hours and travel abroad at a moment’s notice because they had no childcare responsibilities. Nowadays women make up at least 50% of the junior roles but then there’s a huge drop off after children as part time is not accommodated and also doesn’t work very well due to how the business/industry works.

We are therefore losing lots of brilliant women who feel they can’t progress and have a family. The problem is the people in charge who would need to do the re-thinking are all men with SAHM wives! So they have little incentive and little imagination to make it happen. We need more women (and male allies) to be vocal and push for change so the next generation don’t have to deal with these issues. Lots of the more junior men seen to be taking a much more hands on role at home so they would also benefit from more flexible working.

I also know quite senior people who work 4 days a week, however its unusual to find a senior role on less than 4 days a week because usually those are highly specialised roles with a lot of expertise required, and they need a full time person, and job shares are too difficult because its complex work to hand back and forth.

This and so many of the posts are written by people only thinking of their^ job.
Some jobs do need to be covered, in a 'presentee-ism' way - if the Dr's is open, a Receptionist needs to be there. If a shop is open, the cashier needs to be there. If a restaurant is open, the chef needs to be there, If a surgeon is operating, the anesthetist needs to be there etc,etc
But a lot of jobs don't.
Some jobs can be allocated work according to the proportion of the week you work - jobs where you have X clients or X on your caseload or X projects to complete or X items to test or X doors to knock on. It doesn't matter if you work one day or 6 days a week, your 'tasks' are your own and no-one covers if you aren't there, and everyone gets the proportion of jobs according to the time you are paid for.

So, in some jobs, where you aren't client / service user / customer facing, it is easier to be flexible with hours - as long as the work is done each week or month, it makes no odds if someone takes a break between 3pm and 8pm to be with their family, and puts the hours back in the evening / starting early / working at the weekend, whereas clearly that doesn't work if you are a prison warder or a lifeguard or a train driver or one of thousands of other jobs where you need to be 'there' at certain times.

There can't be too many 'rules' about what employees can demand as that has to suit their business.
What gets shown every year in the Top 100 Companies type lists, is that offering flexibility - which includes but isn't limited to part time - is really popular with employees when done fairly so you both retain staff and attract a lot of new staff, so you get to have the pick of the crop.

While flexible/part time work should be something offered more broadly, I don't think it should be presented as a women's issue. Men need to step up at home and women should demand more from their relationships (and I say this from the experience of divorcing a useless husband so I know hard it all is but I was also very clear about what I want in my next partner). Asking employers to be more flexible because a woman has children is ultimately detrimental to women's causes. I don't want an employer to look at me and think twice about promoting me because I may have kids and ask for flexi time. And we shouldn't teach women they need to choose an easier career - go for the hard ones and make sure you look for a real partner in life and if he turns a out to be a dud, dump him, it's not a woman's responsibility to keep the family together. All the romantic bullshit we were sold growing up was so so detrimental, at least to me. I wish I had found MN when I was younger. Just hope the next generation is smarter than I was.

So, in some jobs, where you aren't client / service user / customer facing, it is easier to be flexible with hours - as long as the work is done each week or month, it makes no odds if someone takes a break between 3pm and 8pm to be with their family, and puts the hours back in the evening / starting early / working at the weekend, whereas clearly that doesn't work if you are a prison warder or a lifeguard or a train driver or one of thousands of other jobs where you need to be 'there' at certain times.

I also think that people are often - not always, but often - a bit optimistic about the extent to which they do 'catch up' in the evening or weekend. I've seen loads of threads on her from women returning after mat leave to a workplace that's currently entirely remote, and saying that it's great because they won't need childcare because their work is flexible so they'll do it in the evening and care for the baby all day. I think the number of people who will put in a full working day in the 'evening' (which actually would need to stretch to midnight, even if you started at 6pm and managed to get a couple of hours in during the day) after spending all day with a child, and for that to be good work, is pretty minimal. I certainly found during the first lockdown when we had no childcare that I felt like I was making up my hours or more, because I never got a break, but that I wasn't if you totted it up because even starting horribly early in the morning and working every evening I couldn't make it up, and also what I was doing by the evening was a bit crap because I was exhausted.

Re working too many hours as a part timer: one of my colleagues came back to work on 30 instead of 40 hours, but her managers and team colleagues were practically bullying her commenting on how little she was there, and when she actually left on time etc etc

I looked at her hours and she was working at least 40 per week, if not more. So i asked her if it was manageable, and she agreed it was but she was sick of being treated badly because of her PT status. She took my suggestion of requesting to go back up to 40, and then worked not a second more. For more money, and no more nasty comments. But she was actually working less.

They were mostly sexist twats so even as part of the management team (different branch) i had no worries about advising her to do that.

I work for a company where we all work remotely and lots of us do 5 hours a day or a 4 day week. In fact I'd say the minority are 9-5ers. Once you get a critical mass of part-timers, the company adapts to suit their needs better.

Our key is that most of us are around 9:30-2:30 most days and that's when we work together and have meetings. Everyone has learnt that if there is a problem after 2:30 then it can't necessarily get fixed that day.

There is nothing sacred about the 37.5 hour week. Other worlds are possible. (And you NEVER lose staff to other organisations!)

And yes, we do work with clients in the real world who are looked after just fine.

The tax issue is irrelevant - I was addressing the misconception that people can afford or not afford to work full time - sometimes the money is the same.

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick here, but how can the money be the same?

I agree with the sentiment expressed by the OP.

I am a man who has gone part-time, now working one less day a week. Partly to have time to help my elderly widowed mum, partly because I can afford to and work is not the sole purpose of my being. Perhaps unusually I am not the only man in my team (of 20 people) to have done so.

I expect it is only because we are in the public sector that this has been supported in the way it has.

“ Well of course, but not everyone can afford it without support from tc/uc, and of course part time workers contribute less to taxes...which supports benefits.”

Part time workers might contribute less to taxes, but people who have dropped out of the job market altogether (because they cannot make full time employment work for them) contribute nothing at all.

YANBU. I feel very strongly about this and so pleased you're doing something proactive!

I've reduced my teaching hours to four days last year now on three ( Au academic years run (Jan-Dec) and for no other reason than I want more time to myself. The process is quite interesting in that you're never asked why you want reduced time, but unless you're PT after MAT, you can't change your mind and require to increase hours.

It's not uncommon in my school, particularly with older staff, men as well as women. Shared classes are virtually unheard of and staff on 3/4 days must be given whole days under the contract so no messy sharing or part-days. I suppose what I'm saying is that the structure needs to exist to make it do-able, in this case custom and practice and the contract.

After 40+ years of FT work, I've done everything I ever wanted to career-wise, but don't want to suddenly stop, though this year may be my last.

There are more part-timers where I work than full-timers. The part-timers are all winding down for retirement so aren't interested in taking on new roles/responsibilities or doing anything more than mandatory training. The part-timers who are in admin and support roles do jobs which match their hours, in that they book patients in, get notes etc when they are there, one of the other admin staff will do that on days they are not there.

I work as part of a team of specialist nurses. We have responsibility for our patients for a few weeks (usually only seeing the patient once during that time but with a lot of behind-the-scenes work to be done, such as contacting other hospitals, liaising with other professionals and chasing up investigations, results or treatments) and things need to be done quickly during that time. It is difficult with there being so many part-time staff as they often have to hand over their caseload (infrequently taking it back when they are back in) and usually do so to one of the full-timers as they don't see their fellow part-timers (we work 'office hours' so no handover times like in traditional nursing roles). Usually, the part-timers are more demanding on the rota than the full-timers; they are often the ones who want to have set hours or who want to change their shifts. They also struggle when things change as they don't get the same exposure to things as we do.

On the other hand, when I was a ward nurse, the part-timers were often younger women with children. The NHS was very good at giving them part-time and set hours to meet their childcare needs, leaving the rest of us with terrible off-duties and feeling as though we were just 'plugging gaps' despite actually being there more shifts per week.

I think sometimes it is forgotten that employees need to work hours which meet the needs of their employer.

Pre-children I travelled regularly to international conferences. When I returned on part time hours, my travel budget was halved and I could no longer attend as many events, which subsequently had an effect on my networking & training opportunities. Within the office, I was excluded from certain projects because the meetings had to be on X day of the week when I was not in or because "we don't want the meetings to eat into your office hours" (which I understand as there were a LOT of very long meetings!)

I love my job, but feel completely trapped in it. I wouldn't be able to leave as I wouldn't be able to get the same flexibility with another employer as all roles I see (including internal promotion opportunities) are advertised on full time hours.