To ask why are part time workers disliked?

[CherryCocoa]

I've recently returned to work but part time. It would appear that a lot of people higher than me are not keen on part time workers but I don't understand why? I work hard, I am conscientious, none of my work is passed to anyone else, but yet I'm still looked down on for being part time. Is it seen as lazy maybe? I work 30+ hours a week, I have a baby to look after and a house to run and obviously my pay is pro rata to account for less hours. I'm not a lazy person at all. I just don't get it, can anyone shed the light for me please?

I have found the same as a pp that I have to work harder to be taken seriously. Luckily I had a solid reputation pre mat leave and now it's mainly the younger, more junior staff and graduates who seem to treat me like I'm an idiot. I wouldn't say disliked but they would never ask my advice and don't seem to take my input seriously. I'm putting it down to a bit of 'shes just a thick mum, not an ambitious bright spark like me' type attitude. Everyone else is great.

I do find it's a bit being like the team ghost, always missing something, never fully in the loop, a bit of an afterthought. Definitely just specific to my team though.

Incidentally I've found that part time work does leave you a little more exposed and you aren't there to fight your corner with things like explaining reasoning behind a decision or picking up on a mistake that you'd normally have corrected yourself under the radar.

I do think that, even though it works out the same, shorter days vs fewer days can read differently - shorter days are more noticeable in an office, where people see you leaving 'early'. Conversely, working remotely I don't even notice who works shorter hours but I think people do still notice that I'm not there on a Friday, maybe even more than they did before?

"Part timer" is an insult in the public sector, I've certainly heard it there from people who like to believe they are terribly necessary and experienced. Those who are full time might feel threatened because they feel they have to justify their larger pay with pro rata results.

Quite a lot of the time a part time role is very efficient (I'm not digging at anyone often the hours are to cover particularly busy times of operating anyway).

I've definitely experienced hostility when my role changed to part time (literally saying off you pop while us real employees get on with some work on one occasion, also the team meeting I wasn't allowed to attend ) . So I took a role where I was part time from the start. Still got a lot of hostility, some of it written notes on my computer.

It’s also interesting because I’ve seen many studies that show workers who work lighter work weeks are more efficient and more productive.

I do understand why occasionally sometimes a coworker is annoyed to hand something off to me that is an 8 hour task and it takes me 2 days to hand it back instead of 1 because I work half time. The thing with that though is there is no guarantee I would have been available for a full day on that task anyway since if I were full time more things would be coming my way. If things truly are emergencies, I also stay late or work weekends, just like the full time employees.

@D4rwin

"Part timer" is an insult in the public sector, I've certainly heard it there from people who like to believe they are terribly necessary and experienced. Those who are full time might feel threatened because they feel they have to justify their larger pay with pro rata results. Quite a lot of the time a part time role is very efficient (I'm not digging at anyone often the hours are to cover particularly busy times of operating anyway). I've definitely experienced hostility when my role changed to part time (literally saying off you pop while us real employees get on with some work on one occasion, also the team meeting I wasn't allowed to attend ) . So I took a role where I was part time from the start. Still got a lot of hostility, some of it written notes on my computer.

I work in a university and can honestly say I've never encountered anything like this, and nor did I hear anything like it being said about other people when I was full-time.

I had a manager who was like that (luckily briefly) and turned out she was jealous and struggling working ft. She shut up when I pointed out I earned significantly less than her! Unfortunately there are some people in work places who are pricks.

The only thing that bugs me is that its impossible to arrange group meetings without getting shirty "I don't work Thursdays please rearrange"
Times that by 5 people all working different days and other commitments and someone will miss out. I get it must be frustrating and I'd never put a 1 to 1 or small group meeting in for a day off but for larger groups its not possible.
Thats individuals though, not all part time workers as most are happy to read notes or have a catch up to keep up to speed.

The other thing that can be really tricky for managers with lots of PT staff is that it's really difficult to arrange meetings when everyone can attend. So you either have to spend ages trying to find a slot when everyone's in, or if that isn't possible, you have to ensure that there is some means of ensuring that the PT staff who cannot attend are able to input their views/catch up on what they have missed etc.

I'm not trying to be negative, honestly. I see lots of benefits to allowing people to work flexibly and would not want to go back to a world where everyone was full time. It's just that things are more complicated and they take more time...which is in short supply for many managers.

@StephenBelafonte

A huge proportion of women work part time just to receive tax credits in my experience. It's not the job they want, it's the tax credits and all other associated benefits that come with it. I'm not saying everyone, but a sizable majority.

It puts people like the OP at a disadvantage because inevitably, we all get tarred with the same brush.

Do you really believe this? Finding a part time job in school hours is difficult and to work full time by the time you have covered childcare and done all the juggling for school holidays, training days and sick days it’s not beneficial. Plus some of us want to raise our children not be at work 40hours a week on top of raising a child. The trouble is with today’s society women are expected to work as though we don’t have kids to raise as well.

X post with parkandride

@D4rwin usually the “insult” part timer is for full time workers who slope off early or take long lunch breaks but in my experience it’s very much said jokingly and to people who work loads of over time then take a couple of hours to have their nails done or similar. I’ve never heard it aimed at actual part time workers.

I used to get sly digs from a sexist 50 something year old male 'colleague' (he wasn't really, we only shared an office occasionally). Calling mat leave a holiday etc. Funnily enough he had kids but never lifted a finger to look after them so I assumed he thought childcare was a breeze because he never did any (his wife told us, backed up by people who knew him years ago) and was hardly in the office as he was 'out seeing clients'. Yet 9 time out of 10 when someone rang him (beck hus clients kept ringing asking where the fuck he was) he was shopping, playing golf, mowing the lawn etc. Basically because he was a shirker he assume everyone else was. Complete bellend.

It would appear that a lot of people higher than me are not keen on part time workers

as you use the word 'appear' .. are you assuming they are not keen ? or is it you ?

It depends on the role, but the workplace doesn’t stop when part timers aren’t working. If something urgent comes up on their project and they aren’t working that day then someone else has to deal with it. This can lead to resentment. IMO some jobs don’t lend themselves to part time working; it’s not the fault of the employee.

@CherryCocoa

I'm not client facing so no one from outside the organisation will be inconvenienced by me not being in. It also makes no difference to management if I'm in. It doesn't really affect anyone tbh. It's like being down one person in the running of a supermarket - a bit frustrating but not going to grind the shop to a halt.

So you don’t matter to clients, and you don’t matter to management? That’s not a great position to be in. You are either massively underselling yourself or you don’t really add any value.

I’m amazed you can’t see why some employers wouldn’t value PT workers as much. A few examples, obviously depending on role specifics:

• takes longer to complete work (if it takes 10 days to do a project, those 10 days would be spread over a longer period)
• clients can’t get hold of the individual on certain days
• meetings have to be arranged around non-working days meaning more difficult to schedule
• queries from internal stakeholders go unanswered for longer
• colleagues have to pick things up in an emergency (or even not an emergency but things just need to be moved along so they pick up the slack)
• if in a managerial role, team members may be unsupervised/ not receiving the right training

@Mincepiehangover I agree. Definitely people can be a little bit envious.

I've never known anyone having an issue with people working part time. Maybe its more prevalent in certain industries?

The only issue I've ever had is a current one. I work 8am - 4pm, my manager works compressed hours, finishing at 7pm and having Fridays off. So not actually part time. She keeps insisting on putting meetings in late. THAT does my head in! I'm confident enough that I'll decline but I imagine some people will be railroaded (by the guilt trips)

Hardbackwriter
So ..... you haven't experienced it. Was there anything else you were going to say or add or was this an effort to discredit. In which case you should add the words "I don't believe you" or "You are wrong". I have not worked in a university for 12 years. But I have definitely heard part timer used as an insult in two universities.

We’ve a part timer in our office, she works 20 hours or so by choice so she can still claim benefits. She does not work Thursday/Friday and will leave the shitty jobs that need doing on a Wednesday pm for those who will be in on a Thursday.

Beck hus?! Because his

@Parkandride

The only thing that bugs me is that its impossible to arrange group meetings without getting shirty "I don't work Thursdays please rearrange" Times that by 5 people all working different days and other commitments and someone will miss out. I get it must be frustrating and I'd never put a 1 to 1 or small group meeting in for a day off but for larger groups its not possible. Thats individuals though, not all part time workers as most are happy to read notes or have a catch up to keep up to speed.

I have found sort of the opposite problem to be the only issue I've found since dropping my hours at work - my boss is adamant that all meetings are scheduled to include me, which is nice in some ways, but it means I now spend a bigger proportion of my working time in meetings and so have less time to actually get through some work; it's a particular problem if I'm working on something that could really do with a focused day, or even a focussed morning or afternoon, as I now rarely get one.

I’ve noticed this too. I don’t claim any WTC; in fact,although I’m technically part time (4days per week: 30 hours per week) for the last few months I’ve worked around 40 hours per week for no extra pay.

But, I have heard some colleagues say “lucky you having Fridays off”, but until recently, I looked after my son on Fridays; and through lockdown it was useful as it was only 30 hours a week I had to juggle (as will it be the case again from next week as Scottish schools will be shut)

I’ve had senior colleagues without children moan that they couldn’t afford to work part time (yet, I’m imagining their salary is a lot more than mine, and they don’t have childcare costs, and their mortgage is paid off). Usually when colleagues moan, I say that they too can apply to work 4 days a week and take a salary cut, and often it shuts them up

@Dreahil1 I just want to respond to your "some of us want to raise our children not be at work 40hours". I would love to be able to afford to stay at home or work less hours but it simply isn't possible. Some people can't choose that option. I'm not sure you meant it to come across the way it did though.

Having been a manager of both full and part time employees, I think Alexa has summarised the challenges I had with PT working. I had PT workers off on every day of the week so I had a headache trying to decide which day to schedule team meetings in knowing that somebody would miss out, then I’d have to spend time with them getting them up to speed, which all the while is eating into their hours. All my experience with PT workers has been positive though, I found if I were positive and flexible with them I often got it back when I needed help with cover so I couldn’t manage without them really. I do wish that there were more opportunities within organisations for PT working, I had some fantastic PT staff who wanted to progress but finding a suitable role that offered PT hours was extremely rare, so it seemed to work out that you needed to find a role whilst still working full time then be prepared to stay in the same role PT until able to go back to FT, but that could just be the organisations I’ve experienced.

@HamishDent

It depends on the role, but the workplace doesn’t stop when part timers aren’t working. If something urgent comes up on their project and they aren’t working that day then someone else has to deal with it. This can lead to resentment. IMO some jobs don’t lend themselves to part time working; it’s not the fault of the employee.

I think this is a poor excuse and a comfortable one. Just because something is hard work doesn’t mean it cannot be done or isn’t worth doing. Why don’t more companies consider job-shares?