If you work in the Civil Service, how flexible are flexi hours?

[muskateerfour]

Hi, I’ve had a provisional offer for a role within DEFRA. It’s project management so operational and I’ll need to be in the office fairly often. I’ve been advised by HR I can definitely do a couple of late starts each week and have some flex on my working hours. Didn’t delve deeper with HR at this stage as the offer is still only provisional and I would accept the job without flexi hours if needed.

However, I’m already thinking about childcare for school holidays and covering morning school runs, and I wondered how flexi time works for other civil servants? For example, would I need to set out my hours in advance and stick to them without chopping and changing, or could I clock in and out at my discretion as long as I make sure I’m completing my contracted hours each week?

Also wonder if anyone has successfully negotiated additional unpaid leave for school holidays? I’ve heard pro data term time contracts are common, but I would only need to take off some of the school holidays, say 5-6 weeks a year rather than 13.

Thanks in advance.

Following as I'm starting a new job with the civil service soon.
Have you heard of unpaid parental leave? This kicks in after 1 year of employment.

Congrats on your new job! No, hadn’t heard of unpaid parental leave. Do you have details, ie how many days can be taken

Not defra, but my part of the cs is totally flexible as long as the work gets done and I don’t go more than 22 hours up or down over my contracted hours within my 4 week flexi period. So I can work longer or finish early, duck out for 20mins to do the school run every day, have a 2 hour lunch - whatever I like.

Departments all operate very differently though, so you might have core hours or a fixed shift pattern - it’ll vary by job, generally.

Flexible 7am-7pm. You can take unpaid leave or buy leave, we do the latter. Ours wouldn’t like you taking unpaid leave unless it was an emergency.

Just reading up on parental leave which would solve all school holiday issues - 4 weeks’ entitlement for each child. I feel completely out of the loop - returning to work after 10+ years at home.

@notforonesecond, do you need to state your hours/working pattern to your line manager or do you have autonomy to change it up each day to suit?

I work for an agency that’s part of the Defra group, but were not officially civil servants. Our core hours are pretty flexible (start work by 10, finish at 3, actually think I can finish at 2 now, need to look it up) so you could start and then pause work to do school runs as long as you get your hours in. Defra itself might have different hours to us and some depts will need to provide 9-5 (or longer) cover for customer facing service - but that shouldn’t affect you in project management. I know staff who have term time only contracts, I think Defra have the same. You won’t need to pre specify what hours you’re going to work, as long as the times are in your diary so people know what you’re doing each day.

Lots of people are now home working and it’s set to stay long term, though more part office part home approach, which really helps with drop off / pick up.

As with most jobs I’d always suggest you start and then negotiate once in, but I think you’ll be able to. Good luck

All sounding so accommodating and family friendly. Hope that all my checks/refs come through swiftly now so that I’m not starting work at the beginning of the Summer holidays! I’ve heard it can take 3 months

@notforonesecond

Not defra, but my part of the cs is totally flexible as long as the work gets done and I don’t go more than 22 hours up or down over my contracted hours within my 4 week flexi period. So I can work longer or finish early, duck out for 20mins to do the school run every day, have a 2 hour lunch - whatever I like.

Departments all operate very differently though, so you might have core hours or a fixed shift pattern - it’ll vary by job, generally.

This

I can't answer all your questions but I'm a CS in DWP. I work full time. I've been working from home since July. I live close enough to the school to drop off at 8:30am and be back in time to start at 8:45am. I take my lunch at 2:30 which gives me enough time to pick up the kids, get them home and fed before I'm back online at 3:30pm til 5pm.

Flexitime is accumulated or lost each day depending on when you start/finish or take a longer or shorter lunch.

In my experience, and this does vary department to department, I can use my flexitime when it suits me as long as it doesn't conflict with my diary which I pretty much organise myself.

We're due to return to the office soon on a flexible basis and I've no worries as I have an excellent HEO who knows I work well and will allow me to keep the lunch arrangements I have so that I can work from the office from the morning and then from home after I collect the children.

I've been working from home with the children here when off school and it's been tough but come the summer holidays, I'll put them in Summer camps for 2 or 3 weeks for their own benefit.

I can't say anything about unpaid leave but I was on special leave for a while due to having to shield and not having the IT to work from home.

I'm in a very fortunate position where my office is a short walk away and happens to be right next to our local summer camp.

I have friends elsewhere in the CS who don't have the same benefits as me.

All you can do is speak to your line manager. After all, the CS do their best to be an excellent employer.

Good luck!

Thanks @Katkincake, yes that’s what I was hoping to do - see how things look once I’ve started. DH is ready to take a few weeks off and cover childcare for me to settle in at first

I might mention it if I was doing something massively out of the ordinary, like working 7am-10am and then logging off. But only in conversation, I put the hours on my flexi sheet and I’m trusted not to lie.

Not all cs jobs are like mine though, I manage my own caseload. Some jobs, even in my same dept, work set shifts with limited flexi building capacity.

You probably won’t find out what your exact rules are until you start.

Requesting part year working to have however many weeks off a year you need because of kids is pretty common where I work though, you’ll definitely be able to request that, it’ll just be down to business need if they approve it.

Also, I haven't heard of anybody taking unpaid leave unless it was for one of the reasons allowed. Childcare issues doesn't cover that. If you can work from home with thr children then you may be able to suggest that to your line manager x

I work for the CS although not DEFRA and individual departments set their own terms.

I don’t have core hours and can build up a maximum of 3 days flexi or, conversely, accrue 3 days worth of deficit. It’s genuinely flexible - some days I only work 5 or 6 hours and I might pick stuff up at weekends or in the evening to make it up. No need to agree stuff in advance although, obviously, it would be frowned upon if I wandered off early and missed a scheduled meeting.

I also manage someone with an AWP (alternative working pattern) who takes three weeks unpaid leave a year during school holiday. In general, it would be quite unusual for an AWP request to be refused if it didn’t completely mess up business objectives.

You might not be able to take all the summer holidays as other people will want leave then as well. Leave is subject to service needs even in flexible working environments.
So I wouldn't assume youll be able to just have the summer holidays off unless on a term time only contract.

I'm civil service - not Defra though. Our terms are very flexible and none of the staff have to have fixed hours per day - as long as you do 37 hours a week.

Once you start you can speak to your line manager about what they expect in terms of hours etc.

I work in a different part of the CS which is much less flexible for various reasons. Have been there 15+ years.

There's no way I could work as flexibly as others suggest. In every role I have had, meetings regularly happen at 9:30 on a Monday morning and 4:30 in the afternoon, so I couldn't just choose my hours or catch up in my own time.

I think it's great they seem to be offering you more flexibility, but I agree you should get in the door first before you finalise the detail.

Good luck!

Thanks all for the helpful responses. Between my DH and I we could cover most of the school holidays. It would be 5 or 6 weeks across the year that I’d need to either book childcare or take parental leave/unpaid leave.

@Calic0, interesting to hear you can pick things up at the week end. That’s definitely something that would work for me (could do a 12 hour day on Saturdays). I had assumed the 7am - 7pm working hours had to be Monday to Friday

Depends obviously on the work and manager but yes Defra are very very flexible. You shouldn't have an issue.

You do get 5 weeks annual leave a year rising to 6 weeks after 5 years.

Not defra, but a cs. I can start anytime between 7 and 10 have to be online 10-11, lunch anytime between 11 and 2 (half an hour min, if you go over that then it comes off your flexi balance) have to be online 2-3 then can finish anytime up til 7pm. Flexi runs over 4 weeks, at the end of those 4 weeks you can be 3 days up or 1 day down max. But you dont get flexi until you pass probation, until then we had to do set hours 9-5 (if you have a nice manager then you can sometimes shift that as long as you dont shout about it).
Lot sof people in our dept and my previous dept do term time flex working. You would have to put in a formal request but you only work term time and your pay is split over 12m so you get the same each month.
Oh also if your full time ask about the half hour early dart on a friday

It's up to your line manager also I think some departments still have core hours, but business need still comes first so flexi is discretionary

How long are probation periods generally?

And thank you! This is all really helpful - and positive

It will be, as others have said, line manager dependent - but yes, I love to spread my hours over 7 days and am more than happy to let people in my team do the same as long as I’m confident they’re getting proper breaks and taking care of themselves!

Probation at our place is 12 months I think.