To think 4 days a week isn’t really part time?

[MrsCremuel]

I went back to work after mat leave last year. Asked for 3 days but they could only drop my hours to 4 days. I really don’t feel I have the balance right and I am struggling to do what feels like a full time job in less hours. Don’t get the time with my son I wanted and am feeling miserable.

4 days is the worst of both worlds.

@KarlUrbansWife good tip thank you

@TangoWhiskyAlphaTango that’s how I am feeling. Even on my day off I am logging in here and there and back on when my son is in bed.

@SpiderinaWingMirror haha, there is no such person. Therein lies the problem!

@MrsCremuel YANBU at ALL.

It's great to do 4 days a week, if that's what you started out as (3 is better IMO, but hey ho.)

But if you drop from 5 to 4, you will almost ALWAYS end up cramming the 5 days work into the 4 days. (as a few posters have said...) But with 20% less pay!

Happened to me some years ago. I dropped from 5, to 3.5 days a week. (4 days one week/3 the next,) but I still had the same workload! I raised the issue a few times, but it fell on deaf ears. It got so bad I even had to take work home to catch up.

The ones saying '4 days is fab' have either not gone from 5 to 4, OR they work in a job, like on a checkout or in a shop or cafe, or restaurant or something, where they don't have an allocated workload, like you do in some sectors...

If I were you, I would be thinking about looking for a new job that has the hours you want immediately. So the workload will suit the hours IYSWIM.

I do four days in a relatively senior and high pressure job. I find working four days stops me ever having to work weekends. When I was full time I often worked at the weekend, so for me it's completely worth it!

I think you're right. I work 4 days but do way more catching up in the evenings than when I worked 5 days
My 4 days part time is 38hrs a week on paper which is more than full time for a lot of people and I probably still do an extra 10hrs a week. When I was full time that was only an extra hour or so which was much more manageable.

But I'm off on a Friday with my kid which is nice. What's less nice is being copied into emails saying things like "oh xx only works part time so she won't be interested in xyz opportunity"

I work 3.5 days and find it's a good balance.

In my department, there is a spreadsheet of tasks for everyone with hours allocated to each task. The hours may not always be accurate (we don't have a time sheet system, so there's no monitoring after the allocation), but at least it's fair between full time and part time employees. My workload is genuinely 70% compared to a person working 5 days.

I’m working 40 hours over 4 days and I definitely feel its a full time job

It does depend on whether you've been allowed to condense existing contractual hours into 4 days for the same pay or if you've dropped a day and earn 20% less pay.

I opted to drop a day and take a 20% pay cut.
I don't regret it .

The ones saying '4 days is fab' have either not gone from 5 to 4, OR they work in a job, like on a checkout or in a shop or cafe, or restaurant or something, where they don't have an allocated workload, like you do in some sectors...

I work four short days, I used to work five full days. I’m an actuary. It’s brilliant.

I woke 4 days. 7:30-6:30 it’s long days and defo not part time lol

It depends how it has been arranged, some people work compressed hours over four days maintaining their fulltime hours and fulltime pay.

Others work 20% fewer hours for 20% less pay, others like me do even less, I do the equivalent of three full days spread over four short days.

You can have detail added to your contract/ask for comfirmation in writing by which percentage your work load will decrease if you don’t compress hours.

To be fair even 3 days per week I've found you spend so long catching up and the workload rarely drops. 4 actual days is hard, I completely felt like i was worrying about work when woth my son and worrying about my son when I was working and failing at both. Totally miserable. In the end i compressed to 3 long days

4 days is part time and works well for many people.

However it sounds like it's not suitable for you. That's a shame.

Agree - I do 4 days. The business wouldn't let me condense hours (so full time hours into 4 days only) so I took the 20% pay cut to drop a day. The reality is, of course, that I do FT hours ... just in 4 days. And actually, often do 2-3 hours on my day-off too or over the weekend.

I do find it a bit annoying as really I should be paid for this work. But I do enjoy having the extra day-off, even if it does cause stress on my 4 working days trying to fit everything in and working late nights!

I do 4 days and it works for me because I use time tracking to monitor client billable hours and admin time. It’s all there in black and white at the end of the week. 30 hours of work consisting of x hours client and y admin. Sometimes it goes above 30 fir a project deadline but if it was consistently over I would review my commitments. Granted I have a huge amount of autonomy and authority but for those whose workload is controlled by others you can still monitor and present the data and ask for review.

I read this on mn, not in RL. If a workplace wants you do a full time role in part time hours, more fool you for putting up with it.

Has never happened to anyone I know and I've worked in many huge organisations, and many accountancy firms dealing with 100's of people, who work part time.

I used to work 3 days. Now I do 4. It's perfect. I do 4 days work, in 4 days.

I used to work 4 days (4x 8 hours) and it was very definitely part time! Having a whole extra days off - how could that not be part time?

It was even better because I was paying higher rate tax, so I got 20% of my time back, without losing 20% of my take home pay 👏🏻

The only way in which it didn’t feel part time, was to other people. I was never missing for more than a day, so quite a few people didn’t even know I worked 4 days, so there was no negative perception of a “part timer”.

It was brilliant! I miss it 😕

I've worked 3 days for 16 years, 4 days for 2 years. I don't recognise the problems listed.

"The ones saying '4 days is fab' have either not gone from 5 to 4, OR they work in a job, like on a checkout or in a shop or cafe, or restaurant or something, where they don't have an allocated workload, like you do in some sectors..."

I've heard it all now. God forbid someone qualified or extremely senior might work less than 5 days.

I'll tell all the qualified accountants, solicitors, Barristers, finance managers etc, of this comment.

Did you not know that 4 days is being recommended as the new norm for all workers. Based on Microsoft and many big firms, especially in NZ.

It would seem that unfortunately the stigma is well and truely set though, and won't be happening any time soon, if this thread is anything to go by.

It works fine for me. Probably depends on the company, we don't have a fixed workload per week, stuff just takes as long as it takes.

You have to be assertive about not working or responding to messages on your day off, because otherwise people will come to expect it from you.

@whatswithtodaytoday

I was warned that when I went to four days after having a baby I would end up doing five days' work in that time. I figured I would push back, it would be fine, I know my boundaries.

Then Covid and the threat of redundancy happened, and now I'm actually doing six days' worth of work in four days and grateful I still have a job. Hahaha fucksake.

Basically yes, this has happened to everyone I know. But you get a day off with your kid (which is actually much, much harder than work).

This happened to me too.

I worked 4 days officially but I had a higher case load than full time solicitors because I was more senior. I also had to supervise the whole team because the official head of department was bloody useless!

I had to work until 7pm every day, then some days until midnight to catch up, and also over the entire weekend once every few weeks. It was hellish and not worth it at all!

On 3 days I was given a very part time workload. Not enough to keep me busy.

5 days works, nothing else seems to. I’m not doing part time work again!

I'm 4 days, teacher and it is so much better than 5. I teach a 80% timetable, so have 20% fewer classes. Although I often end up working on my day off, it means I don't work on the weekend, which I did when I was full time.

This is why I’m dreading going back in 2 weeks. I went down to 4 days after first mat leave and was insanely busy. No time for lunch and literally running from meeting to meeting. Went back up to 5 days and now going back to 4 after this mat leave.
Asked for condensed hours as I wi be doing exactly the same job, just paid 4/5 and was told the firm don’t offer condensed hours as everyone is expected to work over and above contracted hours.

I’ve done 3 days and 4 days. 3 days was impossible. I was trying to cram a full time job into 3, always felt like I was doing a crap job, got relegated to do the crap no-one wanted at work and I did a fair amount of work on my non-working days.

With 4 days I feel like I am still respected but it is a full time role really. I can just about manage by just checking my emails on my nwd for anything urgent. I’d manage work better if I was full time but that day is so precious.

I’m in two minds whether to Stick with 4 days once youngest is in school or move to 4 or 4.5 over 5.

[quote littlepattilou]@MrsCremuel YANBU at ALL.

It's great to do 4 days a week, if that's what you started out as (3 is better IMO, but hey ho.)

But if you drop from 5 to 4, you will almost ALWAYS end up cramming the 5 days work into the 4 days. (as a few posters have said...) But with 20% less pay!

Happened to me some years ago. I dropped from 5, to 3.5 days a week. (4 days one week/3 the next,) but I still had the same workload! I raised the issue a few times, but it fell on deaf ears. It got so bad I even had to take work home to catch up.

The ones saying '4 days is fab' have either not gone from 5 to 4, OR they work in a job, like on a checkout or in a shop or cafe, or restaurant or something, where they don't have an allocated workload, like you do in some sectors...

If I were you, I would be thinking about looking for a new job that has the hours you want immediately. So the workload will suit the hours IYSWIM.[/quote]
How bloody insulting!

I’m in senior manager in HE, I have worked 5 days since I was 21, dropped to 4 days recently at 42 after 15 months leave having DD.

As part of my flexible working request I demonstrated what I would and wouldn’t do out of my previous role and a proportion of tasks have been reallocated elsewhere. I am never contacted on my non working day (Monday) and I don’t look at emails etc either. My PA ensures urgent tasks are brought to my attention first thing Tuesday.

You can be a successful, postgrad qualified professional and work effectively part time but it does depend on sector and on putting boundaries in place. Fortunately I am further along in my career and have some clout. But I also support more junior colleagues to achieve the same balance. About half of faculty have some flexibility in their hours.