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.

4 days a week is just a 20% pay cut in most jobs.

I know what you mean. I found when I worked 4 days that all my work was just squeezed into the 4 and I spent the day off answering emails. 3 days felt like proper part time. Later in my career I was offered 4 or 5 days and I just went for 5 based on prior experience- might as well get paid for the work I was going to end up doing anyway! !

I might do 5 days work in 4 when busy, but if i were ft id do 6 days work in 5.

4 days is great. 3 would be impossible for me.

I have a good work life balance because I actually ignore work on my day off and am stricter about not working weekends. Yes I give up a huge chunk of money but I have better quality of life and less stress.

I work 4 days a week. 9.5 hour shifts including 30 minutes for lunch. No other breaks.

So that's 35 hours a week, which is actually full time

I actually found 4 days managable but 3 days just wasn't enough to be able to get work done. My workplace probably could have managed my workload better if I had pushed it but I tried 4 days and it worked really well. I've also worked full time but the 5th day done as flexi over the weekend and evenings, this worked great before the pando but now I'm back to 'normal' hours as my son gets more out of full time nursery.

The people saying they work the 5th day anyway/that you just lose 20% of your salary and get nothing back - surely that isn't quite the same if, like me and the OP, you have very young children? DS doesn't go to nursery on my or his dad's non-working day (we both went down to 4 days a week), which goes a long way towards making up the salary drop, but also means that neither of us have the option of doing much work during that day - we do both do some work in evenings (though we both also did when FT) but that day off is definitely a day to be spent with DS not to be answering emails, he doesn't give us much choice!

I think the pp's saying it the perfect work life balance are being a bit disingenuous. As really depending on the job, work pattern, work culture and management it can be great or shit. So yeah it might be perfect for some. But come on its not much of a stretch to understand that it might not be the same for everyone.

Sorry I'm on my period and just get a bit sick of this shit on here.

I did 37 hours over 4 days
My working day was.longer but I had every fri off.

Is that classed as part time?

@blackheartsgirl

I did 37 hours over 4 days My working day was.longer but I had every fri off.

Is that classed as part time?

It depends, in my organisation we have 35hr/week as full time, so they go by pro-rata of this. Saying that, they don’t like people doing longer days and then having a day per week off on a regular basis. I did this for a while as we had regular appointments with DD and I needed additional 1/2 days off.

This bugs me too, pt can be everyday but a few hours. Why more employers won't offer fewer full days is beyond me.

I do 4 days, 32 hours after my (second) mat leave . Compared to full time when I was paid 35/ actual work never less than 45 it’s part time - I get a day off every week which is great 😁. In reality I do keep an eye on email/teams in my day off but rarely step in unless it is super urgent and important. Saying that my work hasn’t reduced at all I’m just more bloody minded at not meeting deadlines if necessary, and more recently refusing to take stuff on unless something else is taken off me - I’ll let you know how that goes in a few months 😂
(it might mean p45 I’m not sure)

The most recent car finance company I dealt with consider anything over 16hrs to be full time!

Depends on the job I guess. Mine is 40hrs FT, anything under that is PT

4 days be ideal. I hated 5. Just chased our tails nothing done. But I realise not all jobs handy if you answer emails etc on time off. My friend did Saturdays good balanced saved the childcare cost as he minded kids

Not read whole thread but I think it depends on the job. I’m in a senior client facing role. I worked 3 days when DC were pre school and it was very difficult, definitely worked a lot of evenings and my career progression stalled.
Since they started school for 7 years I’ve worked 4 days - 3 full days and 2 half days. I do school pick up on the half days. I don’t need a day off at home if they’re at school. This has worked brilliantly for me. I make it clear to clients I work this pattern but because I’m around all week it hardly makes an impact.

I often work in the evening to meet deadlines but I’d be doing this anyway even if FT. I’m a high earner and grateful for the flexibility I have.

DC are both in senior school from Sept so my working pattern will probably shift - I’ll use the flexibility to ferry them about to activities after school / watch sports matches etc. I won’t be going up to 5 days any time soon.

I work 35-40 hours a week but if I was FT it would be more like 45+ I do take holiday in lieu occasionally. Contracted hours are 32 but it’s rare in this sector not to work overtime.
It does sometimes affect the kind of client work I take on. I work for a small firm of senior folk so we’re honest and upfront about taking on something which isn’t going to be possible in 4 days.
Sometimes it can work in our favour if clients want to pay less having someone part time works for them.

Just to say I understand that logging on due to anxiety issue. I do exactly the same. My manager actually asked ‘aren’t you on a/l?’ a few weeks ago. So I pointed out so was he!