Work part time or work full time and take parental leave?

[Missmummy88]

I currently work part time ( have done for last three years ) three days per week have 3 children 10,6& 18months.

While baby is under 3 I will continue to work three days and consider going up to 4 when he is at nursery with 30 hour funding.

I always assumed I would work part time so that I could spend some time with kids during holidays. This obviously effects my pay quite substantially- 1. Because I work part time so get overlooked for head of x roles because of need to always be around to lead 2. Because i work 3/5 of my salary 3. I struggle to find a new job with salary jump part time (recently got offered a double salary job at a massive company but only wanted ft)

I just discovered about parental leave my understanding is up to 4 weeks per child per year with a max of 18 weeks per child over 18 years?

With three children I could take an extra 4 weeks holiday per year to cover Easter / summer and spend some time with my kids whilst also working my way up the ladder as a full time employee.

Has anyone done this? Obviously I would loose 4 weeks pay a year but they pales into insignificance when I look at the potential up swing working full time on double salary.

Aibu to go full time and just take lots of parental leave? Is there anything I should be aware of?

Thank you for those who have genuinely shown me the downsides of this plan, really helpful thank you 😊

I think 4 weeks off a year might be pushing it, but I have a few friends who have a week or 2 over the summer every year. They generally started when their child was a bit older so their 18 weeks didn't have to spread over 18 years, and they could keep something in the bank for emergencies.

Another approach might be to ask to increase your hours on a term time only basis. I work for a big company and we have people who do Flexi arrangements where they work an average of 4 days a week with more in term and less on holidays, or a standard 3 days a week plus X extra days a year in term times. A 9 day fortnight can also help especially if you can save up the extra hours to "spend" in the hols. Think out of the box and focus on what's in it for your employer. Promise to be in every Weds for meetings. They might bite your hand off if you offer to do more hours in a way that works for you. Yes it doesn't solve all your problems, mainly just the 3/5 of income one, but once you have a proven track record that you can make it work, you can sell to future managers.

Key really is to calculate your working time and leave in hours, not days, and then however complex it is the paperwork should be fairly easy. Don't let the fact that no one's done it before at your office put you off. My DH and I have both been the first person in our office to work a particular pattern and then others have followed. But wherever possible present it as extra hours that you are offering to the company, rather than asking for favours.

@AliMonkey

A PP says parental leave has to be booked in week long chunks. Not true. You could book eg 3 days but would then lose the right to the other two. As I never intended to use up all of mine, I quite often did this just to make sure we could cover school holidays.

Depends on the employer though. Govt expects it to be taken in weeks.

@WouldIBeATwat ok genuinely not know this. Wondering if I can back date my two adult dd's parental leave. I'm owed about about 6m !!!

www.acas.org.uk/parental-leave

Parental leave can't be denied but the employer can defer it to alternative dates any time 6 months from the request to avoid business disruption. So you could end up with useless dates in term time.

Having said that I do have a friend who successfully did what you are proposing for a number of years while her kids were primary school age and she was never refused the dates she wanted/needed. But she did not make all the requests herself. Her partner covered half the school holiday dates needed. it may be relevant that they were both in public sector jobs. Also I should probably say that she did eventually get managed out, albeit with a big payoff. She did suspect, but couldn't prove, that when she got a new childless manager that there was some resentment about the chunks of parental leave she took each year.

Holiday childcare is a cost, especially for three children (I have two) but I always saw it as an investment in my career. My salary has quadrupled since I had my first, because I've been able to keep going up the ladder working FT. In hindsight another huge advantage is that while my kids were in holiday club they were doing activities for big chunks of those days which didn't involve goggling at screens. The older they get, it's all they want to bloody do!!!

Key really is to calculate your working time and leave in hours, not days, and then however complex it is the paperwork should be fairly easy. Don't let the fact that no one's done it before at your office put you off. My DH and I have both been the first person in our office to work a particular pattern and then others have followed. But wherever possible present it as extra hours that you are offering to the company, rather than asking for favours.

Except not many Head of roles allow for sticking to the hours. So if every other Head of is averaging 48 hours a week (on a 40 week contract) and OP offers to do 1560 hours a year the company are going to lose out compared to every other role.

I think different workplaces have different rules on how easily it will be accepted ie DHs offer a lot of flexibility and it’s accepted 99% of the time (and is listed in his contract) but mine is much more for times when DH is unable to parent (ie he is having an operation etc)

I'll always remember that colleague who tried to get two weeks parental leave in August, was denied for business reasons and given two useless weeks in November. It's really not that reliable.

I'm planning on doing the same as you, but I'm lucky that when I take my leave has no impact on anyone else's work or ability to take leave, which means it's a much better option and very unlikely to be denied.

Sorry I'm terrible at maths it's 3 years!!

Is term time working an option? My contract is 18.5 hours a week but working term time I do approx 25 hours a week and have all school holidays off.

@autieok

Sorry I'm terrible at maths it's 3 years!!

Only if you have 9 children!

I think that it would make sense if you could request to change your PT hours so that you work FT term time and not work for the whole/most of the school holidays.

Lots of misinformation on here OP. Here is a link to acas:
www.acas.org.uk/parental-leave

Paternal leave cannot be refused but they can refuse the date and propose another one.

I’ve never taken any (but I am planning on in a few years) but I have been on the business end and approved 4 weeks two summers in a row. We didn’t treat it in the same way as annual leave (as we aren’t paying you) so did hire in someone short term to cover.

This isn’t possible on a more senior role (head of etc) so make sure you have strong succession planning on your team so that they can cover you while you’re off.

I also think it’s very sector specific. It doesn’t happen a lot in my sector and we do bend over backwards to make it possible.

Good luck!

This is what holiday clubs are for. Most of us full time working parents have to use them. I used to budget the money for it each year. Glad no longer needed tho as it used to cost us £££

@NeverForgetYourDreams me taking unpaid parental leave costs a lot more than a holiday club!!! However It's my personal choice

I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea considering your organisation offers quite poor annual leave entitlement.

Another alternative would be to look for an organisation that offers more annual leave.

[quote AnnaSW1]@NeverForgetYourDreams me taking unpaid parental leave costs a lot more than a holiday club!!! However It's my personal choice [/quote]
With holiday clubs can book up tho. Unpaid parental leave dates aren't guaranteed.

But isn’t that what parental leave is for? To spend time with your children?

It’s for emergencies, surely? And unpaid, I thought.

It sounds like you want to treat it as a further 4 weeks annual leave; that’s not really what it’s for. And would make it quite difficult for your colleagues, I’d imagine.

It’s really difficult fitting a career around children, but presumably you’re not their only parent?

Could you explore other ways of developing your career and salary? Maybe working in a more arranged pattern of full-time and part- time, so you can offer full-time for X number of weeks, and part-time in school holidays. Predictable and able to be planned around.

Rather than playing the system.

@LaChanticleer

But isn’t that what parental leave is for? To spend time with your children?

It’s for emergencies, surely? And unpaid, I thought.

It sounds like you want to treat it as a further 4 weeks annual leave; that’s not really what it’s for. And would make it quite difficult for your colleagues, I’d imagine.

It’s really difficult fitting a career around children, but presumably you’re not their only parent?

Could you explore other ways of developing your career and salary? Maybe working in a more arranged pattern of full-time and part- time, so you can offer full-time for X number of weeks, and part-time in school holidays. Predictable and able to be planned around.

Rather than playing the system.

Parental leave isn't for emergencies - it needs to be planned in advance and taken in weekly chunks. You're entitled to four weeks per year, per child.

You're thinking of dependents leave.

@LaChanticleer

But isn’t that what parental leave is for? To spend time with your children?

It’s for emergencies, surely? And unpaid, I thought.

It sounds like you want to treat it as a further 4 weeks annual leave; that’s not really what it’s for. And would make it quite difficult for your colleagues, I’d imagine.

It’s really difficult fitting a career around children, but presumably you’re not their only parent?

Could you explore other ways of developing your career and salary? Maybe working in a more arranged pattern of full-time and part- time, so you can offer full-time for X number of weeks, and part-time in school holidays. Predictable and able to be planned around.

Rather than playing the system.

Again. You’re wrong. It is exactly like an extra 4 weeks of unpaid annual leave.

www.gov.uk/parental-leave

On top of the issues you have in getting the leave you want, taking leave away from your colleagues, and potentially creating more work for them in summer and Christmas, it’s also possible your employer will consider you unreliable or not that much of a hard worker if you’re taking your 25 days (or whatever it is) of annual leave plus 4 weeks off every year, which could also affect your career progression.

You’ll need to discuss it with them beforehand

@WouldIBeATwat oh crap I give up😂😂

I did this and it worked brilliantly. Honestly people getting all antsy and saying this is what childcare is for or just suck it up like the rest of us, why on earth would you pay out for childcare if you can have the time off (assuming you can afford unpaid leave and assuming it doesn't completely fuckover your colleagues).

I worked in an industry that was very quiet summer and over Xmas so me being off didn't have any significant impact on my colleagues or employer. At the start of the year I'd put in my application for the 4 weeks & I always used to take Feb & October half term plus 2 weeks at the end of the summer holidays. I had 1 February week postponed quite last minute when we were crazy busy one year and had to use childcare/grandparents/DH annual leave but otherwise it worked brilliantly. I only ever applied for 4 week & DH always took 2 but we both had quite generous annual leave allowance plus grandparents to help so that was enough to cover all the school holidays - not sure how happy my boss would have been if I'd have taken much more!

Go for it and keep your annual leave for those dates that are immovable such as booked holidays as it can be postponed and deferred quite last minute if there is a reasonable business case.

@dimples76

I think that it would make sense if you could request to change your PT hours so that you work FT term time and not work for the whole/most of the school holidays.

This would be absolutely useless for many employers. I have not come across any role in my working life where that would be feasible. And don’t mean just for me, but considering all the people I have ever worked for, their role not being performed during school holidays would simply not work.