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?

"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."

No you just need to apply a pro rata kind of mindset.The world isn't divided into people who work FT plus extra hours and those who work PT and only work their contracted hours. I've had loads of managers and 2 HoDs who didn't work FT. Of course sometimes it requires some out of hours stuff but PT workers can juggle that just like FTers can. Either way it's hard with an 18 month old, but it'll get easier year on year.

How flexible are your employers could you potentially work extra in term time?

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.

Annual leave can also be cancelled.

I think this really highlights how much misinformation is around parental leave. It’s not gaming the system @LaChanticleer (and really isn’t a very nice thing to say!). It’s a right as a parent.

I’m surprised so many people say it’s treated the same way as annual leave in their company! It’s unpaid

There is nothing wrong with wanted to explore this option to spend more time with your children!

It might work for a year or two. Then you’ll be managed out, there’s a reason employers only give a certain number of days as holiday, they actually need you there the vast majority of time!

You're thinking of dependents leave.

Ahh yes, thanks. It’s a while since I’ve had to manage this sort of situation at work, and things have moved on.

I think the issue with how it’s managed with covering work etc, is still worth thinking about.

Of course, the whole situation is totally distorted by the inability of everyone to think about fathers as being as responsible as mother’s, for actually raising their children.

We’re trying to squeeze women and what women’s bodies do (child bearing) into a system organised around men and men’s bodies, with the assumption that women support men to work. Somehow, it’s rarely the other way around …

So are you thinking that you will work 5 days a week on the weeks you are in the office? So you would be full-time when you are in, and then have an additional 4 weeks off when you are not working at all?

I don't think that is such a bad plan, you working Mon-Fri might be attractive to your employer. Have you considered childcare for the weeks you are working full-time?

@WhatToDo1988

Hardly! My friend works for a very well known law firm and her son has autism so can’t cope at random holiday clubs. She’s always allowed parental leave to cover holidays.

In my experience three days a week is quite different from four in terms of getting taken seriously for senior roles. I've generally found you can apply for jobs that are advised as full time and only ask when offered the job if you could do it on 80% fte. I've also found management roles to be fine on 4 days a week, especially if your kids are at school so you can be a bit flexible over which day is your day off. So don't think that the challenges you experience when 3 days a week would be quite the same if you did 4. A 4-6 week block of leave wouldn't really work IME, you'd need a very team-based working style for that to work (ie where others cover your work if you're not around)

@WhatToDo1988

It might work for a year or two. Then you’ll be managed out, there’s a reason employers only give a certain number of days as holiday, they actually need you there the vast majority of time!

Even companies that offer unlimited annual leave expect employees to be reasonable about it!

@WouldIBeATwat

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.

Annual leave can also be cancelled.

Yes I appreciate that but it would be pretty shitty to cancel AL if you had checked the dates, had it approved, booked a holiday and then told you can't take it - I'd not look kindly upon any employer who did that to me and would probably consider my position there. But then I don't work in a life or death industry so can't ever imagine a scenario where my boss could justify me cancelling a family holiday to stay at work.

Depends on the type of work you do and your employer, we have to have a certain number of people working all year round, my team are all parents, we all want the school holidays off, so we generally get about 2 weeks of the summer holiday each even though we're all entitled to parental leave. I do manage to take most half terms off and at least a week at Easter though so parental leave does help.... more so if your colleagues aren't all after the same time off I imagine.

Thanks for responses - regarding hubby - he’s physically disabled so whilst he can look after the older two my younger is a challenge - and he could never take them out anywhere meaning they are sitting watching tv all day which is ok as a one off but not weeks. In the last few years we’ve used holiday clubs and grandparents and it’s been fine but I am just exploring options to progresss in my career and earn more whilst also spending some lovely time with my children. (Seems it’s true you can’t have it all!)

I don’t want every holiday off (so don’t really want to work term time) just need a bit more than my 17 days!

Thanks all - some more thinking to be done!

Well that’s illegal @WhatToDo1988
I’m really surprised at peoples view on here.
My partner (same industry as me) has unlimited holidays and pretty much takes off all school holidays bar summer.
No one is resentful. He is still on hand for issues (the first week of school holidays for Christmas he worked a lot!). He’s C suite, sits on the exec board and earns well!
It is possible. Employers are more flexible since covid.

Life is moving on. You no longer need to choose between being a parent and having a career! It’s such an outdated view.

How about moving to 4 days a week now (rather than waiting for baby to turn 3) and using parental leave too when you can?

IME 4 days a week feels a lot more like full time than 3 days a week, so you're less likely to be passed over for promotions.

In my entire career I’ve successfully taken two weeks of parental leave (in total) across four children.

It isn’t a commonly done thing at all, and it is sadly still frowned upon to do it. In a Head of Dept role in my industry, it wouldn’t be workable at all.

There is another option I suppose. We had a few people at our old firm who worked term time only contracts after making flexible working requests.

It probably wouldn’t suit the business needs if it was a Head of Dept post, but it’s one to consider if you didn’t end up applying for promotion and you wanted to work full time and keep the balance of looking after your children. You would lose less than 25% of the working year if your holidays also covered (say) 6 of the 13 weeks off, rather than losing 2/5ths by working part time.

OP if you’re on Facebook there is a great group that will give you advice called flexible working people. They will give you some solid advice rather than the misinformation here.

@Missmummy88

In my current company I am the only employee who is a parent but can see why this could be an issue at other companies - hadn’t considered taking time from others summer holidays thanks

Oh, you're one of those parents. So people who aren't parents don't want time off over holidays either.

No I’m not “one of those” most of my single young colleagues take holiday at the less expensive the time of year!

Some outdated views on here, and sorry so many parents are working for employers who are stuck in the 1970s.

OP, I work for a big company (18k uk employees) who would be flexible and consider these types of arrangements - although they would be in contract typically. Parental leave is more for ad hoc leave typically although your employer might be happy for you to use it in the way you describe.

For many employers at the moment they are battling to retain talent so I think it's worth having the conversation with a current employer, and equally with any new employer - as again many are struggling to recruit.

It's probably time your partner took a turn working part time and taking his share of parental leave to support your career isn't it? Then you can go full time and start building pension contributions back up etc, mine really suffered from part time work!

Sorry just saw previous post about his disability!

Oh jeez sorry for the amount of negative comments and misinformation you’re getting on this post OP! Explains why so many (esp mothers) are on their knees trying to be all things to all people if we’re being judged like this!

You have a right to ask for parental leave. It gives you the right to choose to have time unpaid leave with your children, or choose not to. You do what’s right for you and your family, never mind what other folk think. The only thing is that your work could refuse the time. But you could use your main annual leave for the busiest times so your parental leave requests are for less busy times (eg half term).

The requests shouldn’t impact on your career progression but I’m not naive - some employers might share the views of some on this thread, even if they don’t say it openly. But if it was me, I’d be thinking I probably don’t want to work for somewhere like that anyway.

I always thought that unpaid parental leave was for emergencies, like a child being ill or injured and needing a few weeks off school?

Also I think it’s up to your employer whether to grant it when you want it or not. It’s not something you normally plan in advance for each child, more a back up?

If you want part time or term time only I’d stick to those jobs. A FT employee taking regular chunks of parental leave per child as ‘holiday’ would be seen as very annoying in many teams.

My experience of parental leave is say child gets a sick bug, you ring in to work that morning and explain and get a day paid parental leave. As child is likely to be off school/nursery for a week or two that would use up half of your parental leave entitlement for that child. If other child caught the bug a week after you’d returned, you might get another day of paid leave then 2 weeks unpaid. Considering kids get a lot of bugs at nursery (like chickenpox, norovirus, strep throat, impetigo, parvovirus etc) I’d be wary of thinking you don’t need the parental leave to cover illnesses.

@FateHasRedesignedMost

I always thought that unpaid parental leave was for emergencies, like a child being ill or injured and needing a few weeks off school?

Also I think it’s up to your employer whether to grant it when you want it or not. It’s not something you normally plan in advance for each child, more a back up?

If you want part time or term time only I’d stick to those jobs. A FT employee taking regular chunks of parental leave per child as ‘holiday’ would be seen as very annoying in many teams.

My experience of parental leave is say child gets a sick bug, you ring in to work that morning and explain and get a day paid parental leave. As child is likely to be off school/nursery for a week or two that would use up half of your parental leave entitlement for that child. If other child caught the bug a week after you’d returned, you might get another day of paid leave then 2 weeks unpaid. Considering kids get a lot of bugs at nursery (like chickenpox, norovirus, strep throat, impetigo, parvovirus etc) I’d be wary of thinking you don’t need the parental leave to cover illnesses.

You’re wrong. Think this is the 4th time I’ve posted this on this thread.

You’re thinking of emergency/dependents’ leave, which certainly should not be for a week.