To feel part time workers get a raw deal when it comes to progression

[shouldbesleepingnotscrolling]

I went part time after I had my first baby, my employer that I have been with for nearly 10 years wouldn't let me reduce my hours in the current role where I had a small team I managed, so I had to take the only position available in a different department, not managerial but same pay, pro rata'd.

I have since not had any opportunities to use previous transferable skills, promotions or go back to managing, job sharing will not be considered with other part time members. Even when I have been putting in extra hours and taking on additional work and responsibilities.

So I thought Id look outside the company, there are barely any part time roles available that aren't entry level, most are MW. Ive contacted local recruitment agencies and searched online.

My options seem to be stay in a job with no progression or recognition or take something on less pay at entry level with the hope there may be a chance to progress eventually.

My AIBU is to think there doesn't seem to be any decent opportunities for someone willing to work hard with good experience or am I just doing something wrong?

Most senior roles require more of a presence due to the responsibility lasting the whole week, unless a jobshare situation can be arranged

@MerlinsButler I've seen it managed in various ways, and usually contractors work the best on small contracts with tight turnaround times because they're able to increase or decrease hours as and when. But obviously there's no guarantee they'll stay, or even be available at the time, so it's always risky!

Some of the smaller contracts where I work at the moment have people on part-time hours, but they're actually full-time staff - they just get redeployed for their other hours onto larger contracts to fill in the gaps. So I would imagine you could possibly have a bank of full-time staff who can jump from project to project to pick up and help out when required.

But even then, you still end up with a scenario where the full-time staff end up working harder and gaining more experience and knowledge more quickly the part-time staff, meaning they're just more likely to progress overall. I don't really see how that can be avoided when most people who work, work full-time hours.

It's the price of them getting my skill set, which is in short supply currently.

I think this gets to the nub of it, really.

There is a price to be paid when you employ part time staff, and employers will make an assessment of the relative costs vs benefits of supporting such arrangements which will be different in each case.

Where the employee has valuable skills that are in short supply, the employer is likely to conclude that the inconvenience or costs associated with having a part time member of staff are worth it because of what the employee brings to the organisation.

Where a full time member of staff with similar skills can be sourced quite easily, then the employer doesn't feel the need to compromise and might prefer not to employ a part time member of staff who will be able to offer less flexibility/availability than a full time employee.

So if you want to progress in a part time role, the secret is to make yourself so valuable to your employer that they will do whatever they can to keep you.

There's a really fascinating book that touches on this that I read earlier this year. I will see if I can find a link. It was American so didn't fully transfer to the UK labour market, but the gist of the author's research findings was that the more perfectly the worker could be substituted by another, the more likely they were to be able to work part time/the hours of their choice etc.

So if you are e.g. a vet then you are likely to be able to negotiate the pay and hours you want, whereas if you are in business or consultancy, you're not, because the client wants to speak to "Sarah" and not Ms A.N. Other.

I thought it translated quite well to teaching because teachers are assumed to be equally competent once qualified (even if in reality your mileage may vary).

I found it interesting though as it suggested that in some situations being too niche could work against you.

press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691201788/career-and-family this is it.

@Iamthewombat

"No, you could easily have wasted their time for your own selfish ends. I wouldn’t consider that acceptable, for the reasons I’ve already explained."

Please read my post again. I already said in the post, I was prepared to work full time, if I could not get part time. However, I preferred part time if I could get it.
Part time works better for me and my employer, because it allows me to manage my child's medical condition / disability without needing time off work. For me to work full time, employers have to give me lots of parental leave to manage all the hospital appointments. Hence they're usually prepared for me to work part time.

I’ve worked with P/T team leaders they each had their own team but worked 4days however each one covered the others non-work day. Normally a Monday or Friday so team meetings were usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday not a Monday. It’s worked well especially as different people bring different skill sets & perspectives. In other situations I’ve seen mums work 25 hrs spread over 5 days etc. it can be done but this is in civil service or government funded organisations.

@GeekyThings yes that's kind of how it works at the moment. Contractors are great but always an issue if they have other work / aren't available. We tend to work on a monthly basis for projects so as one completed you move on to the next but as you say - this still benefits the full timers. It's a tough one. It is awkward as our projects are such tight turnaround / deadlines.

Thanks @Phineyj this is actually really relevant for us as we are a consultancy. And yes - clients are the problem re part timers as they will just ring the mobiles.

@shouldbesleepingnotscrolling just wanted to say sorry for hijacking your thread. It's a really pertinent issue which as always seems to penalise women more so thanks for starting this thread.

I hope you manage to find a role that allows you the flexibility.

No need to apologise, its been fascinating reading the opinions from different situations and the thought process over what works for different businesses.

I really do think if the attitude towards part time working changed it would help but I can also see where it can be difficult to work with.

Its definitely made me think about my situation and what options I have!

I was just thinking that it does mostly affect women and its because like me, we are the ones to take a back seat after having children, but also if both parents were to equally cut back to part time working and take equal parenting roles, then both would be impacted in their careers and only full time people with no kids or kids in childcare for most of the week/older kids would develop professionally and be prioritised for promotions etc.

Still not sure what the answer is!

Actually, if more men worked part time and worked flexible hours so they could be more equal parents then I think we'd find that part time workers would progress their careers.

I really do think if the attitude towards part time working changed it would help but I can also see where it can be difficult to work with.

I see comments like this a lot, about changing attitudes. I'm not so sure. I am a feminist and I care enormously about supporting women to remain in the workplace. I benefitted from flexible working myself - although I never went part time - and my natural inclination is to support flexible working requests and to say yes, of course, we'll find a way of making it work. Earlier in my career, I was absolutely of the view that people just needed to be more open minded about it. Unfortunately, it is through the experience that I have had as a result of supporting multiple requests over the years that I'm now much more cautious, because I'm afraid I have been burned. I absolutely want to support people - men or women - in my team to balance their work lives and their domestic responsibilities, but I also want to balance my own life. My organisation doesn't have the resources to throw money at the problem, so I know that some part time requests can only be supported if I or another member of staff pick up the slack.

I don't know what the answer is. Maybe a shorter working week for everyone?!

"I don't know what the answer is. Maybe a shorter working week for everyone?!"

There's a big govt trial for that at the moment.

amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/06/thousands-workers-worlds-biggest-trial-four-day-week

But you can't have everything.

If I work full time for 5 years and you work 3 days a week part time for 5 years I will have 2 years more experience than you, which is likely to mean I have more skills and more to offer an employer.
The cost to me? I've paid out more in childcare & seen less of my kids.

The more senior you are the more likely it is that you manage a team of people, have to participate in management meetings, maybe run projects, have specific skills. All these are 5 days week thing 2 or 3 days is just not enough.

This. If one of you has to be part time, make sure it's not always you.

The attitudes I was talking about is how part time workers end up with the mundane responsibilities and are not included in decisions or given work/projects to increase workplace exposure because “they are just part time,” which results in demotivation and the cycle of attitudes that part timers are ‘flaky’

I definitely agree with this that you cannot have everything, as you said ft workers sacrifice time with their kids and money in childcare and so will become more skilled quicker than a pt.

My point is that as pt, I cant seem to get anywhere at all. Ive been with the company so long and trained new members of staff and watched them all get promoted into other teams and move on. I do a substantial amount of the work because of my experience on the team but that is as far as I can go as pt.

We're a couple who both work part-time and I've found it helps a lot because each of you is less part-time if that makes sense. I work 0.9 (compressed into four days) and DH works 0.8, so we only need three days of childcare, and we've both been promoted since doing this. As a few pp have said, four days seems to be the point at which it doesn't impact too much on other people so you don't get as limited - the downside is that it's hard not to end up doing a full-time job for less pay when you're that close to full-time.

Yes, I get that, and I do try very hard to give people fair opportunities.

However, being really honest about it, if there is an important high profile project, I want to be sure that it's going to succeed. I don't want to have to tie myself in knots having to organise meetings around a billion different part time working patterns. I want to know that the people I assign to the project will be available to deal with any issues as and when they arise, without stuff automatically defaulting back to me when they're not here. And I want to know that the person it is assigned to will be able to make sufficient time for the work without having to drop everything else that they do.

As far as decision-making is concerned, I absolutely try to ensure that management meetings are organised to be as inclusive as possible, but if you have multiple people with part time hours or other flexible working arrangements, it is sometimes the best you can do to alternate days so that everyone gets to attend sometimes. And yes, you can share paperwork in advance so that people have opportunities to feed in their views, but sometimes things come up that you can't pre-empt, and decisions do have to be made in the moment. If that means that some people aren't around to be a part of those decisions, it's just the way it is... the workplace can't stand still just because it's someone's non-work day. It's the same when full time staff are off on leave etc - sometimes decisions will be made in your absence and you have to suck it up.

Of course, some organisations are crap and they treat their PT staff like second class citizens. That isn't right. But sometimes PT staff can be unreasonable too. I have had PT staff complain about meetings that have been organised without them, but it simply isn't possible to accommodate them every time alongside the commitments of others who need to attend the meeting. Sometimes the needs of the organisation have to come first.

In my large corporate environment, that doesn’t happen “just because they’re part time” - it happens because they’re not available when they’re needed - because they’re part time.

We have 2 female board members on a job share 3 days each (one crossover day which really makes it work). We have a lot of 4 day senior managers.

In my experience, it works well at the lower level of responsibility (where people can be substituted as the work is less complex with no decision making) and at higher levels where the decisions are generally not same day - as they’re strategic, not operational.

In that middle level, we find it’s trickier to have someone less than 4 days. In some roles (mine) less than 5 is a pain - I have to make a lot of quick decisions based on lots of information and my experience. My team do the same job as me (with a different portfolio) so absolutely have the skill set to do my job - but it’s so much slower when you cover because you just don’t have the short term history that enables quick decisions. We never have part time in our team.

I often see part timers promoted here - but almost always promoted as they move into full time.

I want to champion anything that helps women - but in my experience it isn’t just an incorrect attitude to part time working. In a company that really supports it, we see that there are plenty of roles where it just doesn’t work well.

I'm 80% FTE and haven't had trouble progressing.

I do think if you work 60% or under it's harder. You are less visible, less available to take on projects that require more commitment. Its much easier to apply for a full time role, prove yourself at that level and then gradually reduce hours.

Not the case for my organisation, one particular part time employee is worth their weight in gold. Massive contributor in the work place. Promoted and rewarded appropriately including both pay and investment in training.

I went part time when I had my family were born
While I worked hard no way was I as committed as I was before I had my children