Working condensed hours on 80% pay

[Notsure2023]

Recently went back after maternity leave, before I left I agreed flexible working 4 days per week. Agreed my pay would be reduced to 80%.

im in a client facing management position. My clients were changed and I was given more responsibility when I returned to work - I now have our biggest clients (not discussed with me first).

I’ve kept the same job title and I’ve not got a pay increase.

It’s becoming apparent I’m doing the same amount of work across 4 days. No one covers for me on my day off. AIBU to expect full pay?

When I returned to work part time after my 1st maternity leave I found I had a similar work load as I'd had to when on my full time hours. Then they tried to allocate me something else on top so I raised the issue at that point.

This always happens. You've got some options:

Go back 5 days but consider buying more holiday if that's an option? Then on those days you can put your Out of Office on.

Go back asking for 100% pay on basis you are working the same hours over 4 days.

Does Op mean condensed hours or simply part-time?
Condensed is usually full-Time, but less days with longer hours in each,or a part-tim equivalent of that.
Worst case scenario, somehow she’s working full time hours condensed, but only getting 80% pay. I suspect she’s part-time 80% but has found her work has crept up to 100% so she FEELS she’s on an unpaid condensed deal, but that isn’t the official arrangement.

I agree that saying ‘no’, leaving on time etc are really important,mess in early stages of part time, so the boundaries remain clear. Some workers allow themselves to be taken advantage of……no doubt the employers are quick to look for opportunities, but women and other part time workers need to be willing to speak up for themselves and stop slippage which easily happens. It’s tricky, because some flexibility and goodwill is important, but there’s a fine line between the occasion and the norm.

4 days is always difficult in a professional client facing role
I did 3 days with a job share when mine were little,worked ok

Difficulty was that pre kids I had worked much longer than my hours and post kids I didn’t want to do that

Agree with pp that new mums are so desperate to have a bit of time off with their babies that they can get exploited
Would have thought things might have improved in the last 15 years,but perhaps not

You need to ring fence your day off ,or you are as well to go full time and get the full time salary

Same here.

I spoke to my boss about it and managed to negotiate overtime on an hourly basis. Once they were paying for my actual work they were much more inclined to notice that my part time role was managed poorly.

it’s so tricky. I think in a lot of cases, employers are happy to let you go PT because they value you and want to keep you. But they don’t give any thought as to who will pick up the other 20% or 40% of work and so you end up doing it anyway.

the other option is being completely ruthless and just doing what you can in your contracted hours. But again many people struggle with this because they have too much to do in the given time and don’t want to let others down.

not sure this has helped but I know how you feel OP!

I think she means she’s working a condensed pattern (longer hours over four days) but is getting paid for a part-time working pattern (normal hours over four days).

This is pretty typical OP but not good. You have to be quite hardline about your working hours.

I have a bit of a fudge where I do .9% of my FT hours stretched over 4 days. I do the full role in that time because I can, I'm pretty efficient, but I'm militant with my day off

I changed to 0.5 time (8am to 11:45 - NHS 0.5 WTE) when the kids were little so that I could pick them up from school at 3. The same thing, I had to do the same job (specialist diagnostic lab work) in half the time with no one taking over from me for the most part - exhausting!

Difficult to hold my tongue when I went back to full time work, and was moved to a more difficult area as I was by then seen as an efficient worker, only to have someone moved onto my previous area (full time) complain about how much work there was and that they couldn't possibly finish it.

That was about 10 years ago - nothing changes!

The other thing I’d advise as others have is set your boundaries particularly:

• never be available/ answer emails or calls on non working day as it gives clear message, you’re just not around on that day. (Be flexible in peak workload or emergency obvs)
• try to stick to same non working day every week. If you chop and change, people get confused about when your working and not and will assume your working when you’re not
• if you can, keep first morning back from non working day clear and allow an hour or so clear on afternoon before you go off.
• ditch the non value add activities and make sure you’re delegating

I ducked this because of my experience coming back after May leave with a shed load of holiday to use. Took every Friday off and ended up in meetings half of them. Didn’t mind because I booked those hours back out of holiday but it made me so cross on behalf of those who were PT!

When you say clients what type of work are you doing and what is the full time “norm” for your role, seniority and business?

I went back four days a week into a client facing role and made it work successfully but I had to do some leg work up front to reshape people’s thinking on it so I didn’t end up doing a full time role for less money. What worked for me was (sorry this will be long):

• not having Mon or Fri as my non working day. This meant everyone was only ever “one day” without me whereas having Mon or Fri felt to people like I was ooo for three days (even though that included the weekend)

• always always always calling it a non-working day. A “day off” is paid leave and my firm had a culture of thinking it could prevail upon you on those.

• pointing out that everyone (clients, partners, my team etc) had always managed just fine without me on a normal day when I was running workshops offsite and wasn’t contactable by anyone

• having a clear “handover” sheet that was shared with my team, the team PA and the partner PA as to what should happen if things cropped up while I was on my NWD. It said things like “if x calls, Andy can deal with it. Y may get in touch wanting to know where this stuff is - it’s not due until Friday and is being worked on by the team and I will review when I’m back - reassure her she will have it by the end of the week as agreed. Z may call and kick off that I’m not available, it really isn’t urgent but if they insist put them through to Rachel who knows how to handle”

• I set and OOO that made it very clear the Mail would be read the day I was back and that if it was urgent they should contact PA. The PA had the memo above and could almost always route to the right person. They (and they alone) had my personal mobile and knew that if it was an emergency they could call me. Happened once in 3 years.

• When I got asked “but you will still check mails / we can contact you if we need to” I was very firm (this was to my Director who had to approve the request) and said no I wouldn’t. It was the equivalent of Sat or Sun to me and should be respected in the same way. Also while I was at work I had put arrangements in place that meant I was 100% focussed on work and I wasn’t ringing nursery etc. The same also applied the other way. As an added point I reminded him as well that in my NWD I would be looking after a baby/toddler and it wouldn’t exactly look great if I had a screaming baby in the background, was half distracted etc.

It worked totally fine for me, I got high gradings in my appraisals, promoted etc and never had any pushback. But I had to be firm and set the boundaries.

On the plus side they are not sidelining you in terms of career prospects. As per pps, this is common and demanding.

Why not offer to actually condense and get paid 100% for four long days. Lots of my colleagues do this. Perhaps this is what they think you meant.

Pay is for the hours worked not the days worked . If you are still contracted to work the same amount of hours but in 4 days the pay should have remained the same .

If you've condensed your hours your pay should be the same.

This happened to me five years ago when I returned to work after my second child. I am also in a professional role and I was pissed off after the first month pay as my workload hadn’t reduced to match my reduced salary. I emailed my bosses and asked for my full pay to be reinstated and they did put me back on my full salary.
I do work 5 days though but with reduced hours and two of those days at WFH. I prefer the 5 days as I start work late so can do all school drop off which I love. My kids cycle to school which takes a good 40 minutes and really a time I cherish a lot as I get to chat with them. I also finish early and get home 40 minutes after they get in so it’s not too bad. The days I work from home I do the pick ups which they really love. Anyway I went off a rambling there. Don’t sit quietly, speak up.

Well if you have shown them that you are doing the job, covering everything and even more important cliets you are in a very good position to go and negotiate your pay. Good luck, I hope they play ball.

Forgot to add as well that I knew a standard working day in my role/seniority was not the contacted (and billable) 7 hours. So on the four days I was working I did proper “full time” hours which could include travel, finishing late etc. To support this I needed to have arrangements in place that didn’t need me to be dashing off to do nursery pick up etc which I appreciate isn’t easy but was a big part of me still being able to do my role effectively and be seen as a key contributor.

A flexible working proposal should have a plan attached to it that deals with how the business will cover the work on the 5th day, it is a shared responsibility between the employee and employer.

Take a detailed look at your work and that of colleagues of similar levels. Do not accept non core responsibilities, department wide tasks, interdepartmental committies etc. Look at your tasks and find other members of staff to do them while you oversee them, use your 20% pay to hire or contract part time resource to reduce your admin / non value added work, all the time keeping the high value client facing work.

Remind your boss that regardless of the constraint, it makes no sense to overload one person, if the work is too much, it must be reevaluated. Do not be afraid to say no and to point at others

I was in a similar situation, I had the biggest client with more complexity, was more efficient with better results, bigger budget, better at cost control and was given responsibility for several company wide initiatives that colleagues were not... yet when it came to annual appraisal time the answer was 'we cannot assess you as highly effective if you only work 4 days'... I took it to the global head and failed to have my perspective recognised. I moved to another discipline and on 4 days a week was promoted twice in 2 years and was respected by everyone.

Sadly... not by my husband who refused to stay home with our kids after he was made redundant so I did instead and moved for his job... it is one of my greatest regrets.

I was quite sad when we (DH and I) decided I would work 5 days compressed into 4 after ML instead of having a day off and 80% pay, but it seems like it was probably the right choice. The 10 hour days are shattering but worth it for the day off with DD each week, and my compromise going back full time was to buy a further week of annual leave so that I can take nearly 7 weeks off to have more time with DD.

I get paid for 5 ( full time) but work 7! Most weeks I work 60+ hours as do most other people I know
its all relative

ultimately you can speak to your employers - what’s your plan to change this to allow the role to be done adequately over a 5 day working week ?

And it’s people who think this is acceptable that ruin working from home for the rest of us

Is it that the day off is a Friday - so others dump stuff on you as they won’t see you til Mon. Would it be better mid week .

It’s hard in a client facing role to be part time. also depends on whether a certain amount of overtime (unpaid) is the norm in the sector, for higher salaries that is often the case. When I worked 5 days a week I probably did 6 days of work. When I worked 4 days a week I worked every evening and Sundays, probably did 5.5 days of work.

I sucked it up when the DC were very small as it was worth it to get the day off with them. I then changed to a full time job where there’s little overtime needed, not client facing, and I’m much happier.

My experience was a while ago in an utterly crap workplace though. In your situation I’d discuss portfolio and expectations with your line manager, and find out what the condensed hours policy is.

@notsure2023, you need to confirm if you are still working your FT hours over four days (compressed working) for which you should be paid your FT salary, or if you are working PT hours with a reduced salary.

If you had not gone on ML but had been given the clients you have now, would that have warranted a change in job title/promotion/salary increase?

If so, that should apply whether you are working PT or FT.