Flexible working revoked - help!!

[Tiredofbeingtired1]

Looking for a sounding board for a problem I'm having at work. Not sure what to do really...

So, I had a baby and returned after a 9 month maternity leave, but when my son was 5 months old, I discussed my return to work with my boss (male).

(I work as a PA for two people who own and run the company)

I asked to return to work 5 days a week, but to work 2 days from home and also if I could leave at 4.30pm instead of my contracted finish of 5pm in order to pick up my son from nursery. I was told that none of this was a problem and that I didn't need to be in when my boss wasn't in (he also worked 3 days a week in the office).

So I returned to work with this set up and did absolutely everything to make this work, which included working through lunch breaks and responding to emails from 6am-10pm 7 days a week.

After 8 months of this being in place, I was told (in the middle of the office, not privately) that they were going to need to ask me to return to the office 4 days a week as they couldn't give me something they weren't giving to the rest of the staff. I was assured that this had nothing to do with my performance as they know I'm working all the time, but purely to do with what other people in the office are allowed.

I had many discussions with them about the impact of this on me, and that it would cost me almost an extra £400 in childcare costs per month, to which I was told effectively that if I can't afford to have kids, I shouldn't have them.

At this point, two other women were having their working from home revoked, but they had had it for 11 and 14 years, and their children were in secondary school by this point.

In the discussions for this, my boss (female) had suggested to me that on the extra day I was being asked to work in the office, I could leave early. This was purely her idea and was even suggesting around lunchtime.

After all my protests, I was told they would get back to me...however 5 months later nobody had. As this was being requested to start in September, I approached my boss (female) last week to discuss it before my holiday, and her holiday. She seemed surprised, but thankful that I had put the wheels in motion and was making this happening and agreed that it had kind of been forgotten about (not by me, I can assure you!). When I then raised her idea of leaving early on the extra day in the office, she didn't seem to recall this conversation and actually seemed quite annoyed by it, asking "how early?". I suggested 3.30pm instead of 4.30pm, and as I could see that this request wasn't going down well, I suggested it be for the first 3 weeks to help my son settle in (as this also coincides with him moving to preschool).

She then said that we need to review my leaving at 4.30pm on other days, and would I be willing to leave at 5pm (my contracted time) instead. I said that it wasn't a case of being willing, but that if I left at that time, I wouldn't be able to make it to the nursery before they shut. She seemed in disbelief that it would take me that long to get home, but I pointed out that whilst Google might suggest it is an hour, that is if I hit all my connections and there is no traffic. In practice, this is never the case, and it it always takes me around 1 hour 20 mins.

Her reasoning for asking me to leave at 5pm was again, for parity across the office, but also in case her or my other boss need something urgent between 4.30-5pm. Whilst I understand this, in practice I don't think this is actually the case, as all day I am asked for very little and I am the proactive one asking if they need things all the time. I can't believe that something urgent would be regularly happening in the last 30 mins of the day.

She also said that if they finish a meeting after 4.30pm and I am gone, they might need something, and it's not fair on other members of staff as it puts more pressure on them. Whilst this is true, I have been back through the diaries and in the 201 days I have worked back in the office, they have had meetings that have gone beyond 4.30pm 18 times. Also, they have never had someone come to the office for a meeting that starts after 4.30pm.

Therefore I feel that this isn't a reflection of what actually happens. I can't believe that they ask for very little all day, but in that last 30 mins something urgent comes up. She also acknowledged that I am on email my whole journey home, but it's if something happens that I am needed in person. She accepted the fact I work through my lunch, and from early morning until late evening on emails, but that it was not about total hours worked.

For context, my company are very anti flexible working. I joined 3 days before lockdown in 2020, and went on maternity leave in July 2021, so had spent a massive amount of my employment working from home. They are on a drive to get people back to the office and don't want anyone working from home. They recently conducted a staff survey, and in that almost every member of the office requested more flexibility with working from home. Therefore they are begrudgingly reviewing it, but it seems they are missing the point that flexible working doesn't have to be the exact same conditions for everyone and that it is a case by case scenario.

I am unsure as to whether I am being unreasonable, or if not, how hard to push on this - especially given that I was told by my boss (male) that he asked if he could get rid of me when I told him I was pregnant!!

We are a small team and don't have an official HR department. We recently just got a freelance HR person in, but I'm unsure as to how much I trust them yet. Also, in my capacity as a PA I work very closely with my bosses and maintaining a good relationship is important. I'm not trying to rock the boat or get special privileges, but it's hard to make things work when the agreement keeps changing. I returned to work based on certain conditions and I set my life up around them.

Any advice would be so gratefully received as it is keeping me up at night!

Thank you!

I agree with a PP, this sounds like it has all been done I formally so I'd put in a formal written request for flexible working. They can still say no, of course, but at least you've done ot the proper way rather than just "having chats".

it has also occurred to me that you haven't said whether or not you have had a reduction in salary for leaving early, as you have been doing. (I think you said you were making up the time but your employer and colleagues actually need to see that you are).

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A secretary's job most definitely cannot be done in a play pen with kids on your lap. It requires a computer/laptop ideally with dual screens, possibly printer and scanner. It also needs to be done in a timely manner, not after the kids have gone to bed because then the boss loses a day.

Nor can mine tbh. 😉 And I wouldn't want to.

But it's about the work I do. I have to maintain that.

A lot of posters are assuming a PA is a secretary. Times and job roles have changed.

Yep, the above, visions of the woman with the phone at the desk outside Alan Shugars board room in The Apprentice.

Can you elaborate what a PA does which a secretary does not? It would be interesting to understand how a secretary can move up the value chain.

But a PA's job still involves arranging schedules, making bookings and providing communications in ways that are much quicker and easier these days. No disrespect to the job, but I do see how it might be necessary to show your value in it these days.

And if you can do your job while caring for young children, your job clearly doesn't need doing!

Move up the value chain? Suggesting a secretary has lesser value?

We didn't have PAs in my previous jobs, nobody used them any more.

Most recent job very senior people still have them - they minute meetings often with a quick turnaround, organise meetings (limited space so this involves negotiating meeting space), book hotels and travel and coordinate bookings and orders for stuff for teams of 100s of people. A lot of that involves last minute changes or getting minutes out quickly.

The role of a PA has definitely changed since covid. In my firm, we had mass redundancies for the PAs, and a complete restructure of how their role works by using a practice admin department in another city for most of the usual PA roles.

Unfortunately my PA happily delegates to them anything I give her, not realising that this structure will mean her role will be made redundant if she’s doing less and less herself. I have warned her to be careful because it’s obvious that’s the direction things are moving in, but her response is that what she’s been told to do.

So it is definitely possible for some PA / support roles to be carried out by someone not in the office, but it really depends on the person you’re a PA for.

Yes. It is more unskilled. Waiting for your explanation to clear all this up.

Yes, I can see you still need people to co-ordinate things for big teams. That would be 1 or 2 to hundred rather than 1-1 or 1-10 that a secretary does. I see the former as more admin, and perhaps that means they get to call themselves PAs or EAs.

The issue with secretaries that work closely with their bosses (in OP's case she only has 2 bosses so 1-2. That is quite a low ratio but no doubt sector- and job-dependent) is that secretaries tend to work on direction from their bosses. Whereas a more administrative job like organising travel for hundreds requires self-motivation and initiative to find out how to do things and work to outcomes rather than task-by-task.

That is why general booking meetings, claiming travel expenses don't need a secretary these days because the younger managers can do this themselves.

They don't know that we know that they know!

They know but they are not saying that they know because they are not supposed to know.

In my experience, a secretary is more likely to do general work, possibly even for a team.

A PA tends to look after one key individual, or a very small number of key individuals. If their boss works late, they work late. As another poster said, their job is to sort problems as and when they arise. I suppose I'd describe a PA as in charge of managing someone's life and anticipating problems before they even occur. They're more likely to smooth over a complicated scheduling conflict than do any typing.

A good PA makes life so much easier (without having to be asked) and as a result, tends to get very generously looked after at Christmas.

Thanks, that makes sense.

Even more so why OP, who calls herself a PA, has to be there for her 2 bosses and adapt to the way her bosses want her to work. Otherwise she does not make their lives easier and in fact could make it harder because there are gaps in her hours they have to manage which makes their lives more complicated rather than easier. In other words, they have to adapt to her working hours and location, rather than the other way round.

I can see why this would be an issue with her employer.

I like the way you described a PAs job as making life easier 'without being asked'. That would be adding value IMO if it means do what it takes to get the job done rather than working on direction.

Yes, probably the same profession, or the one which works quite closely with it. It's the same concept either way.

I must confess, I never really got why I needed a PA when I was younger, and then when Covid came along, even most of the dinosaurs came to the same view.

I think it's a role that will eventually be made redundant as people start to retire. Younger generations are more self-sufficient. There will still be a need for some admin work, but it will be more general rather than running around after one specific person.

Bang on.

A secretary is more likely to have stuff they can schedule flexibly - typing, for example. A report might be needed in two days, so they can take a break when suits them and type it after hours if need be.

A PA is always monitoring your inbox. The PA is the person who reschedules your 9am for you when they see you're still stuck in your breakfast meeting and you're not going to make it back from town in time. A PA tells someone you cannot attend a pointless internal meeting because you're prepping for a big presentation, and why can't they just send an email instead?

It's quite an interesting relationship - if you don't have complete trust in your PA, it doesn't really work. They're a bit of a gatekeeper and they always know where you are and what you're doing and what can and can't be dropped.

The OP wants to adjust her hours to suit her own schedule, but a PA is supposed to work around their boss. She's basically tried to flip that relationship around, and it's no wonder they're pushing back.

The only way to work whatever hours you want as a PA is to share the job with someone else so that person is covering the gaps that you can't. And as I said before, to share a job, you really have to do set days or set half days. You can't share a few hours here and there with another person.

I suppose the good thing is that if the OP has experience as a PA, it would be easy to find a secretarial job elsewhere, and that could be flexed around her pick up times. Her circumstances have outgrown this job.

Hmmm. It’s annoying, I get it, but your contracted hours are your contracted hours and your employer has a right to expect you to work them. You can formally ask for flexible working, but they can decline it.

maybe its time to find a new job?

It's years since I worked anywhere where people had PAs, but when I did the whole point was that the PA was there to smooth out problems whenever they occurred. So if the boss's flight from Singapore to London was cancelled at the last minute, his PA was expected to arrange a new flight and rearrange any meetings he was booked for — even if it was outside normal working hours. A PA's job didn't cut off at 5pm sharp and resume at 9am. I think the OP is in the wrong job.

Absolutely right, but the scenario you describe can be dealt with from home. You don’t need to be in the office to re-arrange a flight. As more and more bosses WFH, so can their PAs. Pre COVID I would have said it couldn’t work, but now I know that it does

Pre COVID I would have said it couldn’t work, but now I know that it does

This

Can you elaborate what a PA does which a secretary does not? It would be interesting to understand how a secretary can move up the value chain.

This was 20 years ago, so I may be. way out of date but... Secretaries were focused mainly on paperwork and admin, minutes, organising meetings and basically doing what their boss asked them to do within certain limited parameters. They weren't expected to show much initiative or take much individual responsibility and they clocked off at the end of the working day and that was it.

There were only a handful of PAs in the place where I worked (the London HQ of a large German-owned multi-national) They spoke and wrote/read German and usually another European language too. One of them, whom I occasionally went to lunch with, had some kind of legal background and a detailed grasp of import/ export regulations. I think one of the others was from a PR background. The PAs had the authority to spend ££££s on projects they'd been authorised to carry out, like booking Christmas parties (there were 300+ of us working in London and we had some top-notch parties). They gate-kept and time-managed for their bosses, doing jobs that didn't need the boss's authority to carry out. They organised travel (there was constant to-and-fro, mainly around Europe but also to China and then US). If people couldn't contact the boss they would usually prefer to speak to his PA rather than his second-in-command. PAs didn't stop work at 6pm. We were a Europe-wide company and there were time differences in our major markets so we could (and did) have to work early and late on occasion, but the PAs were expected to support their bosses long out of hours. I can remember one occasion when a lease on a New York HQ was being finalised and one PA was flown out there with documents that needed hand-delivering and was rewarded with a 5* hotel weekend and theatre tickets etc. They were called PAs but I imagine now they'd be EAs or executives in their own right: unflappable, educated, polished and generally rather formidable.

A secretary is given work to complete. A PA/EA manages up, not down.

Revoking your agreement because of how other's in the office work isn't a good enough reason. They have to provide you with proper reasons.

Contact Pregnant Then Screwed for advice. Some of their comments thus far could get them into a lot of trouble.

If you generally like your job, I don't see why you should have to leave due to their sexism.

But how does that work when the PA wants to finish work at 4.30pm or even lunchtime, according to the OP? If the boss is left to sort out his own flights back from Singapore then he'll soon start wondering why he's employing a PA, won't he?

Personally I would look for another job. It doesn't sound like a very forward looking company.

Your talents will be better employed elsewhere in an environment where employees are listened to, respected and valued.
People seem to view WFH arrangements as some kind of favour or aberration. With the technology available now people really can work better and smarter. Hybrid working really is so much better for everyone.