Flexi-workers under fir in The Times

[LaDiDaDi]

I wondered what mumsnetters views are on this article.

I found it very one sided and very annoyed by Minnette Marvin who is lucky enough to be able to work freelance and therefore by her owqn admission flexibly. She makes no mention of the benefits of flexible working to employers, such as employee loyalty and increased staff retention, nor does she suggest any alternatives other than working full-time and becoming a man!

belgo - I knew a Sri Lankan girl who had an arranged marriage and discovered her husband didn't want children after the marriage. Which seemed terrible.

They sorted it in the end though .

I can't imagine not knowing those things. However, I really don't think issues like who does what in terms of daily responsibilities can be discussed and determined before marriage. What do most 20-30 year olds know in advance of marriage about how successful they will be at work or what their feelings will be about leaving their babies in the care of non-family members? Nothing at all.

But maybe at that point you don't know those things yourself? I met DH when I was 22 (Xenia was younger) and my ideas about children changed over time. At first I didn't want them until I was well past 30, DS was planned, conceived and born when I was 28. Biological clock, I think. DH didn't decide until after DS was born that he only wanted one child. That too had to be worked through and we ended up with DD.

I do agree with Xenia's point about the home. DH can't cook and I feel culpable in that, I have facilitated the fact that after ten years of marriage he can't cook. He does iron, clean, load the dishwasher, do the washing, cut the grass, bath the children, childcare runs etc. He is just very poor in the cooking and household management areas. But I know that a lot of women disenfranchise men in their own home.

Bozza - do you really think that so many women these days disenfranchise men in their own homes? I can clearly see it in my mother's generation, but I can't see it in my own particularly (or at least not among my friends). Generally in all couples everyone can do everything that they are physically equipped to do. Men still can't get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed, and women can't carry washing machines down four flights of stairs. But that's nothing to do with (dis)enfranchisement.

However, rational division of labour definitely comes into play.

Yes I do in the middle class semi rural circles I mix in. DH does it to me in terms of loading the dishwasher. Doesn't bother me. I let him re-arrange anything I have put in during the day, but somehow manage to muddle along when he is away. I actually think that is where Xenia is on the mark.

Bozza - sorry but I don't understand your dishwasher example. Can you explain a bit more?

Of course it depends on what the job is. Anything that is customer-facing or involves dealing directly with other people might be problematic. Teaching, for example as inthegutter mentioned. I work in an area that requires me to interact mainly with a computer. I can contact real human being as and when I need to, via a phone or via e-mail. There is no reason on earth why anyone doing a job like mine cannot work from home or work flexibly, just as long as they understand that 'flexibly' works both ways - my life is made easier but in return I need to be available outside of my normal hours in case of problems.

I'm the only one in my dept who does this regularly. Why? Because the rest are all men and there is so much macho willy-waggling and mindless presenteeim in the corporate world. Infuriating!

Anna I just meant that he says I am rubbish at it, I should be stacking it his way, nothing will come clean blah, blah, then moves things around etc. So I leave him to it, although I do still bung things in during the day to keep the kitchen tidy. Now if every time he changed a baby's nappy (we don't have babies or nappys anymore) I took it off and redid it, he would probably stop bothering. And I think that happens a lot.

OrmIrian I work in IT and there is a lot of resentment here, not least from me, about who is allowed to work from home (management) and who is not (non-management). Because only management have laptops. However us lackeys are allowed them if we are on call overnight.

Well we are all in management in IT. We were made managerial level 2 yrs ago when the grades were reviewed - mainly because they we can't claim overtime . And we are all on-call to a certain extent 24 hours a day. There is rarely a weekend when I don't get a call.

Yes, My ex also had a thing about my inability to stack to dishwasher too but in general I think it's best couples allocate tasks so you know what you're responsible for and are in charge rather than "helping". Hopefully many men aren't disenfranchised at home but it's very important for new nothers in particular not to be too much of the view only I can change a nappy, this man is useless at XYZ etc as it's exclusionary and denies fathers a proper role and is also a rod for the woman's back. I also hate all this criticism of men you see all the time - women giggling about how hopeless men are at XYZ.

Hmmm... sounds like this story

CBI demands...

It would help if employers would see flexible/part-time working as a good thing in principle and work on the basis that if they can possibly accomodate it they should, rather than the more negative approach that they should start out looking for business reasons not to because its a pain in the arse that's bad for productivity etc.

E.g. an earlier post was saying about teachers maybe needing to come in every day because their lesson may be timetabled every day. Well is it beyond the realms of possibility to change the timetabling?

What kind of society do we want our kids to grow up in? - surely one where their parents are happier (women are happier in part-time work rather than full-time) and they actually get to see them. That benefits all of us, not just parents.

Employers/managers have to bear their responsibility in making this happen.

(For what it's worth, I don't think this should just apply to parents - I think many people would be happier if work was more flexible.)

Bozza - OK, that's what I thought you meant.

We have the same issue at home - my partner thinks he's much better at stacking the DW than me - but I certainly don't see that as some kind of disenfranchisement of my dishwasher loading skills . Let's not take this too far. I mean, if you take any two random people of similar IQ and a hundred low skilled tasks one is going to be marginally better every time and each of the two will probably end up being better at around 50% of the tasks...

The girl who had an English teacher 4 days a week and someone else on the 5th day was victim of poor planning. Why couldn't the class have double English on one day and no English on the Friday?

My husband does flexi time and I have some leeway in my job but not as much as my husband. My husband take my son to school and I pick up my son at 4.30pm.

Having people working flexibly means that there is someone to answer the phone in dh office from 7am to 9pm. This helps business because it makes it easier for international clients to contact the company.

Depends on the job. Some work you keep your clients by being available. I often say call me any time, even during the night if they're working on something and I genuinely don't mind. If they have that pressing issue I'd deal with it. If my child were ill I'd deal with it too. In other types of work perhaps with little public interface doesn't matter where you are or who does it. But most workers know this very well. Some work can be done by a job share other work it's impossible. You can't do an operation that takes 10 hours ands top mid way but you can work at the till at Macdonald's for 4 hours and pass on seamlessly to the next minimum wage person to take over.

lol at canadiandream and reallytired suggesting a school just tinkers with the timetable a bit and the problem is solved!! Have you any idea how many variables are involved in writing a timetable for over 1000 students, 80 or so staff, with all the different time allocations for each year group etc?? It's complicated enough with full timers, never mind trying to accommodate people who don't want to work tuesdays or whatever.

inthegutter - I thought that these days you wrote timetables by sticking all the info into a computer programme...

But whey Deebiem is it you who have to be there. Why not the children's father? Surely that's the issue the nation should address - that women are lumbered with all this when many other couples share it.

Anna, the software exists, but where I teach no one has been trained to use it and I'm not even sure the university has bought it.
Timetabling is thus done by teams of tired lecturers at the end of the semester. Or, if revolution has led to campus closure, by muggins at home on her laptop, organising emergency concours lessons which the revolutionaries have kindly decreed are allowed to carry on.
Hijack over, sorry, am just a bit p'd off at yet another student strike voted for by 10% of the student body, and which is likely to lead to the whole semester being totally cancelled for 100% of said student body (except the privileged concours students, of course).

AuldAlliance - sounds as if you are having a very trying time of it... Bon courage.

Thanks Anna. It's not that bad, at least I'm not braving the traffic jams on the icy roads of Provence. But I feel sorry for the students; I don't think they realise the teaching staff are not going to adapt and rig the exams like we did after the CPE strike. They're in for a shock.
To return to the thread , in essence the timetables we work out are based on a flexible approach, since most staff teach relatively few hours per week and are allowed to make some limited requests as regards the days and times they work. It's do-able, albeit quite fiddly, and is certainly quite family-friendly.
Time to go, there are cries of "Mummy, I'm not sleeping now", from above.

Anna888 - yes, there is software, the problem is, it doesn't take into account the human element. For example, a Year 9 class needs 8 English lessons spread over a fortnight (we work a two-week timetable). yes, the computer programme will allocate the lessons, but you might find they're all on the Monday and Tuesday of week 1 !!! And then maths might all be bunched into a couple of days at the end of the other week!! When you look at all the variables - trying to get an even spread, trying to avoid lengthy moves from one end of the school to the other on large sites, fitting in all your A level groups and GCSE option groups, taking into account setting and streaming if necessary - see, it ain't that simple!! So add another ingredient to the mixture - eg a teacher who says they don't want to work on a certain day or two - and it becomes even more of a logistical nightmare!

I have worked in schools where they do change the timetable so in that precise way. Schools do manage it. There are some good timetabling software out there.

The school I work in has children who spend part of their week at a different school! Or they have regular theraphy appointments that have to be scheduled. Catering for part time staff is VERY easy in comparision.

Especially if you have two teachers who do a jobshare. If the second teacher taught 50% of the lessons then they would get to know the kids. For example one teacher might do English language and the other teacher could do English literature.

Really tired - yes we also have some kids who do dual placements and other flexible learning provisions. I agree that there is a certain degree to which an institution can try to be flexible and adaptable , but I think there also needs to be honesty about what jobs DON'T lend themselves to part time working. We've had teaching staff who miss staff meetings for example. How can you possibly have a full picture of what goes on if you're missing crucial information/training? Also I don't believe it's workable to have P/T staff in management roles in schools. We have a P/T Head of Dept FGS - managing a team who are in school all week! Schools run at a fast pace - issues can't always be dealt with effectivelty by someone else, of left until the P/T is back in. And although your timetabling suggestion sounds ok in theory - one teacher teach one aspect and one teach another - it really isnt that simple. I've had to share classes with P/Timers in the past and try to cover different topics. With the best will in the world, it is NOT best for the pupils.There is inevitably less continuity, and it can be very difficult to liaise with P/T staff.

I think when people make comments to the effect that staff have no responsibility to consider the impact of their decisions on their colleagues you start to see the intransigence and selfishness of some supposedly flexible workers.