More parents to get fliexible working arrangements

[duchesse]

The government is planning to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of under 16s.

I actually laughed when I heard this on the radio. In our office, my colleague and I ask our manager for if we can leave early, start late etc and he usually says no (but we take it anyway which he knows very well we'll do). This changes nothing for us.

I do worry it might end up a slippery slope where parents will become slightly less desirable as employees due to these new rights though - surely it will put employers off a bit .

Sticky - no its not a VCT just a small private family trust. Our investment horizon is typically 2 - 5 years but we also do some short term trading as well.

We get to know our businesses well though like a VCT. We often talk to suppliers, customers and employees as well as doing the financials. We take care over choosing businesses with the sorts of senior managers who fit our own personal ethical and moral stance. We are not puritcanical about it - but we know how to spot the bad signs. Our decision making process is very slow and we invest in relatively few businesses at a time.

Its a different much more leisurely approach to investing but we make a decent living and have done far better than supoosedly expert investors over the last ten years.

The City Banks actually have good flexible working patterns - it was seen as part of the package to attract employees- and a lot of the mothers with younger children who work at City banks I know actually work flexibility - the problem is no-one else does and the work load doesn't change- so if (for example) a member of a team starts working 4 days a week or changes their hrs to work say 8-4 - someone else has to pick up the workload.

dorothygale - it sounds to me like they just do not employ enough staff for the job. Suddenly giving flexibility to one employee and then doing nothing about the extra burden that places on the others sounds like equally bad management. Good to hear they do allow flexible working - but pitting other staff against working mothers/parents is not good. I bet it causes some bad feeling.

Are you a flexible worker or a person on the receiving end of the extra pressure?

Abetadad - unfortunately that's nearly always what happens. The non parents are expected to pick up the slack.

I've been the only single woman in a team before and it was hell. I was completely dumped on by everyone. Pipped to the post on every holiday and expected to cover while they all took sick days when they were sick, their kids were sick or the kids carers were sick.

Neither at the moment- just observing - but closer to the receiving end!

its not working mothers/parent by the way- its working mothers- I know very few men who have requested FWAs - the vast majority of men seem happy (?) to work long hrs - in part because they are supported by partners at home. Interesting the top women in my firm tend to have a stay at home partner

So picture I am getting is of firms begrudging offering flexibility and then just dumping extra work on the other staff. Makes it unpleasnt for the staff getting the flexibility who are seen as freeloaders by the staff that get the extra workload.

As I say - useless management. It just does not have to be this way.

Interesting, I'm entirely in favour of flexible working. However, both from personal and commercial experiences I see it being very hard to implement practically for several reasons. How do you get over the following hurdles?

• ability to plan in short and medium term
• increased costs on a business
• employees taking advantage of the situation

It does depend on the job you do a bit I think

My alst job we all ahd different patterns (you had to be a parent to work there, parenting charity) and you planned your workload, very little was sudden and if that happened- well you'd take calls at 11pm as part of the plan anyway. Soe asy for flexible working to be arranged as you could plan it in.

Dh's workplace though- he is the only parent there (of school age kids) and there's a reason, in that if I was not home based it'd be nightmarish. The job is pure firefighting: they get the days worksheets an hour before they run, they push them through, cant book drivers / subbies until tehy're in, firefight problems as they happen.... nothing can be left until next day, worst case scenario you load up a van and drive it yourself (he's on the contract that gets newspapers from print to shop, so no chance of leaving things until next say as you might on a normal logistics contract)

So inevitably, if soemone is sick / off then everyone else carries it.

Under the last system they had to even 'earn' days off by covering for each other, when the contract was swapped over that was phased out (phew! as he commutes and they didnt get paid those 20 days it meant we were spending £300 on petrol/ tolls for no profitable reason) but it's still known as the 'last cowboy industry' for good reason.

So how many people in favour of flexible hours, would put up with a school staff full of part timers for the whole of key stage one then?
That's what we have at our school because the teachers 'right' to work flexibly has to be put above the needs of the 60 children involved!
Small schools and small businesses often cannot run well in these circumstances!!!

We ahd that for part of KS1; TBH I didn't see the issue, it worked much better than people expected it to. It could have gone wrong if for example tehre had been a high % of SN kids in the class or whatever but isn't that where the if practicable rule comes in?

It's just the lack of routine it creates that bothers me! I don't think it can work successfully over a whole key stage!

Completely agree abeta Dad. I work in the public sector and flexible working is a right. When they were laying people off 2 years ago my job share and i surrived because of our low sickness record and hard work (they said it was more like having another 1.5 people than 1) this is because we were flexible so we could cover each other for essential time off and had enough time for our selves that when we come to work that is our only focus. I think employers get more bang for their buck with flexible workers. DH works in the private sector and predictably the only part time worker was laid off in january when the going got tough

I may have got this wrong but I understood that the right was to ask for "flexible" hours ie. not part time, just some lee way. I don't actually see how that helps, even if granted, because surely you have to make the hours up?

I think it depends on your circumstances tbh gm for some people working 8-4 or 10-6 instead of 9-5 makes a huge difference. For others doing 8-6 for 4 days helps, it just depends on what else is going on in your lives.

Yes I can see that would help a lot of people, I just meant I wasn't sure if I was correct in thinking that was the deal - that it's a right to request flexible hours, but not a right to ask for part time. Because lots of women think that on returning to work after maternity leave they have the right to request flexible working, by which the majority mean going part time.

You can ask to go part time of course, but you have no right to ask, and people think you do.

Oh no everybody has a right to ask- you just go in and sat 'can i...'

There's just no right for them to follow a procedure to consider it

It may be wordded otherwise but thats reality

some defnitions include part time; I gpt part time via the process and wasnt called om itb though tbh i'd have requested it anyway

Well that's what I mean by no right to ask to go part time - I mean you have no right to expect that request to be given any proper consideration.

That does seem to vary on the definition of part time though Georgi, having a flick through many companies include PT / job share etc in that procedure.

The thing that gets me with the cost of flexible working is that many businesses forget how much it costs to recruit and train staff. DH told me recently how much his firm's annual spend with recruitment companies was and I was . Surely anything which helps to retain good staff has got to be a plus, and in a recession, if there are people volunteering to work 4 day weeks, or 9-4 rather than 9-5, many employers should jump at the chance. Why are these things always portrayed in such a negative light, when in the right circumstances, this can be a real opportunity for both sides.

Totally agree with ABetaDad and also Riven's point about "most adults will be parents". We have to get away from thinking that this is an issue only for a few years out of people's lives. FFS - most jobs these days demand you to be there 8.30 - 6.30, and many people work at least an hour away from where they work. What sort of family life does that leave you with? Whether you have under-5s, teenagers, or indeed elderly relatives, or just want to have a life!

The problem is that society is still set up really for the two parent traditional family role where 1 parent is the main breadwinner and the other is the primary carer - so work doesn't neatly tie in with family life.

But i still can't see how some of the flexible working patterns are workable for a lot of businesses- for example term time working. Also the Flexible working patterns suggested are often very similar so there is a build up - where I am there is a lot of work that comes up late in the evening through having to deal with the US head office - but every flexible working request i've heard of here involves leaving early.

Also I think it depends on what you are doing/paid for. i work in a highly paid industry/area and part of the pay implicitly involves a commitment to work long hrs - this is magnified in other areas of the company

Depernds on the business: term time working for example in a filing or basic sales role would be fine in a place with students to fill role, no?

I supposethat'swhy it needs to be a request right.

Do agree that there are pluses as well- as well as staff retaining and linked costs some businssesare more seasonal; dh has a tiny business and he sells in certain time periods (before holidays for set up (sells DJ light stuff) and after them when the DJ's have blown them p LOL, never on a weeekend and usually tuesday - Thursday).... it would be easy t abse a flexible work pattern around that if it ever expands sufficiewntly to recruit staff.

It depends on the context you work in.

I work for local government in children's services/education department, so, if anybody is going to go with family friendly policies then this is it.

I work both part time/flexi time during the week and term time only, meaning overall I work for half of a normal week. There are several other people at my office who have similar patterns.

However, I have my own projects/work load I am responsible and do not leave others to pick up from me when I leave at 2.30 (apart from one other member of staff who also works part time but is afternoons) Because of the nature of our work we are very very quiet during school holidays. Staff who work full time get to take holidays during term time when we are busy and their work does need covering, but in turn work during the holidays when its very quiet. Nobody needs to cover for me when I'm off as my work only concerns school terms.

If I have to have time off to look after sick child then I have to make that time up.

Additionally, as I work 50% of a normal working day, I only get paid 50% of a normal staff wage.

If I have some work which needs finishing urgently, because I have to leave at 2.30 for school run and cannot stay until 7.00 or whenever to finish it, then I have to take it home with me.

I do appreciate how lucky I am to have the opportunity to work somewhere which is so flexible and helpful to me as a working parent, but I would absolutely refute the idea that as a PT flexible worker I do not pull my weight.

Abetadad - i am not up to investing in tobacco and arms companies however I think your sentiments about flex working are correct, for example businesses that have so called full time managers who have very low productivity and very poor business sense and are very reluctant to embrace flexible working, because it might challenge the status quo. I have noticed that often when flex working is agreed that other full timers make sure they complain about the situation to others and so on, and the hidden discrimination that you mention is very well hidden, but very strong.

Sitcky little fingers - it is good you have an enlightened boss and I also think imoscarsmum is spot on however in this economic climate people are out for themselves and worried about redundancies ... so I don't think many will show solidarity.