Has anyone regretted going back to work part time (0.8FTE)?

[wishIwasonholiday10]

I've recently returned to work after maternity leave and have been doing 3 days a week for the first 3 months using annual leave. The annual leave year restarts after that and I had been planning to go back to 5 days. However the 3 days is working quite well at the moment and I'm seriously considering dropping to 0.8 FTE and doing 4 days a week, at least while DD is nursery age. Has anyone regretted doing something like this? I've worked out that we should be able to afford it but would mean a drop in ability to save and maybe less frequent trips to see family abroad. I guess it would also detrimentally affect my pension.

Like one PP I see the benefit in doing 0.9 over 4 and think I’ll request this

I liked three days a week. Three days a week is recognisably part time and I found everyone understood the expectations. You're clearly part time. You have half the week at work and half not working. I had Thurs and Fri off so it really felt like a long weekend every week (although with young kids, not a holiday lol)

At four days a week the balance tips towards your employer, who benefits from getting to pay you 0.8 but expects you to do a full week's work because you're kind of not one thing or the other so it's hard for them to divide up the work appropriately. I found the expectation difficult as you end up more stressed on those four days and the one day "off" isn't enough to make up for the lack of pay. And people tend to see you as a full time employee who has a days holiday every week, rather than some one who works part time. When I finished mat leave the second time round, my new employer only allowed a minimum of four days a week and I decided to go freelance instead because that just didn't give me the balance I was looking for - it felt like a full time job but paid less!

Very similar here. I dropped to 0.6 FTE after my first baby and stayed there for 10 years. I've gone up to 0.8 FTE now my youngest is settled in school (would have been earlier if it wasn't for lockdowns) and I'm going to stay here for a few years. I do average of 6 hour days (some shorter, some longer) 5 days a week to allow me to do more school drop off and pick ups and take DC to clubs.

I'm starting to feel the pinch slightly with increases in mortgage payments etc so will definitely go back up FT hours again at some stage. I'm a civil servant.

I thought this but have recently managed to go up a grade and and am working on changing people's opinions of what I can achieve.

Well who would be teaching the other lessons that you would be teaching if not PT then @Pinkpetunias23 ?

If a FT teacher teaches 25 hours of French a week, and then the French teacher decides to go PT and only be paid for 20 lessons a week, then the school is going to need another French Teacher to teach the other 5 lessons, aren't they ?

However, I definitely wouldn't recommend 0.8 in Primary, as all you would save is 6 hours of teaching (the one nice bit of the job). Everyone would turn to you for all the report writing, all the planning, all the data, the concerts and assemblies, all the trips, and all the stuff and nonsense that takes up most of your hours. If this were about teaching, do 0.6 and have much firmer barriers about being PT and sharing your class.
In some jobs of course - bank or Post Office clerk, in retail, as a lifeguard or leisure centre assistant, cook, waiter, barperson, Operating Theatre Practitioner, and a million other people who do the work in front of them on the day - then 0.8 would be fine. But people who manage projects or work with clients on projects or academics and so forth, it wouldn't be a good move to be paid 4/5 of your salary to still end up doing 100% of your work.

Not sure if your the logic on that Eliza - IME when working PT your employer will credit you all the bank holidays pro rata & require you to book them as holiday if they land in your working day.

If you usually work a Monday, on a BH you have to give back a whole day as leave, despite only being credited a percentage, so IME you get shafted.

If Monday isn't your working day, no need to book it off & therefore you can use those 4/5 of a bank holiday Monday whenever you choose. Winner.

I did 4 days per week for about 10 years. I enjoyed having the extra day at home (especially when DC started school) and four days felt like I had enough of a presence and the time to do interesting work and grow my role, while maintaining a bit of work life balance.

I didn't work on a Monday because DH got all bank holidays off, so it meant we'd always have them as a family. My office doesn't close on bank holidays and I don't have a separate bank holiday entitlement so that didn't make any difference to me. How bank holidays work very much depends on how your company operates bank holidays (assuming you get them at all). The legal minimum they have to give you is 0.8 of bank holidays FTE workers get, even if you work a Monday, so just make sure you understand their process. Not every part time worker 'wins' if they work on a Monday.

Depends on your job i guess but based on 5 women i know who tried it...

I’m 0.81 FTE, work Tues-Fri.
Absolutely bloody love it! It is such a lovely life balance. No regrets here so far, I am 3 years in.
It took me down to 20% tax instead of 40% and a pension bracket, plus I got child benefit so it was of financial benefit really too.

I might have to work full time again eventually but I really don’t want to. It’s so much less stressful. I do 2 days WFH and 2 in the office. Love it.

I agree with this. I work three days and it feels pretty perfect. I'm off more days than I'm there, which is good for a start, and it is quite clearly part-time so no one tries to make you fit five days' work into three days like they might with four. And due to the way our holidays work I have seven weeks a year off too.

As per pp. Either do 3 days or full time. 4 days you will be doing a full time job with less pay.

As others have already mentioned, Mondays is the good day to take off because you then get the Bank Holiday entitlement added to your Annual Leave and can use the dates when you choose to. Also if you want to go away for the weekend an overnight stay is usually much cheaper on a Sunday night than a Friday.

I work 0.75 FTE. 37 hours down to 28 so my 4 working days are slightly shorter, 7 instead of 7.4 but it makes it very easy for me to build up flexi time. I'm a year in and have no regrets, it's the right balance of presence and enables me to progress but gives me a long weekend with my son every weekend. Not working Monday is beneficial for me in terms of bank holidays.

I haven't come up against the expectation of still working a full time role in 4 days but I take the view that I can only do what I can do in the hours I have. I suppose the massive caveat with me is that it's civil service and a team where almost everyone has small children and the majority, men, women, senior and lower grades are all part time.

I also agree that it’s better to be 3 days per week. Look at what the pay will be after tax, childcare, travel costs etc - you may find it’s not the big drop in earnings that you’re imagining.

That’s not been my experience at all. I gave up a good 20% of my responsibilities when I reduced my hours and I definitely don’t do full time work now.
I couldn’t have afforded 3 days anyway, but that would definitely have compromised my career. 4 days hasn’t as I am still around enough to be included.
I’m a senior manager in HE though so it may be sector dependent.

I really hope 4 day weeks for full time
pay take off though, that’s my dream!

I think 4 days would be my ideal. As it is, I do 5 because I refuse to reduce my pay by 20% when I know damn well my workload won't decrease.

I do 4 days now, it's perfect. I did 3 days when ds's were in primary. Worked well for me.

I do 4 days although currently on mat leave again. I didn't want to do compressed hours as I still wanted to see DC during the week. I'm in a technical role so my workload is project based and I manage my own time.

I pretty much do the same amount of work everyone else does in 5 days so the company probably gets more out of me for less, but tbh I was just doing more than everyone anyway when I was full time.

I'm just efficient and stick to my hours (8-4) religiously. No-one complains about me "leaving early" because the role is very clear on pieces of work completed rather than presenteeism. We've got another colleague who works 2pm til gone midnight which is considered far more annoying!

I thought it would harm my career but I got chosen for an internal promotion before mat leave so I guess it depends on the workplace.