Work and flexi working help NHS

[Lavendertearoom]

Hi,

I need some help. I’ve been offered my dream job but unfortunately they cannot adhere to my current flexi working agreement( they are both nhs jobs in the same trust). This means that I could be working different days each week- I can’t have a set pattern- I can make some requests each month.
I have a nine month old and three year old both going to nursery so I need to have set days. I’ve explained this to the job but am I being unreasonable in expecting set days?

The new manager said that I could only make requests but I think I wouldn’t be guaranteed these every month as surely other people might want some requests as well.

I have to email her back but I think heart of hearts I have to decline- or is there another way round it?? We have no family support so nursery is currently our only child care.

Many thanks 🙏🏻

I think if you have requested set days and it has been declined you will sadly have to turn it down!!

Hi OP
I have the EXACT same dilemma!
I got offered yesterday what is essentially my dream job at my current band in terms of progression, but they can only do one fixed shift per week. And like you my 2 days at nursery are my only childcare and are not flexible, so I’m a little stuck.
What was the response you had from your manager?
Im going to have to put something together over the weekend and contact new manager on Monday!

That’s a real shame, when I first started my job I didn’t know set days were a possibility so was paying all my salary for full time nursery care even though only working part time. Once I started I found other members of my team had set days and so applied for the same and request was accepted, thus saving me an absolute fortune in childcare and just giving us a much better work life balance generally.

And they wonder why nhs retention is so bad!? (NHS manager in a large trust here and this bs makes me angry).

I couldn’t agree more, there was so much considered too awkward to ‘allow’ in terms of flexible working where I had worked before that my new trust is all for, it works and we have very few recruitment/retention issues and much happier staff!

@Linny81 my team has lots of part time colleagues and there are some times that’s a bit tricky to manage but we actually have a solution to the specific issue if directors will agree. We are really flexible on wfh and leaving a bit early etc. and team are much happier for it.

i did have a manager back in 2015 who wanted to change my hours/days with two weeks notice and couldn’t comprehend that I have no family locally, dh worked over an hour away and the local cms for after school care were fully booked. He stressed that it’s important for my career to increase my hours and was most put out when I said I was putting my dc first and I’d catch up my career once childcare was available. Thankfully he then backtracked and agreed to my proposed hours. There was no business benefit for his suggestion at all.

@TeenLifeMum It does make such a difference, although I started off be willing to pay all my salary in nursery fees it’s not ideal and once the reality of the stress of the job and juggling work and family kicked in then not sure I would of thought it all worth while. The children are at school now but means they can do after school clubs as I know which days I will be working. I have a friend in another trust who has been allowed to do part time and set days too and her family circumstances would mean working just wouldn’t be viable otherwise. I myself had taken a career break previously as I just couldn’t sort out 24/7 availability or childcare, which was what was expected even if only on a 22.5 hour a week contract. There are the odd study days that don’t fall on my contracted days but I don’t mind them as isn’t usually too difficult to sort childcare for the odd occasion like that. If I had been on benefits it would of been crazy to think the government would of been paying for full time childcare for me just because another of its departments wouldn’t facilitate flexible working so this has a massive impact in those terms too let alone the cost to the government of families where someone cannot work to their skill level at all due to this inflexibility. Yes it would be easier for my employer to have the whole pool or its staff available whenever it wanted but the benefits to us, the country, workers children and gender equality (plus recruitment and retention) is massively outweighed. We even have older staff who make use of this to be able to help their children with childcare, do valuable voluntary work etc. It does absolutely infuriate me when institutions/companies complain of recruitment issues (demand government inevitably subsidise trying to resolve these issues) while throwing on the scrap heap a whole pool of people who could do the job just because they are too stubborn to consider facilitating flexible working

Set days is a fairly recent thing in my Trust/ department and maybe not everywhere has caught up yet, or maybe other people in the new job already have those set days so they can’t give them to anyone else.
My DC are 12 and 9. After maternity leave I was offered a set day off so I needed childcare for 4 days when I usually only worked 2 in the week and 1 at the weekend, so I could only do the job because DH had a very flexible job and family helped out. When DH died I got set days because it was the only way I could arrange childcare to go back to work.