Negotiating part-time in new job...?

[ChocolateMoose]

I'm just about to go back to work after mat. leave on 4 days a week - all good except that it's likely I'll be made redundant shortly. So I've been looking around at jobs (mainly policy work in charities/think tanks) and part-time jobs are pretty thin on the ground. I'm trying to work out if I have any chance, if I apply for a full-time job, of getting it on reduced hours. Am I just kidding myself that this could be a possibility? Has anyone actually done it?

well check out my thread in AIBU to apply for a full time job.

I have just applied for full time position but asked them to consider part time and they are really open to it and Im waiting to hear.

So yes i would apply

Another thing - if you are about to be made redundant would you not be better saying your going back full time - will you not get more redundancy pay?

Thanks - I'll have a look at your thread. Good luck with your job!

It would be a good idea at application stage to ask if they would consider part time. It really, really winds me up when I advertise a full time post and at interview someone asks if we'd consider part time - there is then so much work to do in employing two people etc.

Interesting post from HT, as I would always advise to interview first and then to mention job-share or part-time.
In fact, I would probably wait to be offered the job before mentioning it.
Fact is they're not supposed to discrminate, but they do. Once the job's offered, they have to mke at least a minimum effort to accommodate the request and you don't lose anything by asking.
Look in the public sector (although good luck with the recent cuts) as they will automatically consider part-time and are less likely to discriminate.

Hairy, what is the extra work you mention in employing two people instead of one? Is it just the fact that the paperwork is doubled or are there other factors involved?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing the employer's pov as in my line of work, part time roles are rarer than hen's teeth.

Thanks

there isn't any legislation in place afaik which means you have to consider job share or pt . Beyond the flexible work request which kicks in after 26 weeks in post.

In my industry we work out in advance whether a job is ft or pt and whether it needs one person or could be shared. For continuity there are some jobs which just don't work on a shared basis.

If we've advertised a post as ft and 37 hours itmeans that's what we need

the extra work would include time spent reconsidering, working out and negotiating shifts, double supervision and induction time and extra crb check, for starters.

What sort of part time would you be looking at? 4 days a week quite a few employers would consider - you can broadly do the same job but for less money (bitter, moi?)

A job share is, as Hairy says, a big undertaking. As well as the recruitment, there are the practical issues. For example holiday. Ok, assume that over Christmas both people will take the same dates. That leaves 8 weeks a year where ou might have 'half' a person.

There's handover too. Do you have an overlap day or half day, in which case there's the cost of that? Do you lose continuity, even with a handover?

I can honestly see why most employers are only keen on job share in very limited roles.

Just to add to hairytriangles examples, take something like performance management.
I have two job-shares among my Dept, ie, two of the jobs are each shared by two people, so 4 employees rather than 2. Instead of two performance management meetings for those posts, which takes probably about 45/60 minutes to talk through properly, review, set targets, etc, I have to run four. Double the workload for that particular issue.
Take something like professional development. If I run a training session, only 2 of the job-sharers will be there on the day I run it. The other two will be having their time off. So - do I duplicate the training? Which doubles my work load in delivering it? Or try to squeeze the money out of the budget to pay them all to come in that day (rather negates the point of a job share if you are effectively paying twice for the same post).

I'm not saying it can never work,but in reality, there are often disadvantages to employing two people to do one job, as although it gives them the reduced workload they want, it can create additional work or costs which are borne by others.