FWR - compressed hours over four days - anyone tried that successfully?

[coocoocachoo]

I've been reading the various threads with interest but haven't found one to cover a request for compressed hours. Does anyone have any experience of this?

The position is that I have submitted a request for four days but to compress my normal working hours rather than lose hours. The reason is that a colleague went down to four days but when she tried to go back up to five days, she was informed that there was no business need for her to work longer hours and no statutory right for her previous hours to be reinstated. In this case, the colleague needed the time to care for a sick relative who has now unfortunately passed away.

I know that if I go down to four days a week, I will absolutely need to work longer hours to get through the work that I will still need to do. I'd rather agree that my contractual hours are 8am to 6pm 4 days a week (I work at least these hours five days a week anyway) than lose a days salary each week, but still have to work longer than my contractual hours anyway. I also can't afford financially to lose that whole day, particularly not indefinately.

In my request, i have also stated that I would be happy to be contactable on the day I am not in the office and would also be happy to be in the office on a Friday when circumstances allowed (my husband is a shift worker and does not always work on the day I want off).

My meeting is tomorrow and I'm trying to put together reasons why this does not affect business needs etc...

There is a wider issue in that I am the first of 5 other women in the wider team currently on mat leave. I'm also the first to return to work and the first to submit this request. I know precedent setting is not one of the reasons that an FWR can be declined but they have every interest in declining my request if possible.

I fully understand why you want to do this, and I do it albeit unofficially. I say unofficially because my employer doesn't like people doing it - they say it is effectively paying for overtime (ie by virtue of the fact you are getting a day off in lieu), and that as full time workers do not get paid for (and yet are expected to do) overtime, it would be unfair to give part time workers that privilege.

I work for one of the "big 4", ie majority of employees are professionals and well paid.

Anyway to answer your q - would say it prob depends on if a normal employee can choose to compress their hours or do flexi time.

I do this.

Are you flexible with the day you drop? I found this helped - there's some give as well as take if you offer to work the days they want, not just choose to have a Friday off. I am also flexible with changing my days if given sufficient notice and made it clear I would do this when I asked for the arrangement.

It does depend on what you do, and I was able to argue that I could get "tasks" done early and late, when the phone wasn't ringing etc, so actually an increase in productivity.

We have flexi time, so I also pointed out it meant I would be in the office when others had finished early for the day.

If you normally work 8-6 5 days a week, how will you manage to compress that into 4 days and still work the same hours?

I do this, or a variant on it. I work 4 days a week in the office (normally 7.45 - 4.20) and have evening meetings once or twice a month which require me to stay as late as 8pm. I average about 33 hours a week in the office.

The difference between the 33 hours a week I do in the office and the 37 I am required to do is worked flexibly - a mixture of weekend, evening and some working on my non-working day when DS naps, etc. I am also contactable on my non-working day and often answer quick queries by email but don't count as working hours any time when DS is awake and with me. I sometimes go in on a Friday if there is a specific need and will either swap my non-working day or DH stays off / we just pay for an extra day at nursery and I work a full time week.

If I do more than 37 hours in the week (and I regularly clock up 45) I can take this as flexi to avoid having to do any evening working in a specific week, the same way any other full time worker could have a flexi day off (and I can have flexi days off too, if I prefer).

My boss actually suggested this working pattern as he wanted me to work full time but realised I didn't want to have my DS in full time child care. As he says - nothing happens on a Friday which can't be sorted out on Monday.

There is a definite business case for this kind of working and if you sell it right it will work for them, and for you.

I am so pleased to have so much useful input. I've been so worried about tomorrow but have now added three further points to how I can be flexible!

grubbalo I suspect we have similar issues, majority of employees are also professionals and anything affecting fee -earning is likely to be frowned upon.

peppa - I've added can be flexible with enough notice and definately the higher productivity early/late to my list.

flowery my contractual hours are 9am to 5pm Mon-Fri but I'm invariably in by 8am and rarely leave the office before 6pm. Longer hours are just expected, albeit unofficially.

MissMarjorie I'm definatley also going to suggest your pattern too. I only have to get in 35 contractual hours, so if I can manage this over any given seven day period (occasional office day on chosen day off, weekends etc) then that also seems sensible.

I'm feeling better armed for tomorrow. I wouldn't normally be so nervous but rather than just my line manager and a HR rep. (who would normally attend), I also have my group Partner and head of HR attending the meeting - so I think they really mean business!

I did a similar thing and it was approved. I think their reason for saying yes was that I was still doing my job, the workload wasn't reduced but they could tick the "yes, we're family friendly employers" box/quotas. A later request for 3 days (so officially dropping some of my workload) was refused.
Part of the agreement was to have regular reviews to ensure it was working out.
This was for one of the big city banks - so it certainly is possible.

Thanks Maisiestar, the trick seems to be to demonstrate that you are indeed still doing the same job - I've also added regular reviews to the list!

Yes I realise 8-6 isn't your contracted hours at the moment, but it sounds as though contracted hours in your line of work are a paper-only thing, with the job taking more time than that.

So, if you plan to do the same job in 4 days a week, and keep the same pay, your employer's question might be how you will fit the hours you currently do into 4 days a week. If however you plan to suddenly reduce your hours from, say, 45 a week over 5 days to to 35 over 4 days a week, that's a significant reduction.

Best of luck Coocoocachoo! I've just finished working for the evening, after my ILs wouldn't get the hint and leave and I had a load to finish off tonight, so it does have its downsides! The upsides far outweigh that though.

I don't know if you manage anyone but one of the things my boss was keen to ensure was that on my non-working day my staff didn't go straight to him with queries as I wasn't there, thus taking up his time. The best way to do this is to make sure that staff are sure about the chain of command and are signed up to the way you work - mine only bother my boss rarely and in a real emergency and usually just sit on any questions till Monday, or email me and I will reply 9 times out of 10.

flowery - I see your point and no doubt this will be the central issue. There are some useful suggestions above that I think will go some way to answering how I might compress my hours.

MissMarjorie - I too foresee some late nights if this comes off! Glad to hear that you still feel the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. I do manage a team but think I could also deal with the majority of issues by e-mail/phone call.

Thanks.