Need to know my legal position...any employment law experts out there?

[lovingpickles]

I was employed on a part time basis and recently my role changed as a result of a company restructure - my role has expanded and my workload has exploded. I am contracted to do 29 hours but in reality I should be doing full time hours - I am not managing to get everything done. I do not want to work full time and my company refuses to employ anyone to support me. Legally, is my company obligated to find me another role within the organisation which is part time, given I am contracted to work 29 hours? I know there are no part time vacancies in the organisation so it means my company would have to create a role specially for me, which they will not want to do as they are in the process of making lots of redundancies. I do not want to approach them until I understand my legal position in the matter - can anyone help please?

So what is happening now. Are you doing say 29/40ths of the work and the rest of being left undone?

Xenia, at the moment I'm working longer hours because I have to do to get the main part of the work done and ignoring the less urgent stuff/doing it badly. I haven't been 'found out' yet but will be soon if this carries on!

Your employer isn't obliged to create another role for you because you're not managing to fit your current role into your hours, no. But if you are not managing to get your work done you need to raise it sooner rather than later before it becomes a performance issue.

Do you have an idea of what solution you'd put forward to your employer to get your work done without increasing your hours?

Could u suggest that u work full time and work 1 day at home?

Flowery - does the fact that my role changed from what was meant to be a part time one to a full time one not count? ie. I did not originally apply to work full time. If it doesn't then essentially all employers could recruit part time staff and make them do a job which is essentially full time - that is completely unfair!

I agree that I need to speak to them asap but am not sure what to suggest. AngelEyes, that's still working full time, even if it is one day from home...

But unless I'm misunderstanding you, it hasn't changed to a full time role. No one is insisting you change to full time hours are they?

It's a workload issue. In your opinion and experience, there is too much to be completed effectively in 29 hours, and in fact you are having to do some extra and still not getting everything done as you would like. That is an issue to address with your manager, making sure you are working effectively, it might involve removing some tasks altogether, doing some differently, delegating some elsewhere, whatever, all sort of options.

The fact that your contract isn't for full time hours entitles you to refuse to work full time hours. It doesn't entitle you to demand a whole new role is created with a lower workload.

That's much clearer now. Thanks all for the advice - very helpful.