Mad to turn this down ?

[stickytoffee]

In short my jobshare is leaving. I have two dc who are at pre-school and school.

I have a job near home (10 mins commute tops), in a professional career type job, good childcare arranged. Work are looking for an alternative partner but I got the impression when I spoke to HR last week that there is also a chance that the role might be made redundant.

I think they might be able to pay slightly more than my role but I got the impression that with the economy as it is, even if they find someone they're giving serious consideration to not being able to afford the role anymore.

They have suggested that I think about what I can do over and above what I do at the moment. Thing is, would I regret giving up now if I feel i can't do any more ? Would I be better taking on more hours or would I regret doing this ? I've worked full time for 10 years and then part time the last 5....

Have you gone from half time to more hours. I could possibly do slightly more hours on a couple of days just to keep clients happy but I would have no time to myself to do stuff at home anymore.

DH works in very pressured long hour job and is rarely home during the week so I can't rely on him for any of the boring domestic drudge....I worry that our family life will suffer.....

Decisions Decisions.

I have friends who work 4 days a week (so generally not job-share) and I have to say it comes across as full-time at a lower salary.

If you have one in pre-school and one in school, presumably it won't be too long til both are in school? If you increased your hours and also pre-school/nursery hours to match, would you end up out of pocket as a result?

I'm a little bit worried that they seem to have hinted to you that the choices are more hours or redundancy. This doesn't feel right to me, but more knowledgeable folk will be able to advise if this actually is the impression you've been given.

On the face of it, the job sounds like a very good prospect, esp so close to home. I think it would be worth being flexible in order to hang on to it, but there are many other factors as well.

In all honesty I think they are caught. They sort of need probably a two thirds role and it would be easier keeping me on than going to the market particularly as most of my clients have been my clients for many years so they would get my continuity and experience.

I think they were trying to be honest about the financial position of the company but at the same time some of it didn't make sense - can they afford a full time role or not ?. They asked for the current hours I do to be spread over more days but I worry that would put a lot of pressure on me particularly during the school holidays.

Financially, if I continued as I am now, I would have childcare as I always have had for two days. On one day I have parent help and on two other days if I tried to do a couple of mornings whilst DD is at pre-school then I wouldn't have any additional childcare costs as she gets funding for that. I would be interested to see what they would do with my pay for the extra hours though and I might suggest the two short mornings being done from home in order to help a bit.

I don't know what to do....been a few years since I've had to make these sorts of decisions

OK. Big issue is that it is a client facing role. who is going to deal with the clients on your day/days off? If it is expected to be you then that ain't an 80% role. They will just allocate you 80% of your salary and expect you to reach 80% of a full time revenue target. No-where does that equate to you only being available only 80% of the time (I've been there).

So, are you willing to accept being bothered at home by clients? If not, can someone cover for you?

The alternative to this set up which often works really well is to have a flexi 80% arrangement where you work full time in busy periods but have, say, 10 weeks extra holiday a year. That tends to work really well - esp when kids hit school, because client quiet times tend to match school holidays. It means that you absorb your own 'bench time'. Works for the firm, works for you (if you have childcare flexibility yourself).

If that's not available then other things to consider are where you are career-wise. If you are a partner then you can probably get a member of your team to deflect stuff for you and give you real days off. If you are not partner and cannot control your hours it is much harder. Also harder to get yourself to partner if you can't do the hours.

Also bear in mind that if you have to do loads of admin/business devt stuff thsi takes up more time than you expect and when I mentor people going through this stuff I advise that they add on a 'half' day to cover this. IE 4.5 day working with 4 days of chargeable client work, and 0.5 day at home to do expenses/timesheets/etc etc.

I could go on. It's a tough call. I went from 4 days to full time, discovered that full-time was too demanding, gave it up and immediately regretted it. But was the best thing that happened in retrospect, as am now my own boss with own firm and have lots of control.

Yep SS...that is absolutely the problem.

I think they are in many ways wanting their cake and eat it. They know what I'm like too - won't leave things alone and will deal with things when I'm not in the office. So they get me in every day but know I'll take the calls/emails on the BB when not in....They'd get me on my current salary too...

I like the thought of the flexi time matter although this wouldn't work well for me at the moment with childcare but would work better when both are at school (not this coming year)....

Rather bizarrely, since being my own boss, I have discovered that it is really easy to pitch to clients as a part timer. I just tell them I have other responsibilities so if they want me it can only be on a 3 day a week basis. they never fuss over it, and they very rarely call me on non-client days. It's just the way it is. I'm out Fridays and Wednesdays, and no-one minds.

But when I tried to pitch that to my bosses in my last PAYE role? You wold have thought I was asking for the moon. They refused to even countenance the idea that I could possibly tell clients I would not be available at their beck and call 24/7.

It's the organisations that are in the dark ages, not the clients (generally).

Hope you find a solution that works.

That's really interesting StillSquiffy what do you do? I've noticed that so many professional females seem to basically have the choice of full-time or no-time because the role just couldn't be done on a part-time basis because clients are so demanding.

I only see it from the sidelines but find it really bizarre that firms who spend so much time training women go on to basically dispose of them once they have children. There just seems to be a total lack of creative thinking when it comes to work/ life balance in client facing industries.

Sorry to sideline your thread stickytoffee I just find this really interesting, and I worry about my career choices once I've finished my PhD, have two children and a husband in a job that has ridiculous hours.

furryone - We had a good old debate about all of this recently - here

Thanks Squiffy that looks really interesting.

Don't worry....we're all in this together !!....

I love the old ...."understand you don't want to do full time, but how do you propose it works if you do part time" nonsense. It does become really tiresome......no wonder so many give up.