I'd love some advice and thoughts. I'm 7 months through my 11 months maternity leave, and am trying to work out how many days a week I should try to go for on my return to work. I meet my boss for an informal chat in a week and would like to have written down some options and clarified in my own mind what I THINK I want (really hard with a fuzzy baby brain). At the moment, I can scarcely remember how to do a job and need to get my confidence and assertiveness back!
I have a fairly senior managerial job in the public sector. There is a lot precedent for where I work for at least four days at all levels of seniority, often with a day working from home. Budgets are tight, which does mean that money saved and spend elsewhere from hours reduction could be usefully deployed - I've done a lot of this in role myself.
I am really lucky to have my job and want to feel like I'm giving value for money on whatever hours since a lot of my colleagues would love to have my position, I'm sure.
I need to work at least three days a week for financial reasons. The other factor I need to think about is that I'm 35 and would like another child and feel I don't want to wait too long - so I feel that I'd like to at least try early next year. This means that financially, 3 days would mean I was worse off initially and during a second maternity leave, but would it be a better potential basis for two kids?
Options I can think of are:
-
Go for four days a week, which would include a day working at home. I have to attend board meetings and stuff, but have some flexibility about days, cos my MIL is doing 2 days childcare and can be flexible herself. Keep role as roughly the same, but emphasise how cash saved from role could be used to specific projects
-
Go for three days a week, and come up with a plan of how my role could be 'split' (I manage a number of areas and projects and could probably come up with a way to do this). This could be 60/40 jobshare, or creation of opportunities for existing staff, with some freelance cash left in the pot for project work.
-
Go for something in between - say a three day and a half day week, where I did four hours of paperwork across two evenings a week.
I'd love any advice and experience you have. Obviously I may only be able to get option A, but I might as well go for the best possible option at first