Is my working part time really an excuse to treat me like crap?

[mrsannekins]

I came back to work from mat leave in October last year, and I was upfront from the start about my PND. I'm not ashamed of it, and did not ever expect special treatment, but it can make you do weird things, and I wanted one person to know what was going on. BIG MISTAKE NUMBER 1. I think I've done really well on my return, no complaints about my work, everything is done on time, nothing has been missed and I've participated fully in team briefing and taken the lead on a few things, and have maintained all the working relationships I had developed before I left...EXCEPT....

Over the last couple of weeks, has it become apparent that just because I work part time, that this means my supervisor think she is entitled to willfully exclude me from decision making and discussions, where before mat leave I would have been totally involved, consciously assign work to my full time colleague, with no justification as to why, in all it feels as though I am being pushed aside in favour of my full time colleague. All of my project work was temporarily reassigned when I went on mat leave, and surprisingly all of the high profile interesting stuff went to my ft colleague and I got nothing back. In fact I am being put at a significant disadvantage, as other than being qualified and she isn't, I no longer have the status I previously had.

Is there such a thing as loss of status following mat leave that I could attribute this to, or is it just a fact of life when you cut your hours? Does anyone have any helpful suggestions as to how I can approach issues such as communication and workload with my line manager.

Oh, incidentally, my line manager and FT colleague are VERY good friends, and I seriously question my line managers ability to separate work and friendship on this, to the extent that I wonder if she dilvulges information from our supposedly confidential supervision sessions to my colleage.

You have the right to be treated equally - independant of hours. All PT staff get a level of 'missing out' I guess - and unfortunately if it can be justified is often ignored. But if you can prove you are being disadvantaged then you have grounds to challenge - alot will depend on how far you want to take it (and how much added stress you can handle). I'm not trying to put you off but just be aware once you start such a battle it can be a big process.

Have you tried talking to someone such as a union rep or ACAS (www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2042). You could also try going up the management chain if you do not feel you will get a fair hearing from you immediate line manager, or go to your HR dept/rep.

From my experience of working in a large organization (very family-friendly, actually, in many other ways), I would say it's a fact of life. Sorry.

If you are working alongside FT people with same or similar job roles, you will find it hard to compete with them, because you represent a less attractive choice from the managerial point of view due to your limited availability. It's just not as convenient for the manager to plan your workload - you are 'slower' in terms of elapsed time taken to complete a project, unavailable to resolve urgent issues some days of the week, and if you interact with anyone else (customers or colleagues from other departments) then their preference would be with a FT employee too.

Unless you are irreplaceable in some way - i.e. you possess some unique skills or work for a small company where every person really counts - it's tough. And even if you are actually irreplaceable, a good manager would try to upskill an FT employee to possess these irreplaceable skills, for the benefit of the team.

Officially this kind of managerial decision making can be justified by saying that you cannot attend important meetings or cannot turn around a project or task as quickly as needed (due to limited hours). If your manager isn't daft, he won't leave you any valid reasons to dispute his actions/decisions in a formal manner.

Did you raise this with your manager though? Definitely worth doing, whatever the outcome. It is possible that your manager has good intentions - and is trying to allocate less stressful tasks to you because of your PND, with the view to make life easier for you. In which case this is a misunderstanding.

Just want to add I'm not an HR expert, so don't know where you stand with complaining about this. What I said is based on my own observations of a PT colleague. I was FT.

You have the right not to be subjected to detriment due to your part time status. However it is unfortunately very common for this to happen simply because you are not there all the time.

I have worked ft and pt. It is a fact of life for pt working. That is why I am now ft but working flexibly.

Pt in a job which is not shift based if a myth, you just end up trying to pack it all in, and work from home, employers get real value for money..shame they never actually realise that...very often, I went Pt after Mat leave 3 days a week and it was impossible, and my hours had been relocated to a hole called saving the NHS money, so could not get them back, I had not been replaced just those hours where lost. I got 7 back after another F/t worker left...and not replaced, so I in realit got 2 full time jobs to do in 4 days..
Have a different job now, I hate working full time now but it is the only way I get paid for my work done.