Flexible work request declined. Job share declined.

[Mumchatting]

Hi, I'm just looking for a bit of advise. My flexible work request has been declined. I work in an office for a retail company. I was full time prior to my maternity leave. Now I requested part time 2 or 3 days and proposed a job share of my role as I read that this works well in many offices.
I can't believe it was actually declined. And they want me to do 5 days a week without reducing hours.
They put few reasons - detrimental impact on the performance, on quality and burden of additional costs to recruit another part timer to job share with me.

I wasn't offered any reasonable alternative as they still expect me to do full time. I hoped for a compromise. At least if they offered 4 days a week! But I see they don't want to be flexible at all.

I see it as if the office jobs were only secured for full time people. And what about the work-family life balance philosophy? That is non existent if one works in an office?

I'm a bit upset. Should I appeal and is there any chance I could win my appeal?

Anyone in the same boat or with similar experience?

It definitely takes up more resources to employ two part timers than one full time employee - pay roll and all the other admin, as well as training, line management and appraisals etc. It's a real issue because you can't disadvantage part time employees eg only provide them training in a pro rata basis. I manage 15 people covering 10 FTE roles and it would be way less work to only do everything x 10 rather than x 15!

drspouse, but why assume that loyalty is valued in a workplace? The longer someone stays, the more rights they have, the more redundancy you have to pay etc etc

there are numerous reasons why workplaces won't mind people moving on in relatively short periods - e.g a few years.

I myself have left a workplace after they refused to be flexible (on timings, not days) but I absolutely realise it was more valuable to them to have someone fit their requirements. Unless you are in a highly skilled role, there's so much competition for an average job, there are millions of people ready to step into very many jobs.

what did annoy me was their "shocked" attitude when I resigned and stupid offers of "is there anything we can do" when they knew full well why I was resigning. I know they do it to tick boxes but it just made them look silly.

why assume that loyalty is valued in a workplace? The longer someone stays, the more rights they have, the more redundancy you have to pay etc etc

Well that's very true but as they've explicitly said that hiring a new employee is a barrier to a job share, then hiring a new employee is also a cost they will incur if someone leaves i.e. a cost for lack of loyalty.

you can't disadvantage part time employees eg only provide them training in a pro rata basis

That is a good argument for job shares taking on different parts of the role, it's true.

I work part time and although I have a lower workload on my previous role (rather than only part of my previous role) because training for example is offered infrequently and on variable days of the week, and I can't get my job done if I do all the training as soon as it comes up, I tend to wait ages to do training that I really should have done a couple of years ago. So in a rather disorganised way I guess they save by not paying for it as soon as they should!

drspouse - your interpretation of the wording is a bit different. There's a difference between hiring a new person to do 100% of a FT job and hiring a new person to do a PT job. The OP phrase was "burden of additional costs to recruit another part timer to job share with me."

it's not just a burden of recruitment - as I said previously, when 1 person can do the job, 2 people means different costs, like insurance, means the person has to be managed. And we don't know how the job breaks down.

It would be less hassle and cost, from their perspective, to get one new member of staff in if OP leaves.

drspouse I think that employers don't care (longterm) about whether an employee stays or goes. I don't believe that loyalty is valued beyond the cost of training the replacement. This is offset by employer concerns about having someone who will be there when the employer actually wants them to be, their cost on mat leave entitlement (esp if they are likely to take more than one), and the inconvenience of having to rearrange their business to suit an employees desire to work pt having taken on a full time role.

If you are an amazing employee with skills that are hard to replace, then you might get more leeway because the business deems it cost effective to keep you but that doesn't apply universally.

Interestingly I've just had a similar chat with a friend that works in a business where highly trained professionals work to a more-or-less retail framework, time-wise. In other words, her employer is open at weekends and previously with one DC she was working two week days and alternate weekend single days adding up to 0.5.

She now has two DCs and was negotiating her return to work with her employer, which is a nationally known company. She asked to switch her weekend day to be every week fixed and have a single fixed week day also as this fits better with childcare especially as her DH sometimes has to work the other weekend day i.e. 0.4.

The employer refused, she went to CAB and they said "yes well, your current employer is well known for being a PITA, you can appeal or alternatively we know they are the worst in the field so anyone else will be better".

So she's working for one of their rivals, has got the exact working pattern she wants and they were very complimentary about her skills and desperate to take her on.

Two points here: CAB may be worth a try in the absence of a union and you could well find another employer is a bit more enlightened.

OP - if you can't afford to pay full time childcare, how could you (for example) afford to work three days a week and pay three days childcare? Either you are paying a nanny or a cm by the hour or, if you are using a nursery, the day rate for each of the five days will be less than the day rate for each of the three days as they offer a discount to full timers.

As Peas says, if you cannot afford to pay childcare for a FT 5-day week, you cannot afford to pay childcare for any amount of PT week. So that's a disingenuous attitude. Also, the cost-benefit of working with a family should be looked at in the context of your family finances, not on whether you specifically turn a profit from working. There are loads of benefits to staying in work that are not purely financial, if you can afford some short-term pain in your family budget. It's also fine to decide it doesn't work for you, of course, but don't make it all about salary vs childcare.

You can appeal their decision. But you need to show good business reasons why it won't affect their working practices. If no one else was PT or job share before you, you need to work extra hard, and be extra persuasive. Honestly, you probably should have tried to lay the groundwork for this before you went on maternity leave. I don't get the sense that you really want your job and are willing to jump through the hoops - do you love what you do? Would you be sad to give it up? If so, go back FT for now, and work on changing the culture/expectations and look for another job at the same time.

You say you are office for a retail company - the nature of the business could well mean that it's not practical - only you know that with your job description and general duties.

If some of your childcare is free then proportionally FT takes more out of your income than PT. This can apply if your DP doesn't work traditional hours so does one of the days even if working FT hours, or if you have family childcare even for just one day a week, or once your child is 3 and gets some hours free. At the moment we have two DC in nursery and adding a full extra day of me working would mean paying out extra childcare costs exactly the same as what we'd get into the family budget for my extra day's work.

However as a family we can afford PT childcare because DC1 is over 3 so gets the free hours. The same will apply once DC1 starts school - an extra day's work for me will be affordable for us as a family because we'll only pay for one DC's childcare all day which comes to less than my daily wage.

Also working p/t means you can travel off peak thus reducing fares

Also when you work part time a smaller proportion of your wage is taxed. So working full time does not mean you take home twice the wage, but it does mean that your childcare expense is doubled.

Thats right moving
I know when i went from F/t to p/t the difference in my take home was not a great deal of difference even though i i took quite a pay cut.