Has anyone moved companies in a part time professional role?

[ReluctantCamper]

I work in IT in a pretty well paid role, 4 days a week. I'm increasingly unhappy in my job, and really want to leave. I've always enjoyed my work, but the management culture is not good. I'm pretty easy going, but I'm reaching the limit of what I can take.

So, my question - has anyone in a similar role ever been able to get a new job and stay part time? I'd really like to be part time until DC2 has finished reception, which will be July 2020, and it's starting to feel like a prison sentence. But then I get so little time with the DC as I think is (mon to thurs we all leave the house at 7:15 and get back at 6), the thought of losing my Friday makes me want to cry too.

I saw a 3 day a week IT job last night and applied for it, but have not heard back. As it was through an agency it's probably a no, as they normally call straight away if they're going to put your cv forward.

I did get a call from another recruiter who saw my cv on the job site. I'm a pretty good fit for the role, but I was a bit taken aback by the call as I wasn't expecting it, and asked about four day working straight away. He said he would check and I haven't hear back so I've probably fluffed that one too.

Things seem a little dark at the moment, has anyone got a story that might cheer me up?

P/t hours tend to come about as a consequence of someone being on F/t, negotiating fewer hours after having mat leave. Rather than a company only needing work done for 20 hours a week iyswim. I've only known 1 role where this was the case and it was someone who'd been in the company many years with school age children. Most IT roles tend to be F/t, if you mean project Managers, Business Analysts, Tech Leads, Testers etc. Not sure what type of IT role/s you are interested in.

And that's a generalisation, specific to my company, so may not be reliable beyond that.

Did you negotiate your hours in your current role?

You may have to face going back on normal hours and try to negotiate a change when in role.

Alternatively think about what is going wrong in your current role and whether it is bearable or worth losing if the hours are exactly what you need for your family. It's hard isn't it?

Not in IT but I got a senior board level job part time not somewhere I was already working. IMO some jobs do exist in my sector at least but they are much rarer and so your job hunt may be much slower. Also generally less well paid than going pro rata in an existing role. So you may have to consider how much you are prepared to give up for part time.

This is such a problem in the workplace. Women are trapped in jobs because they don't believe they will get flexibility in a new organisation.

I believe some employers are recognising this and are serious about giving new employees the opportunity to work flexibly from the off. PWC are one who I know do actually this.

My own company (large banking head office) says in all the recruitment literature that we will consider but I have never met anyone senior in the organisation who worked pt hours from joining. Working some hours from home is common, but not reduced hours. Hopefully that will change over the coming years. Likewise I never see internal job ads for anything less than FT, except for very occasional secretarial roles.

Do you work for a relatively small company? If not, is there any possibility to move internally, retaining your hours?

Who do you have in your contacts that rates you and knows you work part time? Depending on your role/business think about clients, suppliers, competitors where you all know each other (merry go round of staff between the companies). In my experience this is the best way to get taken on from one part time role to another - get someone who really values you, knows you work well part time to take you on at their company on the same basis. I did it when DS was in nursery - was at company x on a 4 day week and company y wanted me - my non-negotiable opening position was 'yes I'm very interested but it would be 4 days a week still wouldn't it'. I then renegotiated to a different working pattern under flexible working rules when DS started school.

I agree with Chewbacca that it is a huge problem in the modern work place. Both DH and I have stayed longer than we would/should have at employers because we had such great working arrangements. On the positive side they can be a huge retention tool for a company but I know that one of us definitely sucked up a generally shitty time for longer than we should have done because it was hard to find another role on the same p-t basis.

I'm in IT, and we have quite a lot of part-timers, men and women, quite a lot of 4-day weeks, including project analysts and so on, and also including those who are expected to work out of hours sometimes, and cover on-call. However, I am not sure if any of them started that way. It is definitely possible to work that way if there's a will.

I work in consulting engineering and I've moved twice and kept my part time hours. I'm in a senior technical role rather than management, but I found both companies very willing to work with me (both large companies)

Funny socks I'm in engineering consulting too (civil) and have very favourable working arrangements. However I think the fact that so few technical staff are female works in our favour. Men don't work part time hours typically and since only 1 in 10 in my workplace is female it's a self limiting problem for the employer. My friends in finance etc have a far tougher time getting flexible or reduced hours.

To answer the op, I work a 3 day week and love it. It is the perfect work like balance. However I have far outgrown my company for lots of reasons but am staying because my job does not exist as a part time role. I am considering setting up as a contractor and trying to work part time hours that way elsewhere. It's hard to know what to do

I'm a structural engineer. And in general, we are thinner on the ground than hen's teeth at the moment which might have something to do with it - we are really struggling to recruit!

Interesting point that those of us who have moved and kept our P-T hours have tended to do it in male dominated industries. I suspect it's a combination of them assuming that they can suck up a few part-timers and men wouldn't want to do it so it won't be a big issue (not a great assumption - DH and I have both done flex working of various sorts for the last 12 years since we had DS) and pressure from HR/elsewhere to up the number of female employees generally.