Part time worker denied promotion

[Farasha]

Hi all, first time posting and wondered if you can help :) I have worked part time in my role since I returned from maternity leave 5 years ago. I also now have a 3 year old. I love my job and working part time hours to fit in with family life. We are a small team of 2 full time staff and 6 part time staff. My manager has just announced 3 new posts for our team with supervision responsibilities and more pay. At the moment it is ring fenced for anyone in our team- however they are refusing to consider part time working for this role. Is this allowed? Seems it says to us part time staff that we will have no opportunities for career progression unless we go full time. I’m generally happy in my job, but previously supervised some of the staff on our team who could now be supervising me even though I have more experience and qualifications. Any thoughts on how to respond to my manager/HR to consider again this decision? Thank you!

Don’t you think the business needs were carefully considered when they were creating these new roles and they determined it needs a full time person because handover/shared responsibility wouldn’t work with part time? Do you have a solution to management to show how you’d be able to supervise a team if you aren’t there full-time?

Would you be proposing a job share then?

Thank you for your replies. Perhaps I am asking to much. I previously worked part time in a different role with supervisory responsibilities, as do others in the organisation. The organisation is generally open to flexible working and as such has a lot of staff working if flexible contracts to suit family/ caring/ health/ disability. I had spoke to my manager at my last performance review about progression opportunities. Although there is now scope to move up this is only available to 25% of the team so feels a bit hard to see others progress because they do not have the same commitments outside of work. Such is the career balance of a mum!

I’d be open to a job share but suppose I would need to find the other half myself? They have not accepted my interest in the role on a part-time basis.

You aren't limited to part time hours though, it just suits you to work less. That's not the fault of your employer or your fellow colleagues. Nor is it about commitments, lots of people have children and manage to work full time.

You could apply and increase your hours or accept that the role needs a person willing to work more hours and stay as you are. They don't have to compromise their business needs to suit you.

Thank you for your reply. I could choose to change my hours, however there are other part-time colleagues in my office that could not, due to disability or long term health needs. The organisation will get the worker most able to work full time hours rather than the most qualified or motivated staff. It seems to me unreasonable to not consider one of the new three roles on a part-time basis or open to a job share if it could still meet the organisational requirements. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Have they published a role spec for the supervisory role? It would be useful to know what exactly the supervision entails that couldn't be done by someone working part time hours. Supervision / team leader type roles can vary in what the role demands.

Is there a mix of men and women in the team? If so, and if the men are all full time with several women p/t due to family/caring responsibilities, then it starts to get into the realms of discrimination because by closing off the role to only full time staff, the inference is that it's giving the men more chance for career advancement which isn't available to the p/t women. If it's an all-woman team, that becomes more difficult to argue.

I am sorry but some roles are just not suitable for pt hours and job shares cost the company more then just employing 1 person as they now have to pay 2 lots of pension payments.

And trying too argue discrimination when its simply a business need will get their backs up and i doubt they would be anymore open to you would be a mistake and in some companies threatening a discrimination case when there is not one can end your career espically if its a small industry because lots of mangers do talk to each other.

You might simply have to accept that they wabt full time staff in some roles.

It might be worth exploring the job share option. Where I work, any two people can present themselves as job share candidates for a full time role. It's usual to find your own job share partner, unless you're applying for a role that's already job-shared and has one partner in situ.

Actually, reading this again...
“My manager has just announced 3 new posts for our team with supervision responsibilities and more pay. At the moment it is ring fenced for anyone in our team- however they are refusing to consider part time working for this role. Is this allowed?”

Could it be that lthey want to recruit, but have to consider internal candidates before they can advertise?

Of course every company is different, but in my personal experience, every internal promotion has lead to more work hours without that much more pay (so your hourly pay is less with a promotion). I think lots of part time people are “overlooked” for promotions because management knows they’re not willing to work close to full time for (still) part time salary.

It also very much depends on what part time hours people are working. 30 hours a week (4 days out of 5 or a 9-3 work pattern) is not as significant a difference to f/t as 3 days a week or 5 half-days.

Also it depends whether the OP is willing to put forward a strong business case as to why they want to be included in the candidate pool. If they are the right person, with the right skills and motivation, then they ought to be considered (provided their hours are conducive).

Just been through a very similar situation myself

Phone ACAS get proper advice

My company are now "legally" having to review a no part time decision as the business case they put forward wasn't reasonable according to the solicitor

Don't give up on it - good luck x

daisychain01

the issue that I have encountered with part time supervision/management is that someone else has to make the decisions whilst the supervisor/manager isn't there and they are often not paid for doing that and IME get a lot of flack for making thoise decisions.

As for job share it works if the two people can work together but there is still a difference of management styles to deal with.

Boney point taken - however as per my upthread if the pt hours aren't significantly different, are there decisions that are so urgent they cant wait until the supervisor is back in? E.g. if the supervisor has left the office at 3pm returning 9 am next day couldn't it wait? Not saying there's a right or wrong answer but I do feel closing off a role opportunity just because of hours can be reducing the talent pool significantly (and possibly for a reason that could be resolved with good fwd planning). A manager in my former organisation was pt and they managed a team of 5. Entirely depends on the level of urgency and nature of the business.

daisychain01

Entirely depends on the level of urgency and nature of the business.

I agree with this entirely. But sometimes pt workers need to realise that they have removed themselves from the talent pool.

Then your point takes us back to the fact that being part time is so often as a consequence of women reducing their hours for childcare whereas men continue fulltime and hence are often able to respond to advancement opportunities that are closed to women in the workplace due to their hours.

Im sure women are already acutely aware of this disadvantage but don't have the choice.

How part time is part time?

I recently hired a part time Director, but she works 90% and is in every day (basically leaves early for school run a couple of times a week).

We couldn't have hired someone working 3 days a week (for example), it just isn't enough.

It is worth having a look and seeing if there is anyone you could team up with to provide a job share application.

I have some sympathy with your employers - as it's a supervisory role they presumably want someone who can manage the existing part timers as well - so if the new supervisor had reduced hours as well that may be hard to manage logistically.

And yes - worth querying how part time is part time. I do 0.8 - basically one day off and that's been fine opportunity wise primarily because I end up doing the work of a full timer on less pay, but that's another story.

Thank you all the the comments and advice. I’m wondering if they ideally would like to hire externally and I can see the case for full time, although not impossible on part-time hours (I work 3 days a week) as not much is urgent with proper advance planning.

I will have a chat with some colleagues to see if anyone else is interested in a job share and if this may be a possible alternative. I’d not like to challenge this legally as I enjoy working for the organisation generally and would not want to make things difficult in the future.

Thank you again for taking the time to comment.