Asking employer to reduce hours

[Samcj02]

Hi,
I’ve been having a tough time at work recently, basically we are so overworked it’s exhausting, we are just about to be taken over by a new company, on my original contract with my old company I was working two days a week, I was asked to increase it to three days which I did! Now with myself being overworked and stressed and also a family member who helps with childcare being seriously ill, I want to reduce my hours. Is it reasonable to request this? I haven’t signed a new contract with the new company yet x

And I also never signed a new contract when I increased my hours x

You can certainly ask. If you have an understanding manager he/she might be happy to agree it just before the transfer. If not, the new employer is likely to want to wait until after things have settled down a bit in order to assess whether they can accommodate your request.

Was there anything at all in writing when you changed hours? Was there any discussion about it being temporary?

No nothing in writing, it was all verbal! It’s just I know I can’t do the three days next week because of my family member becoming ill unexpectedly and I know work won’t be happy about it, I’ll write a letter requesting it and take it from there x

Any reason why you wouldn’t speak to your manager about it?

The new company will have been provides with details of all the staff’s terms and conditions so it may be that they only think you’ll be doing two days.

How long have you been doing three days?

At the moment we actually don’t have a manager as such. Our manager from the old company stepped down before the new one takes over, which is Monday. They know I’ve been working three days after communicating with the previous owner. I started working 3 days in February x