Civil service job offer unsuitable for childcare.

[Asvan]

Hi

I just need some advice please. I'm looking to get back into work as my youngest starts school this September. I applied for an admin assistant role in the civil service and I got the job! I applied for this role as it was advertised as part time/flexible.

They called me on Friday to say the hours of work would be two full days and a half day. However, this isn't suitable for me as I have three kids under the age of 11. I have no help with childcare and my husband works away a lot so I need to be available for the kids.

In an ideal world I wouldn't mind working a few hours each day while the kids are at school as the job is only 18 hours a week. Is this something that I could negotiate? Also I would prefer to only work term time and maybe even be allowed to work from home some days. I feel like I'm asking for so much but I'd rather be honest from the beginning instead of wasting everyone's time.

Has anyone been in a similar position? And what's the best way to proceed. I have to let them know by Monday if I want to take the job. I dont want to come across as unflexible or unreasonable.

What's the office like, space-wise? We've had jobshare type admin roles which weren't time-critical (no eg answering phones) where we've split the tasks rather than the time, but it depends on having space for both people to be at work at the same time - can't share a desk.

I've also worked with people who have done different hours in the school holidays. We couldn't let them take all six weeks (needed them to be on top of some things) but they worked fewer hours over different days (with the extra hours worked during term time) to help with the different childcare needs. Worth thinking about as a compromise.

Honestly- just ask for everything and see what happens. You need to be clear in your mind though what you are willing to compromise on as its unlikely you'll get everything due to business needs. Also factor in that you may have increased travelling expenses if you attend the office everyday rather than just 2.5 days a week. Consider if you really need a complete term time contract - for example one of my colleagues just had written into hers she just had off the summer holidays using annual leave and holiday clubs for the rest.

I'd take the 2.5 days, that's the dream! I work 3 hours per day while my children are in school/pre school and its a pain. I'd be as well doing full time it feels like as I'm doing 5 morning drop offs and straight onto work then quick lunch and back to do collections. My partner also works away and id rather have the longer days so that when he is home we can have a day out together or he can do all the drop offs and collections and I can have full days doing what I like!

Really think if you want to work and be responsible for all the children all the time or if it would actually be better to have some support from childcare providers and a bit of time to yourself on your days off.

You also need to consider part time time table for the smallest one in September and mine got ill all the time in the beginning so you may have to cover this for 5 days instead of 2.5!

Does the role include any reception duties? Would you be one of those who would be the first point of contact by phone or in person for the public and or any service users? If so then the hours need to be covered. Flexible sometimes means they require you to be flexible not the other way around.

I work for the civil service and have done a variety of different working hours over the years to tie in with my family life. Full time / condensed hours / part time, and since my DC has been at school full time term time.

I couldn't change to an official term time contract, in my department, that simply isn't available anymore. Instead, I can specify my non working weeks each year and my salary is adjusted so I receive the same salary each month. I can specify a minimum of 3 weeks unpaid each year. I had to write a business case to be granted non working periods. Thankfully it works for me as I am a case worker, so I naturally reduce my case load on the approach to my non working period and keep my customers informed. Currently I take the full 6 weeks off in the summer. I'm still allocated annual leave to use for the rest of the year, so tend to use this for the other school holidays. I get 6 weeks annual leave pro rata so plenty of residual annual leave to go around.

I still have to use wrap around care though, breakfast club and after school club. Flexi times means that I can build up hours if I need time off for school plays etc. My dc has swimming lessons at 4pm on Monday's so I work slightly longer days the rest of the week. My flexi times are very much on the goodwill of my manager though and not set in stone.

Honestly, in your position OP, I would stick with the 2 1/2 or 3 days working and use childcare for those days. Tues / wed / thurs work best for school age children as most bank hols and in service days fall over the Monday's and Fridays. If this is an actual job share rather than a part time position then you might struggle to get the days / hours you want. I guess you need to ask this first. In your position I would also assume that term time working would be a no go. Why not plan childcare (or you and your husband share the holidays between you?). Then once you have been working a while you can gauge whether you might be able to request some non working weeks.

Hi OP, was it your new line manager that rang you, or the recruiting team? I think you'll be best accepting and getting a start date, then once you know who your line manager is, stating to them that you applied to work part time and negotiate from there. The Civil Service offers part year working, so you can take unpaid time off when you need to. Of course every manager would like full time staff, but managers are paid to look after a team of people who all work different patterns and still ensure all the work is done. If you don't get a start date and try to negotiate before, you're unlikely to be successful.

It depends on what your duties are. If the role demands that you have a presence during standard office hours they you have much less chance of leeway.

I don’t know the civil service and from PP it sounds like they are pretty flexible. But as someone who’s got a team that includes part time workers (and I work part time) I think you need to change your emphasis so that you and your DH offer some solutions here.

So if someone said to me ‘the hours are 9-5:30 on 2 days. Can I work 9:45 - 2 so I can do school pick up/drop off every day I’d say no I’ll employ someone else (if I knew you and you were really good then I would say yes if I could but not knowing you I think this is too much). If someone said ‘after school club finishes at 5. I need to leave by 4:15 on one of the two days to get my DC in time but my husband will do the other day’ I’d say fine. Because I’d see that you’re both taking responsibility for working something out. I’d also be fine with you leaving early on both days on the weeks your husband was travelling. But if you were occasionally needed for something eg training I’d expect you to try to be there.

I would be massively concerned that you seem to think your husband should do nothing. I say this as someone who has regular ‘negotiations’ with their DH in how to make things fair. There is no hard and fast rules here. I expect DC sickness to be shared between parents. (if you were a lone parent this would be different). I also expect drops to be shared or covered by childcare. Things go wrong, appointments pop up, people get ill. All of this I expect to be flexible about. But I‘d expect a plan for how you’d cover the work on normal weeks.

I would be quite annoyed if i was them if a candidate only brought a bombshell like that after the job was offered to them.

Agreed. For everyone saying, “just take the job then negotiate what you want!” or “there’s no harm in asking!”, I assume that you haven’t considered that the OP’s new line manager would form an unfavourable impression.

The OP is not in a strong negotiating position. It’s an admin role: those jobs are easy to fill anyway, even before you start to factor in massive advantages like the role being part time and bringing a civil service pension with it. To say nothing of the increased number of candidates as businesses shed staff.

If somebody started in post in my team then announced that they didn’t want to work school holidays and wanted to work from home when it suited them etc etc., I’d be looking at the probation period and wondering when best to pull the plug. It doesn’t bode well for that employee’s commitment to delivery: no sooner has he/she started than it’s all about them and their needs and wants.

I’ve been a senior civil servant, earlier in my career. I had colleagues - more junior - who were able to work term time only, but that was because they were specialists with in demand skills, and because they had already established a track record of commitment to their roles. Nobody waltzed in, in a part time admin role, and expected everyone else to bend to accommodate them.

Splitting the hours differently may be possible, but term time only won't be i can't imagine

Also no job is unsuitable for childcare unless it's shift work or nights. 🤷‍♀️ Most nurseries are open 730am to 600pm and Childminder's often operate longer. With Both parents in work you should be able to afford some form of childcare

These sort of threads are really frustrating as you can understand why employers get fed up with/don't want to hire women of child bearing age/who have young children. This just plays to the stereotype that mothers are a PITA to employ

So yeah the OP is both inflexible and unreasonable

Part time term time only is possible in the Civil Service - I did it until recently and a friend still does. However it was reviewed annually and people were asked to consider working year round because there were so many of us and new requests had to be turned down. However ideally you should have discussed this before even applying - theres usually a contact for questions.

@starfishmummy

I've encountered this problem too - parents manage to get it agreed and then go on to have multiple kids refusing at the annual reviews to give up the term time only working making it impossible for new requests to be approved. I found it incredibly unfair and it caused a huge amount of animosity between staff.

These sort of threads are really frustrating as you can understand why employers get fed up with/don't want to hire women of child bearing age/who have young children. This just plays to the stereotype that mothers are a PITA to employ

This! It disadvantages other women.

I'll never understand why employers can't just be upfront about the hours of a job from the start.

Take the job & then apply for a change in working pattern, the civil service is very family friendly & don't get rid of staff easily. I worked 3 short days term time only. They can't refuse a request if there isn't a business case. Join the PCS as soon as you start work.

That’s right, OP. Take the job then start stamping your foot and demanding that all of your wants are accommodated. Join the union (the PCS, as advised above) to make sure that you have back-up for your unreasonable requests. All because you don’t want to pay for childcare. Ruin things for the women of the future. Go ahead.

It isn't an unreasonable request, thousand of people request & get family friendly working patterns in the civil service, we could change working patterns very easily, take care days, flexi, leave as well. Most offices have no core time now as well, we could work from 7.00am to 18.45pm, as long as we got our hours in, I worked 7.00am - 1.00pm 3 days a week term time, my parents helped with school drop off but if there was a problem I went in late or worked an extra few hours on a non working day.

If I was the hiring manager and I knew you were returning from being a SAHM and you asked for all that, I’d think your husband had asked you to go back to work and you were going through the motions while putting up barriers because you didn’t actually want to work.

Lots of people who work part time choose days and hours that fit round other commitments. If the job isn't completely flexible then the hours need to be stated so applicants can see if it works for them.

It’s interesting that so many réponses are, effectively, you are lucky to have a job offer and would be cheeky /rude/outrageous to tailor it to family needs. There’s an element of truth, in that the time to negotiate this is probably before the interview, but surely the world would be better if jobs fitted round families and not the other way round? We have seen with C19 that a lot of ‘norms’ can actually be changed very effectively. Why is it so outrageous to consider that an admin job could be done very well indeed 10-2.30, tto?

Just because that’s not how it’s been done in the past, doesn’t mean it’s not a great way forward.

If it’s a job share it may be that it’s half and half for office cover

Those hours in most departments have been standard since at least the 80s!

The point a lot of people seem to be missing is that the OP doesn't yet work for the civil service, and has been told what her hours are. She just doesn't fancy them. And yes, we've all worked in offices where women have gone on mat leave and then come back doing part time, or job share, or term only (rare as hen's teeth though given the nature of the job) but AFTER the woman has proved herself to be good at her job. My own female bosses both condensed their hours into 4 days instead of 5 etc etc. But they worked their way up first.

We've all worked in depts which bend over backwards to keep good staff by being as flexible as possible, especially with women who have children. That's a non starter. It's what the service does. There's a world of difference between not having to take holiday when one of your kids is sick (for example) and asking for everything to be changed for you before you even start!

I don't think the OP has been back, but I don't understand all the posts saying to her that "they" should have been clearer about the hours. I think the OP simply interpreted flexible to mean to her, not flexi-time (or even "flexible as in it's 18 hours with the chance for more".

I also hate to agree, but yep, not exactly covering women with families in glory.

It's also no longer the case that people don't get made redundant or redeployed as offices downsize. It's still a good gaff, but it's not the lifetime golden goose it used to be. My dept is now 25% of what it was when I started and no longer in the same town. That sort of thing might fuck your childcare plans even more!

@SnuggyBuggy

I'll never understand why employers can't just be upfront about the hours of a job from the start.

No one in their right mind would read 18 hours per week in a job description and infer that means turn up when I like/when it suits/when it's convenient to me. That's laughable

Most sensible people read that as 2 1/2 days 🤷‍♀️

I agree, there might be some flexibility but the line manager could be frustrated by too much inflexibility. Decide what flexibility is the main one you want and then check out whether it works for the job. So say, 'could you tell me a bit more about any flexible working policies and how they apply to this role?' expect to be told there are core hours you need to work, there might be some choice of days, but they might need you in on x day for a regular team meeting or task or to cover others non working days. Asking to work term time only might be a bit much but there might be an option to work annualised hours and therefore work a different pattern in term time/holiday time (say two long days Vs 4 short days term time). But the main thing to convey is that you understand it has to work for them too!