Working part-time...who's cracked it?

[LoveableLou]

I've recently returned to work after having a baby and I'm more stressed than when I was working full time. I know what's causing it - trying to fit in a week's worth of work into 3 days. I know it can't be done though. Does anyone have any tips as to how I can perhaps organise myself better or is it just a case of lowering my the expectations I've unrealistically put on myself?

Why hasn't your workload been adjusted to match your reduced hours?

I’ve been at it 9 years now. It’s very hard as no one cuts the workload of the job accordingly and on your NWD things pile up. I’m about to seek out a jobshare partner to make it work. It’s very hard. It’s the worst of both worlds in a lot of ways as your focus is always on where you aren’t at the time and what you should be doing with the other hat on. Solidarity.

It’s so hard, I feel you and have been doing the same. Worse when working from home as the laptops sitting there, I know there’s work to do and I end up logging on every day during, including my days off when I get quiet moments when the kids are settled. I’ve recently started putting my out of office on and forcing myself to separate life from work. My working days are horrendous at the moment but I’m hoping the pace will slow down when people realise I’m not there all of the time!

Nope I've just gone back to FT and I feel like I have more time. Depends on the role / profession but PT is a PITA, it doesn't really work for anyone.

It's all about making a business case for a job share to fulfil the fulltime role between you.

Job shares are great but then you also need to lose a couple of working hours each week to doing a thorough handover, if you don't want to be contacted with questions on your days off.

You really need to push back. I happily work 3 days, in a semi senior role. I am happy to decline pieces of work, or ask what I should take off my portfolio to accept new work.
Apart from a 10 minute check of emails on my NWD to ensure nothing has gone too far awry I don't give work a second thought for 4 days a week, its bliss.

@Blahdyblahbla

You really need to push back. I happily work 3 days, in a semi senior role. I am happy to decline pieces of work, or ask what I should take off my portfolio to accept new work. Apart from a 10 minute check of emails on my NWD to ensure nothing has gone too far awry I don't give work a second thought for 4 days a week, its bliss.

This is what I'm working towards in terms of my approach, but having always worked full-time I'm not used to turning down pieces of work.

I work for the local authority and we have statutory deadlines to meet, so often work cannot be shelved for another week, but I think if I can get better at prioritising I could see the wood for the trees a bit more.

@Chronicallymothering

I’ve been at it 9 years now. It’s very hard as no one cuts the workload of the job accordingly and on your NWD things pile up. I’m about to seek out a jobshare partner to make it work. It’s very hard. It’s the worst of both worlds in a lot of ways as your focus is always on where you aren’t at the time and what you should be doing with the other hat on. Solidarity.

100% agree with this sadly.

I could never master pushing back on unrealistic demands. But I've worked with people who do it brilliantly.

If you can find a job share I think that's the ideal solution.

I went up to four days in the end but I regret it now. At least I'm getting paid more fairly though.

The usual reasons I guess, namely staff shortages and weak management.

Sounds alright. I've gone PT and I was only in one day last week and manager forgot to schedule me into a meeting and laughed it off - I feel like a complete liability. I thought I'd love it, but I just feel guilty most of the time

Lower your expectations! Work that doesn’t get done gets done the following week: don’t think of it as “piling up” so much as “rolling forward”.

Set firm boundaries: if you WFH, don’t log on after hours – resist the siren call of the laptop from the cupboard. Take Teams etc off your phone.

Basically do the 3 days you’re paid for and learn not to feel guilty about doing just what you’re paid for.

I've not cracked it at all. I work officially 4 days but spread over 5, and of course the 4 days' work fills 5 days exactly. But I don't have to take any work home with me, so that's my 20% "off" I guess 🤦‍♀️

@burritofan

Lower your expectations! Work that doesn’t get done gets done the following week: don’t think of it as “piling up” so much as “rolling forward”.

Set firm boundaries: if you WFH, don’t log on after hours – resist the siren call of the laptop from the cupboard. Take Teams etc off your phone.

Basically do the 3 days you’re paid for and learn not to feel guilty about doing just what you’re paid for.

Excellent advice, thank you!

What work do you do for the local authority?

I'm a social worker didn't get to have an actual part time caseload until I stepped out of child protection/frontline. Initially I returned on 0.5FTE with 24 cases to everyone else's 50... But the max for FT was mean to be 22! No one was prepared to actually give a part time caseload, and with stat timescales there was no way to stay within them without working extra.

I still work in children's services but not child protection and have a set caseload that fits my 0.6 FTE hours. It's just not possible to fit full time into part time hours. IMO unless you have a particularly good team and manager, you don't ever really work part time in stat local authority roles. I have friends the same in adult services.

What days do you work OP? Agree that work should be adjusted to suit part time but more often than not, it isn't unfortunately. Is there anyone that you can delegate certain aspects to?

1. Don't do three consecutive days but spread them out across the week. I found Tues, Weds, Fri to be the ideal pattern.
2. You have to be responsible for your boundaries. There is no point moaning to your boss about being given too much work if you keep doing the work. They will probably just smile sympathetically but continue to take advantage. Only by actually not doing the actual work will it become their problem and therefore something for them to deal with. Personally, I still struggle with this as it goes against my work ethic and desire to be seen as someone who goes the extra mile. I also resented the fact that, to make this point, I would have to email my boss or other senior staff to say that I had X, Y and Z to do and ask which I should prioritise/abandon but it was the only way I could demonstrate that I did have too much on.

I think you've hit the nail on the head about having weak management.

I do 3.5 days and I love it. I have a pretty senior role and in a job with some high pressure, short deadline aspects to it. The odd week I'll do some extra hours but it's not every week and I generally get the time back. My line manager is excellent at ensuring my workload doesn't get out of control and provides back up in terms of covering if something comes up in my non-work time that I can't cover.

The only thing I can suggest is try to push your management into managing workloads better across the team and in the absence of managerial support you need to be firm about what is and isn't possible.

@Jenala

What work do you do for the local authority?

I'm a social worker didn't get to have an actual part time caseload until I stepped out of child protection/frontline. Initially I returned on 0.5FTE with 24 cases to everyone else's 50... But the max for FT was mean to be 22! No one was prepared to actually give a part time caseload, and with stat timescales there was no way to stay within them without working extra.

I still work in children's services but not child protection and have a set caseload that fits my 0.6 FTE hours. It's just not possible to fit full time into part time hours. IMO unless you have a particularly good team and manager, you don't ever really work part time in stat local authority roles. I have friends the same in adult services.

Yep. I'm in probation & everyone is so overworked that a "part time" reduction is basically what FT is meant to be! The workload and deadlines don't stop and you will still be expected to meet them even though you're there for less time.

In an ideal world it should work, however unfortunately it doesn't in reality.

I toyed with the idea of going back part time, but remembered how stressed some staff were who worked 3 days a week! Decided against it and will be going back FT but will try and make use of flexible working policy to compress hours.

I have just gone back up to 4 full time days - I was doing 3 short days and 1 ft day - my workload over lockdown especially increased and working a lot more hours without the increase of pay! So I made the decision that I would increase hours once youngest started secondary school. This was to cope with the current workload……I’ve just been given another project :(
I think I made the mistake of being flexible in the first place and over the years it has been taken advantage off. I treasure my day off & have been strict not accepting meetings and pushing deadlines out. Only twice in 7 years did I work that day! But it has been tough standing my ground for that one day!!

I work Wed-Friday which I think is better than 3 days spread across the week. I do delegate when a case has escalated and cannot wait but it doesn't sit right with me to do that. After reading all your replies I've realised I'm going to have to delegate in order to stay sane and maintain the balance I'm quite desperate for.

3 days is the worst because all the mandatory trainings, meetings etc take such a cut of your actual hours, and if you are effective people don't reduce your workload. But with some flexibility and some boundaries, it is worth hanging in there and protecting your career for the future.

Keep a diary for a few weeks of everything you do and how long it takes and go into your review with your manager and say ' this is taking me x hours over my contracted hours, what don't you want me to do?'

@SquigglePigs

I think you've hit the nail on the head about having weak management.

I do 3.5 days and I love it. I have a pretty senior role and in a job with some high pressure, short deadline aspects to it. The odd week I'll do some extra hours but it's not every week and I generally get the time back. My line manager is excellent at ensuring my workload doesn't get out of control and provides back up in terms of covering if something comes up in my non-work time that I can't cover.

The only thing I can suggest is try to push your management into managing workloads better across the team and in the absence of managerial support you need to be firm about what is and isn't possible.

Thank you for this, Squiggle. I too am in a relatively senior position, tight deadlines and high pressure etc. We have a high staff turnover rate and agency staff are often used to plug the gaps, but other people's workloads tend to get shifted upwards when there's no-one else to step in.

I need a pithy phrase to use other than 'I'm sorry I just don't have the capacity to do that at the moment.' Perhaps 'jog on, ask someone else' might do the trick?!