Discrimination or not?

[NMAI]

PART-TIME WORKING ... we all know just how difficult it is to find part-time jobs, let alone progressive, well paid part-time jobs with training and opportunities.
I work for a very large company of over 12k employees. They are great in many aspects, pay, bonus, training if you are full time, benefits, culture etc. BUT it's INCREDIBLY difficult to find part-time opportunities in the business.

In my 'quest' to find a part-time opportunity due to my secondment ending in December, I have come up against massive 'anti part-time' attitudes, culture and language throughout the business.

Some examples;

• Internal recruitment manager states 'Branches do not like part-time, which is difficult because there are so many great part-time job-seekers I could place in roles'
• HR Manager States; "Part-time usually means four full time days. There's very few to no roles part-time"
• Area Manager States (after being asked if they'd consider part-time in a branch assistant manager role); "A part-time manager would not set a good example"
• Being asked numerous times when I'd be thinking about increasing my hours.
• Senior Manager vetoing the option for the opportunity of a full-time role being trialled on a part-time basis despite my career history and experience being very well matched to the role and an interim manager putting me forward for the role telling me I'd fit the role perfectly. Senior manager also states that IF they'd even consider a 3/4 day role, it would be "incredibly busy and knowing how much I want work life balance and the importance of my family, it might not work"!!!
• The business working hard on their equality, diversity and inclusion policies with key focuses on certain groups (menopause, disability, women) and with a motto that outlines their values as 'purposeful & valuable to all' they completely disregard and ignore part-time groups of people. They also have a Gender & Development network and celebrate Women's International Day with events and the like.
• When I pose the question to HR Seniors - will the business start focussing on part-time and flexile working - I am completely ignored! On live HR Teams meetings, I ask the question - again getting ignored altogether whilst other questions get acknowledged

To me this is direct and indirect discrimination - not just discriminatory to me but to ALL that limited to working part-time or only want to work part time. Am I wrong to think this?

My husband says none of it is aimed at me so it's not discrimination and warns I could be playing the victim. BUT it's not just about me.

I also have a particular history with this company 16 years ago not allowing me to work part-time 3-days following the birth of my first daughter. They used VERY weak excuses that, at the time, did pursue an ACAS enquiry but due to poor mental health (post-natal depression), I was not strong mentally to challenge.

Keep a record, screenshots, notes/dates etc., of all the comms.

Ignore all that for now and put in a statutory request for flex working.

If refused appeal on the grounds that the decision was predetermined due to the comms so was an unfair process as the request was not fully considered on its own merit, therefore potentially discriminatory.

If appeal rejected then speak to Acas as you'd very likely have a case for indirect discrimination.

What protected characteristic u arguing? Sex discrimination?

The comments of the Senior Manager are potentially discriminatory (indirect sex discrimination)

I work part time and have never had an issue getting part time work. But then I work in financial services so I just have 60% of a full time persons allocation and my clients know the days I work.

Im qualified to move to industry but the part time jobs aren’t there because it’s not easy to make a job part time. Sure it’s annoying as they tend to pay better and I wouldn’t have dreaded time sheets and billing but right now being part time is more important so I suck it up.

Id argue that in your case OP you need to go find a job that can be part time, rather than expect your employer to make it part time for you and they solely deal with the consequences of making that happen.

I don't think it's appropriate for the senior manager to decline on the basis that you might not be able to juggle your family with it - how you manage that is your business, the important thing for them is whether the role can be done effectively in that 3/4 days. Bet your life they would never have made that comment to a man!!

There are roles though that can't be done part time though, I've just advertised one that needs 30hr or more to be effective and we don't want a job share - for that specific role and for good reason. We have other posts - more senior and more junior - that can be done part time and requests are given due consideration.

Also depends on what you mean by part time as well - do you mean 16 hrs across the middle of days, do you mean 2 full days a week etc - different PT patterns bring different challenges for the employer.

I inherited a team a couple of years ago with lots of part time people who had been given exactly what suited them with no regard for the impact on the work. I had to undo it all - the main concern being that all those part timers were really quite stressed because they couldn't do the job in the time required. I did manage to fix it by arranging some into job shares, changing the duties of some roles and moving others (with their consent!) to equivalent roles in teams with less PT staff.

This would be potential (likely) indirect sex discrimination by applying a blanket 'rule' re: part time working which puts women, widely accepted to be the main carers for dependents, at a disadvantage.

@laladoodoo has already answered this just above and is spot on. I would only add that of the 8 legitimate business reasons to refuse a working pattern change, setting a precedent is not one of them. Each request must be heard on it's own merit and decided on the applicant's circumstances and feasibility.

We don't know why OP needs to work Part Time, Indirect Sex Discrimination has been mentioned but if for example OP was a carer for a person with a disability, then they would take on the protection of that characteristic via the Equality Act 2010 too.

I can’t see any discrimination here, and find the thought ludicrous. You’re just pissed off as you want part time and can’t get it. The business is perfectly entitled to want full time for efficiency.

That would only work if it was clear she was being denied part time as they didn’t wish carers, and were giving others part time. That appears not to be the case. So no.

It really isn't about antiquated views on PT working. In practice, I bend over backwards to offer flexibility to my staff and in the vast majority of cases, I find a way of accepting requests to reduce hours in order to retain good people, maintain morale etc. And because I want to be a supportive, reasonable employer.

But it is a simple fact that having part time staff costs the organisation more than having a full time employee. It takes more management time (more 1:1s, appraisals etc); incurs higher training costs; pushes up costs for things like IT, licenses, employee support packages etc.

Yes, there are some advantages - if someone goes off sick or leaves, then there is still some cover in place, but it isn't as if PT staff are usually willing to increase their hours to cover in such situations, so those benefits are limited. And yes, having 2 PT staff might give you a broader skill set/access to different strengths and talents, but it also means that staff build up less experience in their roles.

And when the PT person has line management responsibilities, that can create challenges for when they aren't around that their manager typically has to pick up. Of course, job sharing can help in this instance, but for this to work effectively, there needs to be some overlap between the job sharers so that they have time to properly liaise and communicate, so that is another cost to factor in.

I do actually authorise the vast majority of requests for PT working, because I actively want to support women - and it's almost invariably women! - to stay in the workplace. But I do so in full knowledge that there will probably be some downsides for the organisation, so I don't necessarily assume that it's discrimination when organisations are not keen.

I think it’s a bit short sighted on their part but it’s not discriminatory against you.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves

''But it is a simple fact that having part time staff costs the organisation more than having a full time employee. It takes more management time (more 1:1s, appraisals etc); incurs higher training costs; pushes up costs for things like IT, licenses, employee support packages etc. ''

Complete nonsense.

I have worked part-time for about 15 years now and I have managed many part-time and full time staff members. No difference whatsoever.

I have never, ever had any issue with needed to allocate 'more management time' or higher training costs or any higher costs for that matters when dealing with part-timers.

This thread is truly quite sad.

Too many employers complain that they can get and/or retain good staff and boast about having equality and diversity policies in place yet they completely fail to provide flexible, remote, part-time or job share options.

That excludes a large part of the workplace: people with disabilities, carers, single parents, older people and so on who could make a great contribution to a workplace but struggle with the inflexibility.

I think it I ludicrous these days to still try to push the belief that the only way to work is 9 to 5, full time and in an office.

That's just an arbitrary decision that was made decades ago and mostly is for the benefit of able-bodied men who don't shoulder the majority of family responsibilities. The workplace like everything else can't just stay stuck in one place, it also needs to evolve.

Of course it’s more complex and costly to run part timers instead of full timers. If you need the job doing full time, and have someone on 3 days, then you need a second employee doing the other two days. Then you have to manage it to ensure consistency and adequate hand overs.

I have never, ever had any issue with needed to allocate 'more management time' or higher training costs or any higher costs for that matters when dealing with part-timers.

So do you pro rata access to training and management time, then? That in itself seems discriminatory to me.

I am not suggesting that individual part timers need more training or more management time than individual full timers. However, the reality is that, if you have lots of part time staff, you will need more employees in total to get the work done... unless you're expecting your part time staff to cover a full time workload, which would be completely unreasonable in my view.

If I have two 0.5FTE members of staff covering the work of 1FTE post, I need to offer 2 people regular 1:1s and appraisals etc as opposed to one. Are you seriously saying that you would offer shorter meetings for part time staff, or less frequent meetings than you would offer to full time staff? Surely you would offer all staff the same level of support, regardless of the hours that they work? So it stands to reason that it takes more management time to support e.g. 5 part time staff than it would to support e.g. 3 full time staff. This is just common sense.

Likewise, if I have two employees working part time, they will each need to attend essential training that needs paying for, whereas I would only have to pay once for full time staff. Would you be saying that only one of the part timers should have access to that essential training?

They will each need laptops, software licenses, IT support contracts. There will be additional "per head" HR and payroll costs. We will have to carry out DBS checks on each one. Employee assistance programme subscriptions. Even extra costs for stuff like Christmas meals, numbers at staff away days etc.

These costs might sound trivial at an individual level, but if organisations have a lot of part time staff, it does push up costs without question. And I also know from direct experience that employing more people takes up more management time. I'm sorry if you don't like that, but it is just a fact.

Of course, there are reasons why organisations might choose to suck up those additional costs (and mine does!) but it is naive to pretend that they don't exist.

It would be a difficult case to win - an employment tribunal won’t usually query business decisions and an employer is perfectly able to refuse pt working (even if it’s potentially discriminatory) if they have an objective justification.

also bringing a tribunal case against your employer is likely going to be the end of your job.

and even if she wins, she has no losses so any compensation would be minimal.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves

what you are talking about is a job share rather than part time

there is a difference

And in the example you give - your employer would have had complete justification in declining part time request given the circumstances and costs Involved

but that does not apply to all employers. Obviously

Yes, there is a difference, but the underlying principles are the same.

I have employed job sharers before. Typically, we found it only worked well if there was a bit of an overlap each week, so we needed to use more FTE to make it work. E.g 2 people on 0.6FTE contracts, so that they had a half day overlap to liaise and handover. More expensive than a 1FTE full time worker, but a better option in my experience for part time management roles, unless the part time manager's own line manager is willing and able to pick up the slack when they're not around.

In my current organisation, we don't have any job sharers, but we do have a lot of part time staff. Some of them do the same jobs as each other; some have their own individual responsibilities that could be combined into a single post if they were full time. Regardless of whether they are job sharing or just working in standalone part time roles, we still need more people in total to get the work done. So the same additional costs apply. I don't get what is so difficult to understand about this.

It is not reasonable to expect a part time worker to deliver the same amount of work in part time hours as a full time worker would produce in full time hours, and I think my part time staff would be up in arms if I suggested that they should be working to the same targets as their full time colleagues. (In fact, I have had them make the argument that their targets should be proportionately lower than the pro rata equivalent of a full timer's targets because they spend a greater overall proportion of their time in meetings/ training etc).

So if their targets are lower, we need to employ more people to deliver the same amount of work. Regardless of whether they job share or not. And more employees typically means higher costs for the organisation, as I've already outlined above.

I'm not anti part time at all. In fact, I have supported many members of staff to go part time over the years, and ultimately, I think the value of a happy and well-supported workforce that have good will towards their employers is enormous, if difficult to quantify. I'm all in favour of flexible working and I believe in supporting people to maintain a good work life balance etc. I just don't think anyone is going to win the argument by denying that there are costs to organisations employing part time staff that might sometimes make it unappealing.

Much better in my view to acknowledge those costs and disadvantages and then make the case for why it is important to support flexible working in any case.

Quite simply - your employer would certainly have justification for declining part time

but many businesses don’t have the impact that part time work has on your business

Much better in my view to acknowledge those costs and disadvantages and then make the case for why it is important to support flexible working in any case

which is precisely what employers are allowed to do and many do do - in law

Job sharers is were a position is a full time role and split between two people

part time is when the position only requires part time hours

So the principles are not the same

I understand the principle, but what you describe is not the reality in lots of organisations.

There are lots of people in a vast range of part time roles who are not job sharing, in that they have their own independent workload that they are uniquely responsible for. However, that doesn't mean that their part time hours are necessarily sufficient to cover organisational needs, and the organisation may employ other FT or PT workers in identical roles to cover the shortfall. That doesn't mean that they are job sharing.

Yes, of course each organisation will be different. But in many cases, there will be additional costs and my point is that organisations are not necessarily discriminating if they conclude that the arrangements won't work for them.

My point is simply that it's pointless to brush the additional costs that are frequently associated with part time staff under the carpet and to pretend that they don't exist. Champions of part time working would do much better to acknowledge those costs and make the case for why it is in an organisation's best interests to absorb those costs because of the other benefits that may ensue. Denying that there are additional costs is likely to just switch people off because the bottom line says otherwise.

Crap organisation then

Having part time people for
positions that indisputably warrant full time