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.

I do think that employing part time staff is generally more expensive for organisations.

one question. Even when the role is agreed from an outset to be part time? Of which there are many

Ie the position doesn’t need a full time employee

No, of course not. If the role is genuinely agreed to be PT at the outset, then it's obviously more cost effective to employ someone who wants to be part time to do that job. And yes, we do have a couple of jobs like that in our organisation. Ironically, one of them would actually love more hours but we haven't got the work and can't afford to increase the FTE.

But this thread is not really about those types of post, it is about the OP wanting her organisation to consider part time hours for posts that are generally deemed to be full time, and whether it is discriminatory for organisations to not want to pursue that. If the role is generally considered to be full time, then it either needs to be scaled back to allow it to be done part time (so certain things won't get done or other staff will have to pick up the slack), or the organisation needs to employ more than one person to do it, which usually costs more. Of course, there will be a few situations where someone has a genuine brainwave about how a full time role can be condensed into part time hours by changing processes to make things much more efficient, but nobody putting in a flexible working request to me has yet managed to come up with a solution of that nature - probably because we already work hard to be as efficient as we can be.

There's a lot of employers who have cultural issues with part-time workers. Personally I think that not only indirectly discriminates against women but also the disabled.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves

so you must see your example of part time work being more expensive (If I have two 0.5FTE members of staff covering the work of 1FTE post and you go on to list all the expenses) then surely you see that this position isn’t part time! It is a full time role that has been split and so is a job share.

but you said it’s part time

A part time position In it’s true sense ie not a job share is not more expensive

a job share is more expensive

While I agree some roles are not suited to PT hours, I do think that employers need to realise that they are potentially missing out on a whole bunch more of experienced people who for various reasons don't want to work FT. There are so many women with young kids who really want to stay in the workforce but don't because they are not given the right opportunities, same for older workers who are not quite ready to retire but want to work less.

Personally when I was PT, I was so appreciative of my role that I worked twice as hard and was more productive than some of the FT. My employer admitted it was a win win situation for them.

Yes, because that's what the thread is about!! People wanting to do jobs that are deemed to be full time but on a part time basis.

Yes, some of those part time roles will be part of formal job share arrangements, but many many more will simply be part time jobs that have been created to meet the needs of individual workers. And there may be multiple part time workers doing the same part time roles who are not actually job sharing.

I think perhaps you and I are defining "job share" in somewhat different terms. In my experience, a job share involves shared responsibilities and shared targets, and a very clearly defined expectation that the two individuals will need to work together to get the job done. It tends to work best when sufficient time is built in to ensure adequate communication and handovers etc can happen between the two job sharing partners - typically, organisations might plan to have an overlap of around a half day each week to facilitate this. Arrangements of this nature can work effectively for management positions or other roles where continuity throughout the week is required, but there are cost implications because of the need to build in time for communication between the two parties.

In many cases, when someone wants to go part time, there is enough work for a full time role but there isn't any real benefit in paying the extra costs that would be required for a proper job share arrangement, so it's easier to just split the role into two self contained part time posts. Each part time postholder is responsible for their own independent workload, so they don't share targets or responsibilities. They are sharing the workload of one job, but they are not job sharing as such as they aren't jointly responsible for the work that they do.

Jobs that were initially set up as part time roles because that's all that's needed are irrelevant to this discussion, because they would obviously be open to part time workers in any case.

OP it is not discriminatory to stipulate that a role requires the successful candidate to work full time hours.

there could be indirect or even direct discriminatory if, when in a part time role, the employee is proven to be treated less favourably than a full time worker, given that most pt workers are women with a family who are compelled to take on part time work due to child care. But it is very specific to individual cases and you'd need to prove there is a male employee in an equivalent full time role who gets all the privilege of that advantage, while the pt worker, a woman, is starved of those opportunities.

there is little merit in you seeking to attribute discrimination when you haven't been recruited into a pt role by an employer and have no reliable way to prove you're being discriminated against at interview stage. Put your energy into finding a role in a company that needs a pt worker or is willing to negotiate pt hours, if for example they already have another pt worker that they could match as a job share.

have you tried public sector? They are very family friendly and welcome pt workers. And are scrupulous in working within the legal employment framework wherever possible.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves

to your point, the expense of a job share comes in when, in order to get the job done, the two job share partners overlap on a Wednesday, so they have a day in which to share progress, update on issues and generally ensure a seamless passing of the baton between themselves from week to week.

@NMAI in short, your desire to secure part time hours, doesn't trump the employers' right to stipulate that the role they are recruiting for needs 37 hrs a week to achieve the goals of that role. That isn't discriminatory in law.

it would be discriminatory if they stipulated that part time hours would be considered, but only male, white, able bodied part time workers need apply.

Recruitment agencies work for their client to achieve the above, with the requirement of the client being full time workers. They probably have a long list of people wanting pt work that they'll never be able to fulfil.

Well said. So many entitled people these days - they want to do less work than others, put others out because of their shortened hours, but then they want all the perks. I for one would be mightily pissed off if part-time workers were being prioritised over me as a full-time worker.

If it’s not right for the business that’s it, end of

They have full time roles, you don’t want to work full time, that’s up to you. They don’t owe you anything.

Actually, all employers do have to follow legislation and the regulations are clear that a part time worker cannot lawfully be denied the same development as a full time worker. Whether this is for training (to increase chances of promotion) or selection for the promotion itself.

The OP is saying that her employer has only menial, lower salaried part time roles on offer and sadly, this isn't uncommon.

Evidently attitudes, as exhibited in the last few posts, explain why this culture still prevails despite the protections offered by current employment law.

@HoneyBadgerMom
'The very idea that a part time person could be management is laughable.'

I am in a senior manager role and I have worked part-time for 15 years... I don't see anything ''laughable'' about that.

Could I please check something? If you are a carer for a disabled child and your employer refuses a flexible working request to work from home but allows a colleague to do so because they have moved house further away from the office could this be disability discrimination? I'm never clear on when a carer for a disabled person is protected from disability discrimination.

Quite, i was managing a team of 20 direct reports and overseeing 2 departments for 5 years working 4 days a week. The horror.

Not the exact same role but hardly any difference. Kind of like different forms of admin. Both roles have been done wfh since March 2020 with absolutely no business impact.

I agree. I have known loads of women in 4 day a week roles in senior positions. But they do usually achieve that after successfully climbing the ladder full time. I've always worked full time because I'm single so can't afford to lose such a chunk of pay.

I don't work in a large organisation but they are very flexible and a number of women have gone down to 4 days (no part time men of course). As a result, there is one particular day every week (because they all have the same day off) when I either have to unofficially pick up their work or I'm not able to resolve an urgent issue, when in theory it doesn't affect me. It niggles and over time it may annoy me more. I'm far from the only person it impacts, so what are others feeling about it?

It's important to get what's right for the employee and what's right for the business properly balanced.