Flexible working

[Jev82]

How do you arrange your flexible working? I have a member of my team whose job is to work directly coaching a team of young people in our youth centre. We do allow some home working because there’s always admin. One wants to work 2 days a week in the building, and 10am - 2pm on those days so she can do school drop off and pick up. I want to be super flexible to parents but I don’t know how I can make that work for our clients with only 8 hours in the office. She then wants to work completely flexibly when suits the other hours.

Just need a sense check here from some other moms! I didn’t work like that but my work were not flexible at all so I try and make up for it with my team. But this seems a bit much?

Surely you base it on business need? Does the coaching need to be face to face? If so, she'll need to be in the office during those hours. Does admin need to be completed in normal office hours? Probably not, in which case I'd let her do whatever hours she chooses for that.

How many hours of face to face coaching are needed and how many admin hours are associated?

If you need - say - 20 hours of face to face coaching and there would be 15 hours of admin associated, then that person is unable to fulfil the role.

If you could split the role so that that person could do - say - 8 hours of face to face coaching plus another 8 hours of admin. And find another person to do the remaining 12 hours of coaching plus 7 hours of admin then potentially it could work. They would only be paid for the 16 hours they work though or are they looking to be paid for a full time post?

If she needs to interact with others she needs to be in when they are
Sone interactions can be remote but not all

10 till 2 is over lunch which might mean 3 hrs a day actually interacting -6 hrs out of a 36 hr working week ?

Would 10 till 2 every day work better ?

think about what you need and what you can flex and offer that

I manage an education facility for young people. I would look at the business needs and work back from there. Your priority is to the business so ensure you meet what's necessary and then be flexible around it where possible.

There must be a job description with a specific number of face to face hours required to meet the role. Others should not be expected to compensate. If 4 hour blocks and potentially none some weeks does not work then you can refuse the request, it is up to her to arrange childcare to fulfil the needs of the role.

Don't make any decisions because they are a parent. Anyone can request flexible working, and you have tk decide what works for the business.

Will it work with the needs of the face to face education?

They want to remain full time. About 60% of their job is hands on with the young people at the moment. I would happily adjust working hours to part time but they want to be able to always be off for school drop off and school pick up. School is an hour there and back. Work is three hours there and back. Makes me feel exhausted just thinking about it!

Thanks everyone these comments are so helpful. No I don’t really think it will work at all! I just feel bad on a single mother.

She surely can't have it all ways?if she wants reduced on site hours like that, surely she needs to do more days on site?

It’s not going to work is it? She needs to be available least 21 hours a week. She’s proposing 8 hours max. Flexible working needs to work both ways and it’s going to impact on your delivery. The fact that she’s a single mother is neither here nor there. She can’t do the job with the pattern she has proposed. End of

So she needs to do 5 days x 4 hours on site, with 5 days x 3 hours admin from home to make full time and reach your split. Or she needs to do 2.5 days FT on-site and 2.5 from home. Otherwise she needs a different job.

You need to consider the business needs of the job - your clients should come first. I work for an organisation where the employees' needs/requirements supersede everything else - "I don't want to work Fridays, I have to be available for my daughter going to/coming home from school every day (she's 15 and gets the bus outside the house) etc etc" It's a disaster. Our customer service is appalling.

Employees are allowed to submit an annual flexible working request, but you are entitled to decline it if it doesn't work for the business.

If you want to be nice you tell her informally this request won't work and tell her the minimum you need her to be there and see if she can work something up around that. It's not your job to come up with the solutions for her.

Yes, dropping from 20+ hours of client contact time to 8 hours of client contact time sounds like a very different job to the one she was employed to do.

As pp has said, in a flexible work request, the onus is on her to suggest how she would be able to meet the business needs. So you could highlight some of the issues you forsee and ask her how she would plan to overcome them rather than you feeling like you have to come up with solutions.

I know you think you are being a good manager but you aren’t. You need to put the business needs first, also you are being unfair to people that are not parents by trying to bend over backwards for this individual. You could even have complaints made about you if you treat others unfairly in comparison. You need to tell this individual she is taking the piss.

I am shocked that only 60% of a coaching role is contact time, but that is another matter.

Have you asked her to explain how her plans will meet the business' needs? If she always wants to do school drop off & pick up, unfortunately she needs a job minutes from school rather than ours away, particularly if she is to do a client facing job.
I have a huge amount of respect for one of my colleagues who is a single parent, does 5 hours in the office each day and the works for 2.5 hours in the evening every single evening. However, with your employee, I query whether, with all of the commuting she will need to do - there are actually enough hours in the day for her to work full time.

Unless she's on upwards of 50k, she will get significant help with any childcare costs as a lone parent (uk). So don't feel too bad.