3 days P/T - which days?

[AleenaM]

Going down to 3 days a week instead of 5 after (unsuccessfully) juggling work and home life with two preschoolers for too long.

Looking at what days to choose between Mon, Tue, Wed, Thursday.

Currently considering Tue, Wed, Thursday but read below!

I have a child starting school in August so I would spend 1x day off with them having 1on1 time 'special days' and Friday both my children would be off with me. From August both the extra days off I would have my youngest for their 1on1 days before school. My arrangement would initially be for 1year only.

Initially I wanted Mon-Wed but currently Thurs is our in-office day and meetings etc and feel I might be too disconnected from my colleagues if I never see them or take part in team meetings even on Teams. Plus long stretch of not being available by email.

I then thought I could do Mon, Tue and Thursday, but since I've realised that if I work Mondays I will need to cover the bank holidays with hours from my annual leave entitlement, but if I were to work Tue, Wed, Thursday I would actually have 2 days left of BH entitlement and my AL untouched? Is this right? My work guidance says : '
If a public holiday falls on a day the employee would normally have worked, the number of hours they would have been scheduled to work on that day should be deducted from their public holiday entitlement or overall holiday entitlement if this is in [online managing software].
If the employee’s working arrangements coincide with public holidays and as a result their actual time off exceeds their overall public holiday entitlement, the working arrangements should be altered to ensure that the employee makes up any shortfall in working hours at a different time.'

Does this mean I have to cover the BH from my entitlement, or does it mean I could request 0.6 of the day ( in hours) and makeup the hours another day ?

Thanks if you've made it so far! Any other thing that I haven't thought about so far?

Yep, you're right about bank holidays. You'll get 3/5 entitlement and any bank holidays on your working days will come out of your entitlement and there are more bank holidays on a Monday.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday then you'll only need to worry about Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day.

You could ask your employer to allow you to book 0.6 days on a bank holiday and but you can't compel them to agree. I work for a really flexible company and they wouldn't agree to this.

Definitely do Tue, We’d, Thur - you are right about BH.

Yes you have to make up bank holidays on your working days from your annual leave allowance. This is why I don't work Mondays! I normally end up slightly up on my annual leave from all the bank holiday entitlement that I don't use for actual bank holidays.

Having Mondays and Fridays off means INSET days are likely to coincide with your non-working days as well, if that's a consideration.

Thanks all, based on bank holiday situating & the school inset days etc, I am going to try the Tue, Wed, Thursday for a year and see how it goes. The one disadvantage I see with this is that my inbox Tuesday is likely to be SO flooded. Looking to hear what others think of these days and how it works with managing work and home life?