Flexible working request denied

[motheroreily]

I was hoping to get some opinions.

I submitted a request in April to reduce my hours from full time to 0.8. My manager said it's a full time role so he'd prefer me to work 0.5 and he'd employ a job share.

My work place now has a recruitment freeze. I've heard this week even though my post is full time if I don't return full time they can't employ anyone else to cover the additional hours. And I am being pushed to increase my hours to full time.

I'm not sure what to do. I've offered to do a couple more hours. But I can't get an additional childcare day. I also don't want to work full time ha ha

It's frustrating because I am happy to do 0.5 but my team can't employ someone else for 0.5

Do you think this is reasonable?

Someone from HR will comment soon hopefully but I don’t understand how a recruitment freeze is relevant when it’s not an additional role. It’s still just one headcount?

I get that there are costs associated with recruitment and training, and there’ll be two appraisals etc etc etc for the manager to do, but still….

If you dropped your hours this should be a 'backfill' and not subject to the recruitment freeze ... or it would be in a sensible organisation!😄

Presumably if there's a recruitment freeze then the other half of the job would be left unfilled. It's not surprising that the request was denied. As manager would be agreeing to lose half a post.

Where I work you wouldn't be allowed to back fill the post in this situation during a freeze on recruitment

Because it costs more to employ 2 people sharing one job than a full time person.

Think of the cost of double payroll and administrative overheads.

Frankly also consider that for most jobs it's actually very inefficient if you factor in handover and getting up to speed on a task started by someone else.

Recruitment freezes are often not just about headcount but also operational overheads.

My firm wouldn't allow a backfill - if there's a recruitment freeze it applies to all vacancies. Exceptions have to have a really solid justification and be individually approved by the executive. However a request to increase hours from someone who is an existing employee wouldn't be constrained in the same way. So I'm not surprised they want you to increase your hours, because it's the only current route they have to trying to get back to 1FTE.

However you don't have to say yes. But don't be surprised if they continue to kick back any further flex requests you make - you might have to wait until your firm's recruitment freeze is lifted.

They wouldn’t be hiring another person for an entire different role, it’s the same job just a job share.

Ask them what the difference is between you doing full time and splitting it between you and a second person 0.5 each.

Surely, the freeze doesn’t affect this position.

Send they an email and say that you were approved to do 0.5 and cannot do more than X amount due to childcare issues.

If they fire you, you will have the paper trail but I don’t think they can on this basis alone anyway.

Was your contract changed to 0.5 hours?

@BreadInCaptivity

'Frankly also consider that for most jobs it's actually very inefficient if you factor in handover and getting up to speed on a task started by someone else.'

Nonsense.

I worked as a jobshare for 5 years and there were no issue whatsoever with our productivity and no need for a lengthy handover beyond typing brief notes for the other person to read each week.

It always amazes me how rigid some people are, how desperate they are to cling to the 9 to 5, in the office routine and how completely unable they are to grasp that there are many ways to work these days.

You wouldn't be able to backfill a role like this in my organisation either. It's bad timing but they can relatively easily argue that there's a business reason to deny your request.

This sounds like something going on at my work. Trying to reduce hours but they won’t agree. I’ve just turned 60 for goodness sake! I was hoping they’d be more sympathetic to me as an oldie!

sorry no help OP but I feel your pain.

In our organisation the recruitment freeze would not allow them to recruit for the 0.5.

A recruitment freeze for us also wouldn't allow you to be increased in hours either as that would be seen as a headcount increase too.

What does your contact say? Some have a clause that the business can review after 3/6/9 months and basically reverse their decision if the business needs full time. This just happened to me! I feel for you. I asked if I could job share and it was a no.
If you have a contract without a clause like that then you have no obligation to change your hours.

I am not at all rigid.

I support flexible working.

I'm please it works out for you.

BUT there can significant issue depending on the role and how handovers can be facilitated and the time it takes.

For some roles this is a non issue.

For others it is not.

Your post reflects your experience and I'm pleased it's working for you and presumably your employer.

That said my own experience is that your experience is not universal- in fact I'd suggest it's a minority position.

It's great when two people do work harmoniously (though the cost overhead still applies), but that's not as common as you may think.

IME there is always one person who pulls their weight more than the other. This leads to HR involvement (more cost) to address the issue whilst the working relationship between the pair falters.

Been there time and again in a senior mgt capacity in my past work.

For every set up this works (and it can work really well) 3 fail I would estimate.

Job sharing is not cost neutral. It costs more to recruit a second person - even if you manage to recruit direct without using a firm, there's still the operational costs of interviewing, on-boarding and training.

There is also a risk of a gap developing - if you have a question about X but need to wait until Anna is back, because Layla hasn't been involved with it so doesn't know all of the specific ins and outs.

I like the concept of job sharing and have previously managed teams with staff doing this. When it works, it works really well. But when it doesn't it's a total PITA.

Two part timers are much more expensive than 1 FTE. Twice the equipment, desk considerations potentially, twice the phone bills for mobiles, laptops, software licenses (usually named people).

As someone close to the costs, and a line manager it’s pretty much the last thing I’d be choosing to do if I could help it.

Thank you for your replies. It's really useful to see their practice in a recruitment freeze is common.

I don't particularly want to a job share that was my manager's suggestion as a compromise. Off topic but I've never had an appraisal and I've worked there for 5 years! It's a bit of strange place.

I'll see what happens next week. I guess if I got another job and resigned they might not be able to recruit a replacement. I don't know.