Flexible working patteen after maternity

[Hann376]

Currently work full time Monday - Friday 37 hours a week. Want to do flexible working when I go back to work - what have people done and what is a good / realistic arrangement? Ideally would do compressed hours but not sure whether that’s actually realistic with how full on it is going to be working and doing nursery drop off / pick up etc.

my partner and I both work remote and partner should hopefully go down to 4 days too we would like to have one day off each and will share nursery drop off / pick up and chores

I found condensed hours really hard with kids (great without!). I didn't cope well with such long days and had no time/energy to do anything else afterwards, as soon as the kids were in bed I just crashed on the couch and spent my day off picking up all the stuff I'd let go over the other 4. If you can afford to Id drop a day and do 4 normal length days.

I'll second compressed hours being really hard, they are long days with no flexibility. I did it for a year through necessity and was grateful for the option but couldn't have done it any longer.

Better off part-time, and ideally if you can get a job-share so you know you will actually have part-time work rather than the usual paid part-time but expected to do the same as full time staff.

If you want to go part time a job share is a good suggestion as it means the full time role will be covered. Just be aware that a lot of job shares require you to cover each others holidays so you’d need a childcare plan in place for that. Also if you are both parents of school age children (which you will be one day) you could be fighting over the same holiday dates.

I couldn't make condensed hours work around commuting times (me - 1hr, DH - 90mins) and nursery opening times. I would have had to commit to working after dinner / kids bedtime, and I didn't want to do that. I've just gone back after mat leave and dropped to 3days per week as i have more flexibility in my job than DH. Then from Sept I'm planning to keep my 3days per week but spread my hours over 5days so I can finish around 3pm every day. DD1 starts primary in Sept so with that working pattern, she will only need After School Club on the days I'm in the office.

I work 10 days over 9 and struggle with my hours so quite often log in once the children are in bed but that is also because my new team are stricter about reviewing timesheets. I do the school run in my lunch break

I worked compressed hours from when DD started nursery at 1, until she started school… but the nursery was immediately next door to my office. Thus was pew-Covid so WFH only happened for one-off occasions. Nursery was 8-6 and I worked 8-6, so I had a shorter lunch break to make up for starting a few minutes late and leaving a few minutes early. (I tended to arrive before 8, got my computer switched on etc and then took DD into nursery, so everything was ready to go when I got back). The days were long, but I loved having Fridays off.

If you choose compressed hours then your DP should do all the nursery runs. You need to be highly organised though!