Flexible working request declined help

[Pinkstuffs]

My large employer who are always winning awards for being family friendly have rejected my request to drop my FTE from 100% to 90% (losing 1/2 day per week) on the grounds that they can’t accommodate the workload as the client is paying for 100% FTE. They’ve also rejected me request to compress hours 5 days into 4 or 10 days into 9 as they say they need me every day.

There are 5 people in my immediate team, some more senior and some more junior who I line manage, and we all work on the same project with the workload just split between us.

I have another meeting next week and I’m worried that I can’t negotiate any flexibility at all. I know at least 30 people just in my office of 100 ish who work compressed hours so I feel like my manager is being quite unfair.

In my shoes would you request a member of HR to join the meeting? I haven’t put the formal request in yet as HR basically advice if your line manager won’t approve the initial request then it’s not happening.

Im worried about working full time as I’m already struggling with DS 11 months and fitting in everything else. A few of my days are very long which doesn’t help.

I think u really need someone like a union to help you. I don’t see that they should be able to stop you taking holidays once a week if you so choose or compressing your hours or whatever you want really and usually if u say the right thing you get it (sadly I don’t know the trick though ) keep pushing especially if other people have what u want they can say what they like about their not being a president but there is isn’t there if other people have it

Ps if u meet and they decline go again and suggest a trial period of 6 months and see if they bite with that and then have a little document of all the stuff u have done to counteract and problems they come back with. This shouldn’t take u a long time and do it in work time

Parental leave is a total of 18 weeks until the child is 18, with a maximum of 4 weeks taken per year.

Well, no, they don’t have to let you take annual leave in single days either if it is disruptive to the team, or prevents others ever having leave that day. And they don’t have to follow precedent either, otherwise you could have a situation where everyone pt wanted to work the same days. I do think they are being unreasonable, what you’re asking for isn’t a huge adjustment, especially not the compressed hours. Do your team routinely work late? I have heard of people being refused compressed hours and suspecting it’s because everyone stays late and it wouldn’t work if one person was getting paid and everyone else doing virtually the same unpaid (no idea about the legalities of that).

I thought it was 18 / 4 weeks per child, this poster had 2 children.

I think it’s 4 weeks per child though from memory isn’t it? I had x2 children so it wouldve meant I could apply for 8 weeks per year plus my 5 weeks AL

My understanding of Parental Leave is that it’s a maximum of 4 weeks per child to be taken as full weeks.

So, an alternative for the OP (assuming only one child) could be to take 4x weeks of Parental Leave plus Annual Leave entitlement.

If you plan it well, you could just about manage to have a week off every month for the rest of the year which, although it’s not quite the same as p/t working, gives some time to spend with DC, catch up at home, have a bit of time to yourself.

I did something similar when DC were young and it was quite nice to only work 3 weeks at a time knowing that I always had a break coming up.

Financially, there was still a ‘hit’ but it balanced over the year. I always said I didn’t want to go down to 4 days a week as I’d just end up doing 5 days work for 80% of the salary.

Other people in the business already working this way doesn’t really help you OP, if anything that could make it more difficult for your employer to facilitate your flexible working request for the valid reason of being unable to meet customer demand, which is totally legal & a acceptable response legally for your employer to give. My flexible working request to drop a day was accepted, the work load is fine to balance because my colleagues all work full weeks so for that day the stuff that can’t wait can be done by them, if I had colleagues who already had a day off each week then it would have been more difficult to facilitate mine

There could be a real hit financially in doing this though, especially if OP is using nursery, because parental leave is unpaid but nursery would still have to be paid for that week

@Mrsttcno1Agreed. It was the best option for us but yes, there was still a hit.

That said, our nursery offered a discount for 5x full days so it wasn’t actually that much more than paying for 4x days.

Most of the people I know that work compressed hours or drop a day don’t work in my team or project so that’s quite irrelevant in this scenario. I just mentioned it as in the company in general does its best to facilitate flexible working so I’m sure the problem is my manager (who is a male with no children). I’m just wondering how best to approach making a case for other options.

You do seem to be confusing reduced FTE with compressed hours. Staff who work compressed hours do the same number of hours per week over fewer days, usually 4 long days and one day out. Reduced FTE means you are saying you want to work fewer hours and seem to saying that someone else on the team can pick up your slack. This option is more likely to be refused as most staff already have a full workload and don't have the capacity to take on other people's shorter hours (in my experience). Reduced hours have a better chance of being agreed if you are discussing a job share with both parties part time.

I’m not confusing it at all. People do a mix of both. I would have preferred to drop some FTE but have offered compressed hours as alternatives as they have said I can’t reduce my FTE.

However I have colleagues working 3 or 4 days as their FTE and plenty others who do all sorts of compressed hours patterns.

If you want reduced FTE agreed then the only way to ensure they agree is to identify a member of staff with the capacity to take on the additional work load and ask them to agree. If they agree the company will have no legitimate reason to refuse but if you don't have anyone willing that means the company will have to identify someone which gives them a reason to say no

I'm willing to bet that you would probably get just as much done in 4 days as in 5. It's that whole thing about tasks expanding or contracting to the amount of time available.

Is it possible that they are trying to push you out? Hoping that by giving you no flexibility you’ll quit?

I worked somewhere where this was pretty common practice. The only person I knew who managed to get their request approved called their bluff. They didn’t officially submit the request straight away, they came back full time for 2-3 months and then submitted the request.

Parental leave is agreed with your manager I have an hour every Monday