Would any mums who are professionals - accountants, solicitors etc be interested in part time work to fit around school hours?

[justcallmemary]

I see a massive problem in professions trying to get good quality staff at the moment and think there must a lot of mums out there who worked incredibly hard to get professional qualifications/experience but now feel unable to work due to school hours for their younger children. Having several years off work in these roles is not optimal and I just wonder if more women would like to work but feel like it isn't an option. I am not a professional recruiter - I help out with trying to get staff for my accountancy practice and when I mention this everyone seems to think it is just too tricky. I was lucky and had an employer who was happy to keep me doing part time hours so I never stepped away but I know that getting back into work was hard enough after maternity, never mind if this was several years. Anyone have any thoughts? I am based in York but I think this is probably a problem generally.

I'm sure lots of professions would like to work more family-friendly hours, why only solicitors/accountants!?

I am a part time accountant. My employer is very happy to accept flexible working requests from existing employees but would never advertise a part time role.
I did see a vacancy at the company a while ago for a part time para legal but that was the first part time position I have seen advertised in almost 10 years at the company.

I'm also professionally registered though work with lots of people with the same role.
I already work part time (4 days per week) but as nobody else does my exact role my jobs are allocated every year or so, but all the bits of them are still waiting after my day off.
It would be worse if I only worked school hours/days plus I'd spend all day at work in meetings to keep up with my roles.
And I'd never get that weekday term time day off.

@CantHoldMeDown that’s incredible you did that with no help and no paid childcare. Well done. Would you be prepared to share how?

I am in a strange position. I couldn’t have children and was senior partner level. Married twenty years. We adopted two, wonderful nearly one year olds. Then I had two. It was not possible for me to continue as a court solicitor practicing. Due to the hours and rural location and childcare, or lack of. So I “retired” from practice. DH works as Tennant farmer. However, I work for the local firms in the background. Drafting document, legal aid applications, everything except the court appearances. All clearly checked and signed off by the firm.

I also work in the nursery, and run a small business from home.

head spins.

we have no family or anyone who could have allowed me to continue. However, I am happy with where I am. And I can drop everything and sort children.

I think you could easily be a part time lawyer or accountant these days but making partner would be unlikely.
so then it’s a choice - I’d like to work full time at the most senior level.
Or I’d like to work part time in my profession but it won’t be at the top level.
Different people will make different choices.

My current role (in-house lawyer) I started as a job share. It worked really well. I've seen teaching work really well as a job share too - if you can make that work then being a solicitor is usually much more straightforward. Lots of employers are sad toxic workaholics in these places, that's the problem.

Though ofc not a given that full time working = making Partner!

They wouldn't let me do three days a week in private practice but I never did more than 4 days a week after I had DDs. And I stuck to it as well. Three days a week is possible in house.

I never wanted to be a partner other than for the money. Commercial law firms are mostly soulless and thankless places to work, and I found a lot of solicitors pretty robotic and dull, and just not my tribe at all.

Quite a niche accountancy role, but in my office 2 of us are 90% (1M, 1F), 1 is 80% (multiple school age children) & 2 are 60% (1 child free, the other with college age children). Nobody is FT.

In my other offices I have at least one PTer in each ranging from 90% to 40%. These are all for lifestyle rather than childcare reasons.

School hours would be impossible. Most of us have flexible NWDs so if we can't take them obe week we can take then all in another.

This is also the reason why I work in the public sector. Chartered Engineer.

Accountancy practices are usually very good about part time working on returning from mat leave (almost no one comes back full time in my experience). Also after my first entry level job I've never applied directly to them as using a recruiter is normal. Often the employer know what areas (personal tax/corporate tax/accounts/audit etc) they want to recruit into and the recruiter discusses the candidates including any part time requirements with them before interviews - last time I had a job offer within a month of first talking to the recruiter.

I think some professions are more suited to part-time than others.
There is also an element of some roles are OK to a level but you aren't going to get the next promotion being part-time.

I don’t really see a problem with a lawyer etc finishing work at 3pm. Why would you not be ok with it?

I will caveat and say it probably depends what type of work it is. I’m a lawyer in a niche area of law. The deadlines are in the realms of months rather than days. Very occasionally there might be an urgent request but I work for a big firm and we could accommodate that request by distributing the work effectively if it was sent to someone who worked part time.
I work 3 days a week and part time working isn’t particularly unusual. Many partners (men and women) work 4 days a week. One partner finishes at 4pm to look after her children.
In most cases when a client emails in with a question, we will acknowledge receipt but often don’t provide any actual advice for a day or two because we want to consider the answer (and not drop the thing we’re working on). So I don’t really see what time we finish as being very relevant.

Yes depends on client need. When you work for international clients who are investment banks etc paying top dollar the hours are crazy as the expectations are so high. Now I work in private client it’s very different. I liked to be around for the kids 4-6pm (less so now older) but happy to have client appointments early evening which working clients really like.

@Zimunya

My husband, an accountant, went part time to be there for the kids while I did long hours in medical training. Essentially we took turns to be part time.

He got a lot of praise for working and looking after kids and house. People said how wonderful he was.

Strange how they didn't say the same to me when it was my turn !🙄

I'm a professional who works part time. It's very easy in my job tbh - I have clients and I just have fewer clients and only see them on my working days. I also manage fewer people but also manage them only on my working days.
If anything comes up with someone I manage on other days (only one is full time) that truly can't wait until I'm back, then they can talk to my manager about it.

Saying this, our profession is hard to recruit for. I know if there were lots of people applying for every job we had then my manager would want everyone to be full time

I was in corporate law, I have a big family so switched over to PT professional development quite quickly but the demands of that became quite challenging too (eg travel to facilitate training was still expected). I gave up when I had a lot on at home and many young children. I would love to transition back, it’s been 10 years — I don’t want to go into PSL again but the transaction side just requires too much commitment.
Would love a way to retrain to do even a more high street type practice of simple wills or even conveyancing (you hear endless complaints about the service offered) not for the money but for something to do. Would also happily chip in and do piecework on deals but would need supporting to transition back — also not really keen for full time as I still have other demands on my time.

In my role I’m paid better than my friends who have stayed private and been made partner - because we are paid by the hour and not salaried. Have a fraction of the stress. No non chargeable nonsense like marketing etc, my DH is salaried on a 6 figure salary and I could outearn him working half his hours.

Lots of people use this work as a gateway to retirement - working 6-9m a year then having a break.

Work smarter not harder!

The point of my post is that people assume partnership is the end goal whereas diversifying a little can reap rewards without the blood, sweat and tears!

I'm in one of these professions and had 2 maternity leaves, when dc were small I stepped back a bit but remained at 4 days but in a more contained role so could in the main stick to my hours. It's only really do-able for a couple of years before that hammers your career though. Some people are happy to then continue on like that, and have a more stepped back role, others want more (remembering many that have gone into these professions are naturally ambitious).

My firms is very open to this type of thing, we are very open to considering all options when recruiting as we want the best candidates and will consider different working patterns in doing so. But really only with it in mind of being for a few years, before that person then expands the role, the comment about AI another poster made - there is a reality that in a lot of firms the types of work that a role like this can be allocated is the type of work that can be easily absorbed by others and alternatives, I think they would be at risk of being replaced, redundant etc. More so in some professions than others though.

Just to add - we don't advertise the roles as part time, because doing so is restrictive in other ways, instead we are open to conversations about it with candidates. My view is that at the level we are recruiting the candidates should be aware and have enough behind them to be able to raise it with us for consideration.

Same - I knew from the outset being a partner wasn’t for me. I have always had lots of interests outside of work that I wanted to continue to pursue, work was to fund my hobbies not replace them.

Slightly different in that I was ambitious, but being a partner and all the stress and hours that came with it just wasn't for me. Which is why I turned to self employment instead, so I had control of number of clients, type of work, hours worked, etc., which took a few years, but was invaluable when DS came along and I needed flexibility for childcare, attending school events, etc., as I just "tweaked" the work to fit what time I had around looking after DS. No one else to consider/no one else to consult, no awkward bosses nor demanding business partners to keep happy. As DS got older and needed less attention, I increased the working hours, and now, approaching retirement, I'm slowing it down again. I'd hate to be one of a number of partners, being pressurised into doing the same hours as them, constantly having to bring in new business, etc.