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.

@Badbadbunny similar - I do consultancy in the public sector now.

Many of us feel the same about our kids, work helps to fund them, not to have them doing 40+ hour weeks in childcare.

And sometimes for a couple it makes sense for one to pursue the next rung on the ladder the other to have a more balanced approach, more time at home.

They'll always be people who want to knock SAHP or part-time working parents, why you and not the other parent?

Every family should be making the best choices for them.

@Needspaceforlego absolutely - I never knew if I wanted kids but having been a kid who was in childcare before and after school I knew I didn’t want that for my kids. I feel like my life is totally by design - yet they’ll always be some who criticise!

@downtownlights look at legal auditing roles.

I qualified into residential property law but it’s really not something you can do part time. I’ve worked 3 days a week for 9 years now- first for childcare, then due to my health. Not running a caseload though. I audit.

A friend is a partner doing wills and probate. Technically she works 4 days a week…

Yes. Not just professionals with school age children either. There’s a host of older, experienced, active and intelligent women who came out of professional jobs to take on caring responsibilities or were ‘managed out’ from senior posts because they had the temerity to have a child late in life and were no longer available 24/7. Professional organisations were utterly deaf to the issue for decades. Looking at you Law Society. Even now, unless you were in a magic circle commercial firm, there’s no clear route back in. The Law Society used to do residential returner courses to bring you back up to speed but they’ve disappeared.
I’d be first to sign up if someone offered me the chance.

You say you work in a niche area of law. So I assume you are fed work by other lawyers who hold the client relationship? If so, you are not at the sharp end of meeting client demands, which is the killer for a 3 pm finish.

What you describe is difficult in big transactional matters where it is not easy to parcel out work piecemeal to someone without a lengthy briefing and current knowledge of a fast moving transaction and all the moving parts and parties.

Obviously I don't know what sort of law you practice but what you describe would not work for a lot of the lawyers in City firms.

I’ve worked in most areas of law and types of firm and finally found my balance by being a lone wolf !

Yes fair enough. I’m not in the type of law you describe in any way shape or form. I’m an IP attorney. There are no deals or transactions or anything like that.
I draft legal documents and put together arguments which are usually reviewed by the client several days if not weeks before they need to be filed. It’s not fast paced. Deadlines are months in advance.
I work on multiple client in a week and a piece of work usually takes a day on average, can be more, can be less. Working part time works well for me and many others.

Thanks for explaining. I am familiar with IP prosecution work which is done by a mixture of lawyers, IP attorneys and paralegals. It is not fast paced and fairly formulaic, though high volume. You probably get competition from the trademark agents.

That’s what I like about law you need the core skills but it’s massively varied. My clients used to be US investment banks now they are grannies!

Me. I haven't been full time since before DC1 was born, which means I've been part time much longer than full, as I had DC youngish. DH also did it, but he preferred FT once they were school age. Up to him.

It's great, I always wanted to work part time. I like my work, but not for 8 hours a day 5 days a week. So it's a question of preference and work life balance, as we're lucky enough to be able to indulge those. It's possible because of the nature of the work I do, but then I was in the voluntary sector pre kids anyway. The idea that it constitutes any kind of hardship is bemusing.

I agree with OP that a lot of this is about supply and demand. Some people can enforce this with an employer even if they employer would prefer otherwise. Unlike some other posters, my dentists mostly offer school hours only. It can be annoying, but they have an in demand skill so they get to choose when they work, and the NHS are obviously not in a position to argue. I wouldn't change my work hours for someone else's convenience given that I don't have to, so I get why they don't choose to either.

I agree about supply and demand.

It is possible in theory to make pt flexible roles work but the reality is no manager would be keen to choose to do that unless they had to, either because they could not find anyone suitable ft to do the role (limited supply) or there is high employee turnover (pt-ers tend to be more stable) or the company could not pay ft wages.

It is not the lack of imagination. It is the hassle that comes with managing a pt workforce that works for their own convenience and circumstances which often requires more time off. Pt-ers compare unfavourably with ft-ers whose hours align with the work week and are easier to manage in that sense.

Hence pt jobs tend to come when a person has been with a company for a while so they are a known factor. Pt jobs which are advertised tend to pay lower because the demand for them is higher than the supply.

A lot of it is sector dependent really. I find part time professional roles get advertised as such all the time in the voluntary sector, but yeah that's funding.

There are a few organisations that exist that aim to do something similar - 9-3 jobs or Timewise for example.

I think wfh or hybrid has potentially made continuing to work FT in these types of roles more possible - particularly if the "work" can be caught up on in the evenings. And definitely understand parents not wanting to drop to p/t earnings AND take a hit to pro-rata pay as well which seems to be the thing that happens with part-time roles

IME the 'best" way this works is for those with existing FT jobs in organisations that are willing to accommodate reduction in hours for valued staff. Moving on can be tricky though. Definitely agree that BOTH parents making a change is ideal rather than defaulting to mum dropping out of career progression path.

DH had the moving on issue. It was a priority for us to both be PT before the DC started school, but it did mean he ended up staying in a particular role when he wouldn't have wanted to otherwise. It was easier for me, being in the voluntary sector.

I’m a solicitor who would love to. But it’s not really the kind of job where even PT 4 days works particularly well

I’m an accountant and I do school hrs, 4 days a week. 1 day in office and 3 at home. My employer is really flexible and I can also flex my hours to go to sports days and performances at the school. Super grateful to be in this position.

I feel I am stuck in the role though as I never see any part time roles advertised. Ive also spoken to agencies and they say they hardly ever have part time roles maybe one a year but often it goes internally. I also can’t progress in my role unless I go almost full time.

I have even seen part time people leave and they try to make up more things to add to the role to make it full time. Bonkers. Told them they’ll have a queue round the block if they advertised it as part time.

It worked well with the construction sector as clients - they often had Friday off themselves.

No i agree with the pp. The pay rate is often much lower for the part time job, particularly for professional jobs. It feels to me so strongly as indirect discrimination.

The reason for that is part time staff are more likely to stick to their hours and not go over and above in their job compared to full time staff who often work extra/unsociable hours to meet client demands, particularly in Law and Finance. Understandable as they probably dropped to PT for a better work life balance. Anyway what that means is that FT staff need to be compensated for their flexibility and commitment to client service, hence they’re paid more on a pro rata basis.

A friend recently advertised for a role described as CEO with full responsibility for finance for a local charity. They wanted a qualified accountant to work 80% FTE for £28k. She couldn't understand why nobody applied as she thought the flexibility would appeal.

I'm a lawyer and struggled like mad to get PT after having kids. I work 4 days but I wish I could do 3 or 10-3 each day!

No one ever advertises these roles sadly.

I was really lucky to build an accountancy career part time, in industry. It was due to being a small and growing company so lower workload, and I’m very motivated. It would be impossible in my current role and severely career limiting. Some weeks are 50-60 hours. We have a part time assistant and it’s impossible to delegate tasks due to tight deadlines and lack of continuity. A more menial department would suit her better but offers less potential, it’s great for my career now my kids are older. The work has to be more routine for part time, even 9-5 is restrictive at times. I’m not in charge but pushing for change.

I agree it shouldn’t be the mother giving up her career. I did it completely for several years as I was too young to have established a career. Child care would have wiped out my salary. It did give me time to retrain. I knew several women who left professional careers as they were too demanding to juggle with kids, none of us had family support.