Is it possible to have a part time senior role?

[publicsectorlife]

I’ve worked my way up in the civil service over 12 years but the work life balance is completely off and with three primary aged kids and a commute into London, four days a week is not sustainable.

So what next? I’d love to keep working in central government but only do 2-3 days a week. It feels like once you get to middle management you have to do at least four.

it feels like I either struggle on (at the cost of my health too) or else quit.

Is there another way?

I work in a different field and am supposed to work 5/5. The reality is I work pretty much FT but don’t get paid for it. Too much for one person, not enough to warrant getting someone else in for a day a week.

Are you a single parent? If not can your partner not step up? Can you outsource some of the drudgery?

I am just now trying to decide whether to apply for a g6 role and this is my dilemma. Both from a work life balance perspective (ie children (which often makes it a sex issue)) and unfortunately a disability one too. So not making senior roles accessible to alternative working patterns is potentially discriminatory I many ways but of course there are plenty of ways they can make these things impossible to challenge.

would you consider a job share? There are a few DD and above job shares in the CS that I know of that seem to be successful.

Im now doing four. I’d rather do 2-3 but job options are so limited at the moment. Also have accepted I’m not going to get promoted now.

I do 4 days and my husband does 3. We’re both relatively senior in our industries.
we are actually living the (slightly skint) dream

Lots of DD and some director jobshares in my dept, and very common at G6, and I don't think we're even that forward thinking (when we get a Perm Sec jobshare I'll be really excited). My DD does 4 days but then really maxes out leave purchase and parental leave for long holidays which nets a similar effect.

Do you have a flexible working network, people often advertise there for jobshare partners?

I'm in the process of moving from a 7 to a 6 but am actually dropping my flexi pattern, though, so I'm no help. DP is PT though.

IMO, there’s no such thing as true part time at a senior level. If you can, get contracted (and paid) for the most days you can manage, as if you go lower you’ll get paid for less but still end up working the same. I can say that as part time senior manager who has been awake since 5am worrying about how I’m going to get my work done, but having already worked a full time hourly week - and it’s Wednesday! Good luck x

This is not my experience in the CS, quite the reverse in fact. I know of 4 people in senior roles who do job sharing (as pairs) or compressed/pt hours.

you have to be top of your game, and willing to be flexible, It does take a lot of planning and convincing, and you need to find the right job shared partner who you trust and get along with, to make the partnership work to a collective shared goal, but it is possible to do that and is supported by CS whereas in industry it would be unlikely to happen, as they are far less family friendly,

I’ve never seen anyone senior get less than 4, and from a business perspective can see why to be honest. There’s a lot of decision making, meetings etc once you get past a certain level and if you were to be off for 4 days in a row every week then things start to back up or grind to a halt to wait for you which just isn’t workable.

Also agree with getting contracted & paid for the most hours you can because you end up doing the work anyway. I dropped a day when I went back after maternity leave this year but my workload hasn’t at all decreased to reflect that, which is really common, so essentially I’m just doing a full weeks work for less money and I don’t know anyone this isn’t the case for!

I do think compressed is loads more common on the grounds you might as well be paid (and pensioned!) for it if you end up logging on the evening.

Im a G6 and I do 22hrs per week (after having DD2). Its extremely challenging though as my workload hasn't really changed so im just cramming my usual work into 3days and im starting to struggle with it a bit. I used my Q1 review to discuss changing my workload and my SCS1 seemed receptive so we'll see how that goes.

I could not make compressed hours work due to nursery opening times and my commute (z3 > Westminster but around 1hr for me). The only way was to commit to working on evenings and DD2 is a dreadful sleeper. We often don't eat until 9pm and I really didnt want to have to work from 10pm onwards when she is up multiple times a night.

One of my team is also a G6 but 0.8 FTE so we are doing a bit of an unofficial job share (or rather 1.4 of a job between us) by working on projects together. We hand over between things as she is working on my non working days. That is helping a lot as it means things do get progressed in my absence.

Im not going to apply for any SCS promotions though until I can do at 4 full days / compressed or FT again (probably when DD2 gets into y1 and we can get more consistent after school care).

DH is more senior than I am in his role and not in an industry that encourages PT. Plus he has just been through (and avoided) two rounds of restructure / redundancy round at his company. So we definitely don't want him to go PT or compressed at the minute and give any excuse if there's another restructure round.

I agree with pp at senior level in the CS a job share is the way to go. https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/guide-to-job-sharing//

Sorry duplicate post.

We already have a cleaner and husband also works in a demanding full time role. I also would just like to be around more for the kids. They seem to need more as they get older.

I was until recently quite senior in CS. In my experience you can’t really do those roles part time unless you have a jobshare. Once you get to SCS the expectation is that you just get the job done regardless of your contracted hours. I worked with a PT G6 (30 hrs) and he found it impossible to do the job in those hours.

I find in CS they aren’t honest about this - will happily give you PT hours and then make absolutely no allowance for this in your workload so you’re shafted. I moved to private sector and have found they’re much more honest - my boss straight up said no you’d not be able to do this role PT even if you wanted to.

I have a friend who’s worked for the civil service the entire time I’ve know her and she’s never at her work! According to her, nobody checks in her when she’s working from home and has every school holiday off imaginable. I love her dearly but it boils my blood sometimes! Maybe try manoeuvre into a role like hers!

What if you both went to 4 days? That's what DH and I did when we had kids and it's allowed us both to progress and share the load and the impact. Initially we had one day a week off. When they started primary we changed to 3 full days and 2 half days each so we both did 2 school pick-ups a week and the had one day of childcare after school.

Agree that job share is the way to go - loads of G6 and DDs do this in our Department. Proper part time is hard as it means you’re relying on your junior staff on the days off which sometimes isn’t fair.

That is true @shuffleofftobuffalo - was relieved in some ways when my new scs2 said no to the compressed pattern I'd asked for (a 9 day fortnight) because I'd end up working that day anyway. It's what happens at the minute tbh so I might as well work shorter days (!).

It exists and you could do 3 days but the actual reality would be that the workload would be the same as 4 days or even FT. So. You can’t really win! I would just be asking for more wfh days rather than hours and pay reduction with same work expectation!

A lot of us worked compressed hours - 9 day fortnight or 5 into 4 - but had to be so strict about taking our days off and there was frequent pressure to work it so you’d actually end up working significantly over your hours by design. The last role I had was designed in a way that meant it was impossible to do the core duties in FT hours let alone part time or absorbing those extra tasks and asks that constantly crop up.

CS has the rep of being flexible family friendly etc and some parts of it are (operational roles usually) but anything central govt is highly likely to be high pressure and not family friendly at senior levels, and sadly at more junior grades too.

I’m now much more in control of my own workload and that of my team, I can switch the work on and off and explain that we can’t absorb all the extra work people might like us to do. Demand outstrips supply by far but the occasional urgent thing is genuinely an occasional expectation and recognised as an extra - I always found CS was so driven by the whims of ministers there was no control over the consequential nonsense and inefficient chaos that would accompany every dictat.

don’t get me wrong - I largely enjoyed my many years as a CS but I do think it’s worth mythbusting a bit!

Yes there's a lot of 'can you just call into this meeting on X day?'. But I probably make a rod for my own back by saying yes in the interests of keeping things moving.

OP I think it also depends on the kind of role and dept- a more technical, advisory role or research then yes possibly, or a NDPB. Loads of ministerial and PO contact in a big department, then no.