Temporary flexible working requests

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I've already posted this under Going back to Work but wanted to try here as well!

I am returning to work FT in Feb when my DH will be looking after DS for 5 months full time. In July DS has a 3 day place at nursery, going to FT in December.)

Between Feb and June, I would like to work compressed hours (5 days in 4), and then from July, DH and I hope to share the 2 days that DS will be at home (so ideally we both work 4 days, and I no longer work compressed hours so DS's days in nursery aren't too long). DH doesn't yet know if he'll get the 4 day week accepted.

Originally I was hoping to submit a request now for the compressed hours Feb to June, then request the PT hours from July to December at a later date (when DH's work let him know, as if he's refused, I will try to go 3 days instead).

Just realised you can only make 1 request each year. Does anyone know if this also applies to temporary changes such as the ones I've outlined above?

Would it be better for me to explain the full situtation to my employer now, and ask for a decision on both parts of the year at this stage?

There is no legal right at all to make a request for a temporary change in hours I am afraid. A flexible working request is a request for a permanent change to your terms and conditions. If it is agreed, you have no right to make a further request for a year (this also applies if the request is turned down and not overturned on appeal) and no right to go back to your original hours. As you probably know, if it is turned down, it has to be for good business reasons.

However, most employers will treat temporary requests the same as permanent ones. I think that your best bet is to be as open and honest with your employer as possible about everything now. If they go through all the consideration of a compressed week request now and then find a few months later you are asking to move to a four day or even three day week (and that that was always your plan), they will probably be quite frustrated at feeling that you weren't honest with them from the start.

You may also need to make compromises. For example, they may say that they can accomodate a four day week from the start, but are not willing to do a compressed week for such a short time (particularly if that arrangment will take time to stablise). It depends on your employer and on your job. On the other hand, they may be able to give you everything you want. I would go into this by thinking totally objectively about how these arrangments will impact upon your employer so that, if they do suggest a compromise to work with your current uncertainty/your timescales, you can assess it objectively.

HTH

Thanks Ribena, I had a hunch that I'd be best to map it all out now.

The most important bit for me is the PT bit from July to December, as we only have a 3 day place at nursery then. The bit between Feb and June would be a bonus.

The problem is that I can't afford to be PT for the whole year (I'm the main breadwinner and so we would be using savings to facilitate the time between July and December)

Map it all out and talk to them.

If I read it correctly, from December next year your DC will be in nursery full time, which I assume (correct me if I am wrong), means that you would then be looking to go back up to full time hours?

If that is the case, that is what I would lead with. I don't know your job, but what an employer can manage for 10 months (especially in a slow economic climate, if that affects your area of work) is not necessarily the same as what they can agree permanently. I would start by arranging a discussion with your manager where you explain that, long term, you plan to return full time, but would like to talk about arrangements for the 10 month period until your DC can have a full time nursery place in December.

Agree with Ribena

Is compressed hours something that happens where you work or would you be the first?

The only reason I ask is that I have never approved a request to work compressed hours. Everywhere I've worked, when I was in f/t employment, culture has been such that the full time working hours as expressed in the contract bore no relation to actual hours worked for most people, for senior staff particularly.

So 9-5 would more usually be 8.30 - 6 or something, and 'hour for lunch' would be 'grab lunch at your desk' or 'pop out to the shop for 30 minutes'. For that reason I have never approved compressed hours with someone proposing to work 35 or 37 hours in 4 days as that would effectively mean they would continue working the same hours for the same pay but have an extra day off a week. Unfair to other staff. Same for requests to make someone's lunch break 'officially' 30 minutes to allow them to go home early. When no one takes more than that anyway, but only one person gets paid for the other 30 minutes, that's not fair either.

Apologies for that, but just thought it's worth giving you a bit of a heads-up as to how compressed hours may be viewed depending on the organisation and your job. I don't have anything against compressed hours as such, but it's just that where I've worked, for some jobs in particular, it would have required a general shift in culture and behaviour before I would agree something like that which would have a negative impact on morale generally and cause resentment.

Leaving that aside, you definitely do need to explain all of this to your employer. If your ultimate goal is to reduce your hours they need to know that now. You also need to think carefully about how that change would be implemented. People will get used to you working 4 days and still getting all your job done, getting it generally accepted that you will continue to work 4 days but actually will get less work done might be a challenge. Start thinking about how you'd do this, definite changes that you'd propose that don't involve piling work on others.

Ooh sorry, missed the bit about going f/t in December.

More difficult to identify how a job can be changed to accommodate a reduction in hours if you would only want that change to be in place for a short time.

Thanks both, that's very useful advice

Marx not saying that long hours is a good thing at all.

Personally I think that a shift away from long hours is a good thing, but I don't agree that should start with one person being granted compressed hours allowing them to get paid the same for working fewer hours. That will in many cases result in those left being paid the same but working more hours being resentful, and of course depends on it being physically possible to do the job in 37 or however many hours, which isn't something that can be assumed.

Culture change needs more than that in my opinion, beginning with working out why people are working those hours in order to find out the best way of addressing it. It might not be presenteeism, or not all the time. Then dealing with it starting by leading by example at the top, not penalising either formally or informally those who don't work long hours, appraising staff purely on results rather than hours spent, ensuring realistic workloads and extra resources where necessary, encouraging staff to take their holiday, providing support in terms of technology and training to enable better management of workloads, I could go on and on.

If all those things are combined with a more open attitude to formal flexible working, then great, but I don't think giving one person compressed hours is the way to start something like that.

Yes, but the flip side is that if the OP in fact is successful with her compressed hours application, and hope that she is, she will be totally within the terms and conditions of her contract of employment. And perhaps others will start questioning the whole ethos of going in early and staying late which is a bad sign, ime. It shows that people are either covering up their own poor performance, or are covering up for over work and effectively more people are needed.

In both instances, working longer is not a solution...

No it isn't, you are right. However if either poor performance and/or overwork are the reasons for long hours, and as a result of one person being granted effectively less hours for the same money people all think hang on a minute, the net effect for the employer might be too expensive, too time-consuming and too difficult to deal with.

I wouldn't want people questioning whether they should stay late because they realise someone else has been told if they do they can have an extra day off. That's coming at it from a negative already. I would want people not to question whether they should work long hours because someone else isn't, but instead to feel reassured that staying late isn't either expected or necessary, feel supported in the way they work and manage their workload and I would not agree that one person in one department being given compressed hours is the way to achieve that.

If that happens, in a culture as I've described, as a result, other people in the dept in question will feel and might think huffily that in that case they aren't going to stay late anymore, other people in other depts will start to hear of said arrangement on the grapevine, and might start hassling their own manager for something similar, or more resources so they don't have to stay late, or whatever.

Result - employer is on the back foot having to deal with problems and a general air of goodwill having been eroded rather than understand those problems and be proposing and championing a solution to those problems.

Marx/ilovemydog - I totally agree.

A number of years ago, I worked in a company/department where working 8-6 was the norm, often 8-7 or 8-8. A particular woman in my department had just had a child, and had her hours agreed at 8-4. This was full time, and therefore she was paid the same as the rest of us. Of course we were annoyed when she walked out at 4 and we stayed, but this wasn't her fault - she was merely doing her paid & contracted hours, it was us who were being taken for mugs.

Luckily, I work in a department now where such overtime is not the norm at all, and most people work contracted hours or just above

allnew you just illustrated my point perfectly. You were annoyed about this woman being given less hours. Wouldn't a better way to achieve a culture shift have been as I described in my previous two posts? Was a culture shift actually achieved that way?

The fact is though, even if the rest of us had collectively questionned why we had so much work to cover, this would have changed nothing. They weren't going to employ more staff. In fact, hassling management or complaining would have resulted in nothing other than us being seen as negative or destructive - the best way for us to deal with it was to get our heads down and hope that our bonuses might reflect our hard work.

Well indeed - sounds like somewhere with no genuine intention to achieve any kind of more general culture change. Interesting that they even agreed to that one proposal.

On the bright side, it sounds as though your current situation where people normally work contracted hours would not in theory present any problem for agreeing compressed hours. Your issues are going to be about the change you want in your arrangements twice and whether that's feasible.

Everything does have to start somewhere, but in my opinion the best place for something like this to start isn't by approving one single request for compressed hours and seeing what happens. That's all the wrong way round.

That would result in an organisation and senior management ill-prepared for managing these type of working arrangements, a workload problem, a recruitment problem, a resources problem and a morale problem.

Go about it the way I described and a change can be implemented successfully, with the buy-in and support of all the important people, without negativity, feelings of unfairness and without HR being on the backfoot the whole time and dealing with people in and out of the office whinging about other people's arrangements and it not being fair.

In terms of me approving arrangements, to be fair there haven't been many requests, as for most people working like that it wouldn't occur to them tbh. Those I have had, yes technically I didn't and wouldn't have final say, but fortunately never have a problem earning enough respect and credibility so that managers and directors will take my strong advice when given.

Who prevails depends on the individuals ime. As I said, for me, I never had a problem either convincing managers that I was right, or earning enough credibility to be able to 'tell' people what to do when it mattered. Relationship between HR and management varies hugely so that's only my personal experience.

Would also like to add that there were no shortage of other flexible working arrangements in places I worked, so definitely not un-family-friendly places.