meeting tomorrow, need advice: going from FT to PT

[knittingmama]

I have a meeting with my boss tomorrow to discuss my return to work after 9 months maternity leave. We have met a few times before but this time I need to discuss a strategy for dealing with my reduction in hours from 37.5/week to 22.5/week. (Essentially 3 days)

Does anyone have any suggestions on ways I can make this work? I am in a managerial post, in charge of 3 team members. One works full-time (and is currently acting up in my post), the others are part-time. The girl who is in my post will be staying on and returning to assistant level (FT), and she is very concerned that she will be loaded down with the jobs that I don't get done in my 3 days. Not to mention that everyone will be asking her the questions, because she's been doing the job for so long! She has been an assistant in the company for several years, whereas I only started there 7 months before maternity leave.

Any advice/suggestions appreciated- thanks!

The main thing is that, to sound convincing, you need to make it clear that you have thought through exactly how much of the job you are proposing to do in your ideal reduced hours. In addition, it's important that you have some ideas on how the rest of your FT job would be done. What your boss will want to be certain of is that this will:
a) still mean that the full job is done and
b) that it won't cost more to do it.

Try to think what your boss will be concerned about and have answers to all those questions. And do emphasise your own flexibility. For example, although you shouldn't offer to do extra hours all the time, you should say outright that you recognise that flexible working means flexibility on both sides. So, at busy times, you might say that you'd be prepared to take work home to do in the evenings, as long as you got recognition/time off in lieu in quieter times. Don't start off with a cast-iron statement of which days you would do your hours on the basis of your already fixed childcare arrangements. People don't want to feel that they're being forced into something. Do start out with your proposals on how the job would be done.

And very good luck.

You need to have a proposal that doesn't involve dumping work on anyone else, or only a very very tiny amount.

So you need to look at your tasks and responsibilities and see if any are unnecessary or can be done differently to allow you to do them in less time.

If the role really needs someone in it 5 days a week, and you can't reduce or alter your tasks to make it doable in 3 days, then you need to think about proposing a job share or similar I guess.

Thanks for the advice. The meeting went well- she was very supportive and confident that I could manage on 3 days a week!

Great news - congratulations.