The Part Time Challenge
One of my biggest employment challenges to date has been securing part time work after maternity leave.
Unfortunately, I was not alone – many of my friends have even been forced to down-skill and take on a lower paid part time role in order to secure hours that worked around their family.
Finally, something is being done to challenge this with The Hire Me My Way Campaign.
So why is it so difficult?
I was one of the lucky ones. I returned to work when my daughter was 11 months old and was desperate to secure a part time role. I wanted to be able to spend some time each week at home with my daughter, but also due to the huge cost of childcare, returning to work full time would not have been financially viable for our family.
I put in a flexible working request for part time hours, but was not confident that it would be approved. Although I loved my job, I began to look at what else was available in the job market, but could find very few part time roles that matched my skills and requirements.
Luckily for me, due to growth within my organisation, my manager was able to secure sign off for my request to be as an additional headcount rather than a cut to my previous hours. As such, and with some flexibility on both sides, my request for part time working was met.
This however isn’t a common occurrence. I remind myself of this regularly!
Due to recent changes in legislation, everyone now has the right to ask their employer for flexible working, which can include reducing their weekly working hours.
However, this process is far from straight forward for working parents (and carers in general!) and creates a number of challenges:
- Often requests are rejected for valid business reasons – these may include additional costs or a negative impact upon others within the department.
- With the rise of 24/7 style businesses, work can often not ‘wait’ more than one working day for a response, unless someone else shares your workload.
- If your request is approved, this is deemed to be a permanent change to your terms and conditions of employment, which can complicate matters if in a few years’ time you want to increase your hours or look for a promotion.
- Whilst the hours you agree to may work now, what happens if your situation changes at a later date e.g. your children start school?
Many working parents therefore reluctantly or otherwise, look to source new employment outside of their existing job in order to secure the hours they need.
However, for professionals earning more than £20k per annum, less than 1 in 20 roles advertised are done so on a part time basis. This makes the job pool a small and pretty crowded place to wade through.
The result? Many working parents (particularly women) get stuck in full time employment which no longer suits them, or are forced to take a part time job that is far below their skill level or profession. As many as 1,500,000 of us in the UK in fact are in this predicament.
So what is the Hire Me My Way Campaign?
The Hire Me My Way campaign is aiming to reduce this number by calling on all employers to start advertising their vacancies as being open to flexible working. This means that at the very start of an employment process, the point of hire, applicants can ask employers to consider flexibility of working hours or part time working. This could be a request for part time hours, flexible start and end times, compressed hours or even term time only contracts.
There are as many as 400,000 people in the UK who are currently unemployed, yet whom would be more than capable of working should flexible hours be available. Surely this is of benefit to our economy, and to modern families to get those people back into the workplace?
Many employers, such as Kellogg’s and Deloitte are championing the work of the Hire Me My Way campaign, and getting involved with their advertising already. However, in order to get the message heard by employers, and give the campaign the traction is deserves, more of us need to sign up to the campaign and share our views.
Did you have trouble securing part time employment after becoming a parent? Please share your experiences and sign up to the campaign on the Hire Me My Way website. Don’t forget to complete the questionnaire for helpful advice and support!
Let’s change the way people work once and for all!
*This is a collaborative post*
Lucy
When my maternity ended first time round, I asked my company if I could work in the office part-time and the rest from home. They wouldn’t facilitate that so I became a stay at home mum. When the boys are both in school I will have to look for part-time work but it’ll prob be in retail or the like, I highly doubt I would find a local part time flexible job to match my skillset.
I could not agree more. While large volumes of applicants means it’s often an employers job market, the truth is that in many sectors there is a skills shortage therefore is time BOTH employers and candidates realise it’s time to look at new and better ways of doing. There is a huge talent pool out there just waiting to be tapped into. Great campaign!
I don’t want to return to work full time – but I would definitely go back part time IF I was able to find a suitable roll. Unfortuneately for me, they are rare for those of us in the engineering sector. Will have to check this out
What really annoys me is that as a manager I am not allowed to go part time in my role and yet they want all the staff below me to be part time when they’d actually love to be full time. Although I earn a bigger salary than my staff, I work longer hours and when you measure the hourly rate we actually earn pretty much the same. I could drop a day and a member of staff would happy so my role for a day to increase their experience but it’s not allowed. Absolutely incredible.
This is a brilliant campaign. I was lucky enough to get a job with part time hours, meaning I can still do the school drop and pick up. I’m not hugely happy with the role though and have looked into different jobs after maternity leave, however finding another role wih as flexible hours is definitely a challenge! x
Great post, my previous employer was extremely difficult about people returning to work having asked for flexible hours. I really hope the campaign does well!
Great post – I’ve just returned part time and have been fortunate to do so but it comes with negativity and a feeling that I have to prove myself constantly. As a manager though I also know how hard it is from the other side…
Sounds like a great idea. They could use it here in Ireland. I quit a 60 plus hour a week job here to mind my kids . I haven’t managed to secure flexible work since 🙁
This too was a big challenge for me after maternity. But the company I was working for where fine with it, it could not be a long term solution. I’ve now found a grove and work for myself, which is great as I can pick and choose what’s good for me and my daughter
I am really lucky, that my school have agreed to me going back after maternity leave on a very part time basis, I’m all too conscious of the fact I have struck very lucky by having an incredible boss.
This sounds like a brilliant campaign – I’m dreading going back to work full time and have no idea how I’ll make it work with childcare… this may be something I look into.
I didn’t work for years as I couldn’t afford the child care, it really can be so hard if you aren’t already in a highly paid careers. I think it’s great how much more flexible some companies are beginning to be and working for myself at home works for me now.
Stevie x
You only have to compare a list of part-time adverts and full-time adverts in my town to see why so many mums are left on the scrapheap. After my years in a successful high powered career I do NOT really fancy cleaning hotels! But that’s the main work advertised for part-time hours near me. The way things are advertised must change.
I am lucky I managed to get a part time role working 4 hours a day 10-2! x
That’s a great post, thanks for sharing! When I went back to work at the end of my 1st maternity leave, going part time was not even an option. I was allowed to go to 4 days a week after my second baby, and 3 days a week after my third, but I had to leave my job about 6 months after the end of my 4th maternity leave, simply because we couldn’t afford the childcare and I wasn’t allowed to reduce my hours further. Being a parent is the best thing I’ve ever done, but it saddens me I had to completely abandon my career for the time being.
After having my babes I worked part-time at a Uni and I know I was super lucky to be working within the public sector as they were very family friendly. Mich x
Couldn’t agree with you more on this. Opportunities for parttime work are very limited and the pay is usually considerably less pro-rata x x
This is such a great idea as it’s just so hard to find work after maternity leave or after a career break x