Has anyone really experienced a family-friendly workplace?

My job is extremely family friendly.

I'm the only person in my section who works full-time - everyone else works part-time. We have a team of 5 and there is only 1 day a week we are all together.

I usually get given the time critical work, whereas the others get longer projects or sub projects they can work on over several days or weeks.

I can start/leave at my own time - within reason and as long as I work the required number of hours.

I think it depends on the nature of your work, however it definitely can work.

Years ago, myself and a group of friends used to go to the local pub for happy hour every day during the week from 5-6pm except one friend who had to work from 10-6pm. He asked his boss if he could work from 10-5pm each day, so he could attend happy hour at the local pub with his friends...... The answer was NO!

I can confirm beach girl works damn hard and is in no way a slacker. A real loss for her employer.

boomtown said:

From the other perspective people who work 4 days a week often expect to work 4 days a week when everyone around them are really working 7 days a week.

The part timers are never there at 2am to pick up the pieces when it all goes to ****. They knock off at 6pm even on their "on" days.

And that can be very frustrating for those that are stuck doing their own job and half of someone else's.

Sometimes the industry is just not set up to be family friendly for senior roles with operational responsibility and there is very little an employer can do to change that. As an extreme example it's no good saying you don't work Fridays if you have a coal mine that has shut down due to a problem - its all hands on deck immediately because you are losing millions per hour.

The best thing to do is to move industries or move away from roles that deal with things that are urgent even if that is where the money is.

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And that's where "it all depends".

We have a 24/7 help desk; can't really not have people on roster there. And depending on the role, blackberry (or equivalent) means that people are generally accessible. I can hardly remember the last time I had one of my Fridays off and didn't either respond to an urgent email, or take a call (from either a colleague or a customer). I also travel regularly, so that's often "working" outside of normal business hours. It all works out in the wash, and I'm much less likely to look elsewhere while I get looked after like this.

We have timesheets. But they are for job costing purposes only.

Work hard, get the work done and you can have a fair bit of flexibility.

Turn up, do the minimum and you will not get the same flexibility.

My employer (700+ staff) is very family friendly - I work 2 days p/w however we have access to TOIL for those times I attend meetings outside my normal days. So I often use that to leave 30 mins earlier to pick up my kids.

I do check my emails every day and do things from home that are just part and parcel of the role.

Unfortunately we're about to go through major redundancies (reducing the workforce by 40%) so I think my dream run is about to come to an end. Oh well, dems the breaks.

warrioress said:

Unfortunately we're about to go through major redundancies (reducing the workforce by 40%) so I think my dream run is about to come to an end. Oh well, dems the breaks.

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Why is this happening?

im allowed to get to work earlier have shorter lunch break and leave earlier and then since i done this alot of others have started doing it aswell so dont know if it will last but taking it while it lasts. leaving work that extra hr earlier is good

i guess as long as you do the required work and there happy with it it doesnt matter
it actually works out good for both of us as im there early in the mornings before anyone else gets there if any customers rock up early so has actually increased there opening hrs by 30mins / hr

BayView said:

Why is this happening?

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It's Tony's Fault (c)

Interesting thread. I have only worked in two places but one was a consultancy with billable hours and I could work from home (except when I had to see clients of course, but most correspondence is done by email anyway.) This came in really handy after I had a baby, but also if you were sick and wanted to work from home. That was the advantage of working in a small company!
Funnily enough, after I had the baby, working part-time became too demanding. I was logging in to work from home at all hours of the night (depending on when I finally got baby to sleep) and still basically had 5 days of work to do but in 3 days (with a corresponding paycut).

I then moved to a small bank and they are really family friendly too (they have been awarded the EOWA etc). I now work 4 days a week but if anything I still do at least 4.5 days of work and come in on the odd day off. I disagree with one comment that the part-timers don't work as hard as the full-timers do. Here at my workplace, the full-timers would never think about coming into the office on Saturday/Sunday for a meeting (well, cos everything is closed!) but I sometimes do that on my day off. And often I stay back late the day before my day off to get everything done so that people aren't left in the lurch. Actually I have been thinking of increasing my days to 4.5 days seeing I do that amount of work anyway but only get paid for 4...

I think it is disappointing that the employers says it is family friendly and has won awards etc (like EOWA, I'm assuming)? but they are not following through on the practical aspects of it. Beachgurl, are you resigning before finding a job, or I guess you just want to have some time off to spend with your family? I wish you the best of luck finding a part time job that suits you!

As a side note. Last time I switched companies, I too was looking for a part-time job in my field. There was ONE in Sydney and only one. (and that was only cos the employer that hired me didn't have the budget to fund a full time person!) Most times there is NO part time job at all in finance, banking etc. Kind of difficult if you want to maintain a work-life balance. For me there is always the option of starting out full-time then dropping a day but I don't understand why employers don't consider offering part-time positions to start off with.

Beachgurl, Good On You!! Hopefully resigning will show them that you are serious (they may even offer you something to stay). I am facing exactly the same thing after being made redundant. I am looking for part time work in the IT industry and no employer is willing to negotiate either part time or job share roles. I have decided to wait until my youngest is at school next year and then look for something with flexible school hours (not in the IT industry obviously). Good luck.

tess85 said:

I disagree with one comment that the part-timers don't work as hard as the full-timers do. .

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oh, i found going to full time exhausting after part time..... when do you shop/bank etc!

but I do think part timers work hard, and then also try to fit in other stuff as well, eg kids sports, helping out at canteen etc.

WHen I went from part time to full time, I stopped doing any activities i had been doing, and just focused on work and family. I didnt volunteer for anything. When you work part time, people expect you to help out at school, play group etc..... but if you work full time, everyone is happy to pass over you when looking for someone to help out.

BayView said:

Why is this happening?

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I work at a TAFE unfortunately. With new changes to the TAFE funding model, it is not viable to run a large portion of our courses. As it happens, nearly all courses I look after (from an administrative point of view) are not running. So I'm assuming I will be made redundant, although no decisions have been made yet.

pennyk said:

oh, i found going to full time exhausting after part time..... when do you shop/bank etc!

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Actually you have a point. Even now I have become too well acquainted with my Woolies that opens till midnight!!

Tess I resigned on Monday. My boss was happy but the other senior staff there not so much. She's already turned off the tap on doing new work so will be 4 very slow weeks before I walk out the door for the last time. I don't have anything else to go to and am unlikely to find anything part time in my profession. Thinking about creating a web site and joining a few local business groups and see if any work comes my way. If I don't get any work in the next few months it's no big deal as I'll enjoy spending time with the kids but will be good to see whether it is a viable long term option.

Thanks for all of your replies. Has been great to hear the positive and negative.

congratulations Beachgurl!! always a difficult decision, especially when you dont have something else to go to.
can you take these final weeks as annual leave, instead of sitting around bored?

pennyk said:

congratulations Beachgurl!! always a difficult decision, especially when you dont have something else to go to.
can you take these final weeks as annual leave, instead of sitting around bored?

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I'd rather sit around bored but being paid and take any leave owing as cash. It is up to them to keep you busy with work... or not.

I have friends who left the bank and tried to work part-time (CBA) under their job share scheme. I don't believe the bank really was interested in facilitating this as the women had to find someone else willing to share that particular job, and be trained and ready to share it. Once a willing sharing partner was found, the manager had the ultimate say. I know a couple of women who just gave it up as a bad joke.

Maybe it is easier now, but at the time it was fairly new, and most crusty old managers didn't want to know about it, or perhaps had the opinion that those women should be at home with the kids (each manager had his own opinion - very few women managers back then). They lost a lot of experienced staff over it.

I know that when I left, after 20 years' service, senior position, I was told that should I resign and wish to rejoin, I would have to sit the bank exam to see if I was suitable .

I have to say that being a public servant in SA has been fantastic compared to what other employees do/don't get.

In SA (not sure if same interstate) we're allowed to take a total of 2yrs off when you have a baby. So basically you can stay home and your job is still yours until your baby turns 2yrs of age. Then at 2yrs of age, you have to return to work but you can choose for how many days so it can be 1 or 2 or 3 etc.

Well, i had a baby in 2007, got 18 weeks paid maternity leave, then unpaid leave till 2009 when i had my 2nd baby, got paid 18 weeks maternity leave again and stayed off work until 2010 when i had my 3rd baby, got paid another lot of maternity leave and i can stay off work till november this year when my youngest turns 2. So i've been away from work for almost 5yrs, got 3 x lots of maternity leave paid and my job is still there for me. Managers aint happy because they've been unable to secure decent replacements for me during my time off because they're only able to offer people contract positions because the permanent position still belongs to me.

I've just recently decided to go back 2 days a week and i rock up at 7:30am and leave at 4pm and in that, i have TOIL up my sleeve. When i accumulate a total of 7.5hrs of TOIL i can take a day off. So some weeks i'm only in the office 1 day because the other day is taken as TOIL. Working hours are flexible, we have Mothers in our office that have negotiated their working hours so they're able to leave at 3pm to pick up their kids from school. Or some even are able to work from home (depends on your job) for a couple of the days.

I can't complain really, the only thing they could do to improve things is offer on-site child care!

Beachg.. i think you were a mortgage broker before, right..? Are you still doing it?

Mamaof3 said:

I have to say that being a public servant in SA has been fantastic compared to what other employees do/don't get.

Well, i had a baby in 2007, got 18 weeks paid maternity leave, then unpaid leave till 2009 when i had my 2nd baby, got paid 18 weeks maternity leave again and stayed off work until 2010 when i had my 3rd baby, got paid another lot of maternity leave and i can stay off work till november this year when my youngest turns 2. So i've been away from work for almost 5yrs, got 3 x lots of maternity leave paid and my job is still there for me. Managers aint happy because they've been unable to secure decent replacements for me during my time off because they're only able to offer people contract positions because the permanent position still belongs to me.

I can't complain really, the only thing they could do to improve things is offer on-site child care!

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that certainly is family friendly....... but not very employer friendly!
I'm not exactly sure what the legal situation is NSW, but maximum of 1 year unpaid leave and then 1 year part time..... and I dont think you get multiple maternity leave payments, unless you go back to work in between.

the law is as it is, and you should take advantage of it, but I dont think that situation is fair to employers/ tax payers...... it must be a huge financial burden on the states finances. I think its important to balance work/family... but this seems to well and truly favour family.

Do businesses have these requirements as well, or only govt? i think that would disadvantage women in the workplace... i'd be scared of employing someone of child bearing age!!