Anyone Working Part Time After the Baby Comes?

[sillygoosegirl]

And if so, when did you start talking to HR or your manager about this?

I want to work half time after we have the baby. While my employer is friendly to alternate and reduced schedules, I feel like my immediate manager is not. Though I don't know for sure. She was against the proposal for the company to allow all employees to work a 4/10 schedule, but she is normally pretty accommodating to parents on her team and the one mother with a new born on the team works 4/10s from home. She does know that I want to work part time someday, and knew that when she extended the offer to me. However, I was originally offered a lower level position (not appropriate to my experience or expertise at all), under a different manager, and had to work my tail off and beg an plead to be transferred after I got here to get onto her team. The group I'm with is the only group in the company really doing work I'm interested in. She does claim that the only reason I was hired onto the other team was because that was where she could get an open requisition (I've been talking to this company on and off for several years but it never was a good time for them at the same time it was a good time for me), rather than anything I said or anything about me. But I still have my suspicions that I hurt myself by saying my long term career goals involve working part time (I was leaving an employer where I had that option, so I probably wouldn't have taken the job unless part time was on the table in the future). I only transferred to her team a few months ago. Things will be made more complicated by the fact that DH is on the same team with the same manager and also wants to work part time. He's been with them for ages though, and is everyone's favorite, so I think they will work with him unless they think they can get him to keep a full time schedule by denying my part time schedule. It's a team of 9 people (4 developers which is what DH and I are, 3 other senior analysts, 1 QAer, and the manager), so this will be a major personnel challenge for her.

I'm sure I'm thinking too hard too soon about this, but I'm trying to figure out the best time to break the news to her of the pregnancy and for DH and I to tell her of our desire to each reduce our hours. I'm at almost 8 weeks. We have a huge thing going on in a week and a half (upgrading our enterprise software--we've done nothing but prep for that for the last 4-5 months), and I'm afraid that if I tell too soon, I'll get crappier project assignments for the summer/fall than I would otherwise. I want to put it off as long as possible, give her more time to get to know me and my work before she knows. But on the other hand, I'm sure the sooner she knows, the easier it will be for her to be accommodating, if she is so inclined.

[bowies]

Honestly, I'd only ask for you to go part time. I don't see a way they'd grant it to both of you. I wouldn't as a manager. Is there a reason both of you need the reduced hours? If your company is flexible in work arrangements, then maybe you could both come up with a complementary work/work from home schedule that would place one of you at home at a given time. I'd entertain that request.

What would going PT do to your benefits?

ETA: And I'd wait to broach this until after you're done kicking ass at the enterprise software upgrade.

[anna7602]

I went to PT when I had DD. I worked it out with my manager well before my ML, but he also knew that I was willing to leave the job entirely, so he was making an effort to keep me by offering an alternative schedule. 

The biggest thing was sitting down and figuring out how to delegate some of my workload to other employees so that I could go part-time and this process took a while. I was already transferring stuff well before my ML started. 

[SJ]

If you and your DH have the same role on the same team with the same manager, are you proposing to split a job? So you would each work half of the job? Or do you want to have off the same days?

ETA: I originally hoped to return to the office 3 or 4 days/week after the baby, but that is off the table for now as my assistant is also pregnant and due 4 weeks after me. So I will be working FT and may try to negotiate something else down the road.

[narockshard]

I'm going PT after the baby, but I work for a very small, family-owned business so it wasn't a big issue for me; they are very understanding, plus their last assistant left after her first baby so I think they assumed I would also leave and were happy and surprised I want to stay.

I don't know the reasons for you both going PT, but I would feel nervous about asking for both of you and would maybe only push for you at this time. I'd wait until you finish your big project too if you can.

[sillygoosegirl]

Apr 1, 2014 21:22:40 GMT -5 SJ said:

If you and your DH have the same role on the same team with the same manager, are you proposing to split a job? So you would each work half of the job? Or do you want to have off the same days?

ETA: I originally hoped to return to the office 3 or 4 days/week after the baby, but that is off the table for now as my assistant is also pregnant and due 4 weeks after me. So I will be working FT and may try to negotiate something else down the road.

Yes, we'd essentially be job sharing. We'd want to be at work mostly or entirely at different times so we wouldn't have to hire someone else to watch the baby. We'd like to do it at least the first year, but are open to it as a permanent change. I think the major up side to this for our manager would be that it would free her to hire another FTE right away (and I'm 99% sure she even has someone in mind she would like to get from another team as soon as she can get it in her budget), rather than being short-staffed for 24 weeks of us each taking our FMLA (in Oregon both parents get 12 weeks even if they work for the same employer). And she'd keep open the option on having us increase our hours when the baby is older--which she would want to do if the company keeps growing as it has been--but she wouldn't have that obligation to us.

[nessness]

I'd like to go down to part time, and I brought it up with my boss right when I told him I was pregnant. It sounds like a different situation though, as he has granted alternative work schedules to several other people in the past, so I was pretty sure he'd be receptive (and he was).

[blushing]

I work part time from home now and my boss knows that if I don't the hours I want when my maternity leave is up there is a good chance that I won't be coming back. My maternity leave does work differently though. We get 39 weeks paid (statuatory), but can take up to 52 weeks maternity leave. My boss has already offered to adjust my hours to admin hours (same amount of hours, just instead of nights they would be days or evenings)once the 39 weeks are up.

[melsamoony]

I am planning to cut back one day after baby is born. I have not spoke with HR about this because it is something I need to work out with my managers first. I have already given my manager a heads up and he is fine with it. I told him that I was flexible and willing to take whatever day worked best for the company.

I think it depends on your company on the best way to handle your situation.