Negotiating With Employer
Posted on May 16th, 2008 – 11:56 AMBy Kay Krhin
A Friday inquiry for our readers from our Cribsheet Mailbox
Hi there. I am a mother of a 2-year-old and work full time. My husband and I are planning for our second child, hopefully sometime next spring. We both work full time, I would love to have more time at home as we transition from 1 to 2 kids. So here’s my question: How do you talk with your employer about cutting down on your hours? I don’t necessarily want to go part-time, but perhaps come in later and leave earlier. Do I offer to take a significant pay cut or compensate with “working from home” at other hours of the day? Or work from home 1-2 days a week? How do you convince an employer that when you work from home you really are working from home? I am planning ahead for when the second arrives and would love any experiences or advice other working moms have regarding this topic. Thanks!
Elizabeth
10 Responses to "Negotiating With Employer"
I am in the same exact situation! While not quite ready to enter negotiations with my employer, a few colleagues and I are strategizing a few options:
1) Job sharing with someone in a similar situation. I suppose this better for a permanent part time solution, but many employers may consider this because it doesn’t lose FTE hours they are allocated.
2) Temporary part time. Some employers are OK with a part-time re-entry after maternity leave. I plan to negotiate for 3 months at 60% time.
Great timing. My girlfriends and I just had this discussion. (Our group of girls procreates profusely, so there’s always three people pregnant at a time.)
Like Jessie suggested, my girlfriends reported success asking for a TEMPORARY arrangement. Employers can agree to short-term deals better than they can for permanent requests. One pregnant friend recently requested a 4-day work week from her employer. She negotiated it based on it being a temporary arrangement following a normal maternity leave. They agreed to it.
I had success negotiating a full-time telecommute arrangement that began during my pregnancy. Part of what made it work was that my company and department culture are conducive to telecommuters. A lot of people do it, so it wasn’t unusual. The second part that helped was when I sat down with my managers and explained the reality of having an in-office employee who would need to leave her desk 3-4 times a day for 9 months to go to the mother’s room to pump. I explained that I would miss meetings and work time if I had to go to the office mother’s room, but if at home, I could pump at my desk and not miss a single conference call. If you are going to breastfeed, perhaps this explanation will help you negotiate a bit more work-from-home time.
You can convince your employer you are really working from home by setting measurable goals. Is there a way that your work is tracked? Can you prove your production is unaffected (or even improved) while working from home?
Good luck.
I’m in a neat spot right now where my manager wants to get flex time for our team and he is asking us to help him build the case to his director. (great manager, I know!)
His advice to me was to come up with reasons as to why the company would benefit from me working from home. The above post is great example. Or things like, due to the nature of my job I need uninterrupted time for development, working from home would provide this.
That way you are focusing the conversation on why the company would benefit. Rather than them hearing why you would benefit. I also aruge that a happy employee is a good employee.
Another thing we are trying out is the idea of core hours. Hours that we would always be available in the office and then have flex time around that. For example, always be in between 10-2.
Good Luck, let us know how it goes.
I work in HR and I also work from home so I’ve seen this from a lot of angles. If you cut back your hours, then it’s probably reasonable to expect a pay cut. However, make sure that an appropriate amount of responsibilities is also taken from you so you’re not just stuck doing the same amount of work in less time for less pay.
I think the phrase sends major alarms ringing to employers is “I want to work from home so I can save on daycare costs.” Yikes! If you propose working from home, you need to agree on core hours and assure your employer that this is not just “code” for taking the day off. Then, once you start working from home, be very diligent about being available and responsive — answer your work line on the first ring, respond to emails quickly, and don’t have your kids making noise in the background while you’re on a work call. Once you’ve established yourself as a good at home worker, you can lighten up on this. Depending on your job, maybe you can do the majority of your “interaction” time in the office and then have 1 day per week at home for project work. Also, I’d propose that your home day is mid-week — employers tend to be suspicious of people wanting to work from home on Fridays or Mondays.
In my experience, some managers are open and willing to give it a try (I agree with proposing it as temporary) and other managers just won’t budge. I hope you have one who will at least consider it. Good luck!
My arrangement with my employer is that I work 35 hrs. in the office during office hours and find that 5 hours elsewhere (evenings, weekends). My boss actually suggested this and HR is supportive of these kinds of arrangements so I have it very easy/good that way.
I would second what Barb said. You’re not just asking something from your employer, you’re giving something–your continued work and expertise.
Julie probably knows the details better, but most HR depts. have a dollar amount tied to the cost of hiring a new employee. Add to that the cost of lost productivity as that new person gets up to speed. Add to that the fact that they won’t be losing the knowledge and expertise they obviously thought you brought to your job in the first place.
Keep this in mind even just as a psychological boost when bringing it up. It’s a win-win proposition you’re requesting–not just a favor.
Also, you’re doing them the favor of letting them know your needs/wants before you leave for maternity leave and letting them know that your desire, if possible, is to continue working for them.
Thank you, thank you for all the awesome advice. This is more than I’ve learned from talking to many of my friends and I feel ready to make a plan and present it with confidence. Thanks, Cribsheeters! I’ll keep you updated.
I wondered if this was something the Brazen Careerist had written about in the past…So I checked and voila!
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/07/24/upbeat-news-about-flextime-requests/
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Just one more thing: If you are planning to “work from home,” make sure it IS working from home…i.e. take your kids to day-care during the time you are planning to be working! Anyone at home will tell you, that work you should be doing is NOT getting done with kids in the house. It’s still a benefit to you, in that you do have flexibility to get them for doc app’ts., etc…but if you are seriously trying to work don’t plan to do it around the kids, do it WITHOUT them.
I’ll echo whoever suggested taking your day off in the middle of the week…that is my arrangement and it works GREAT.
I am a Dad and I reduced my work week before and during the first year after the birth of our child.
My suggestion is to give up as little as possible with your employer. You are saving them the cost of hiring your replacement. Do not offer to work for less per hour, but obviously it is reasonable that your benefits and vacation may be prorated to whatever fraction of full time you might work. I worked .6 time at and carried fewer projects and it worked well for both me and my employer. They did not have to hire and they still had my expertise.
When I switched from FT to PT though, I felt as though I was still viewed as FT by some managers…so I had to perform more than the 60% time I was there. I was ok with that, but I also learned to say no when i could not complete work in the time I had.
In the end though part timers in my company got a benefit cut during so I took a big hit in compensation that I would not have had if I were full time. When I asked for a raise I got turned down and PT no longer made sense. So I had to leave my job. But for a while, it worked very well for us. But I learned that you are much more exposed to such cuts as a part timer.
Now I am a stay at home dad and I love it! Good luck with your negotiation.
