Have you done this? How did it go? Any tips?
I work full time right now and am a salaried employee. When my kids start school next year I'd like to go part time - either 32 or 30 hours. Since that's 80 or 75% of the hours, should I expect to get 80 or 75% of my salary? Or does it generally not work out that way?
squash / 13208 posts
@HappyBaker: I did this last year once both kids were in school - it was always my plan and thrilled it worked out!
No tips really as I just asked and my boss said yes right away! I will admit that I don't usually have 40 hours of work to do anyway - lots of down time - I assured him I could do my work in 30 hours per week.
They took my hourly rate (even though I was salary) and adjusted my salary to pay me for 30 hours instead of 40.
Its been WONDERFUL! I hope it works out for you!
nectarine / 2242 posts
@Mamaof2: @gotkimchi: so happy to hear that! For some reason I assumed there would be some weird catch because it seems ideal to me!
@Mamaof2: how far in advance did you ask for it?
pear / 1767 posts
I work for a law firm and we have several people who work on 80% schedules. One thing to think about is what happens if you are asked to work more than your agreed upon 30 hours. My firm has a policy where they make you whole if you exceed your requirement by over 5%. Just something to think about because I know that people tend to get really frustrated when they are getting paid 80% put are logging in 40+ hours a week. Perhaps you can get paid an hourly rate if you exceed a certain threshold.
pear / 1593 posts
No advice but I'm hoping to do this as well next year. I considered it in the past seriously enough to ask my employer and the only thing I needed to keep in mind was 30 hours required for insurance coverage at my company. Would just adjust pay based on hourly rate.
olive / 60 posts
Yep! When I returned from maternity leave I cut my hours from 47-50/week to 20-25, and I receive half of my previous salary. It's been great. I work for a small-ish company, and one other employee already had this arrangement, so it was easy to negotiate. Good luck!
pomegranate / 3401 posts
Do you get benefits via your job? If so, can you go on your significant other's? I negotiated for part time a couple years back and as a result lost my benefits (but knew this going in). I had the option to go on my husband's benefits so it wasn't an issue for me,
clementine / 806 posts
my coworker asked for this about 4-6 weeks before she went out on maternity leave. In reality it was an ultimatum - she would have quit if the answer was no.....
In the end, they decided to make her a contractor instead of a PT employee. She gets paid by the hour for a set number of hours. She lost her benefits though.
I think this is actually a great way to do it, because most people that I know who work part time still end up putting in full time hours for less pay. Getting paid hourly, and reporting her hours, means that she will get paid for ALL the time she works.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
Benefits would be the thing to consider and PTO. Even though you are working 75%, usually 30 hours is enough to qualify for benefits but they will still have to pay 100% of benefits, so you may take an extra pay cut to help contribute to that excess.
pear / 1728 posts
I did this at my prior job. It didn’t work out for me but I worked at a public accounting firm where everyone worked a lot of overtime. I went down to an 80% schedule and received 80% of my full-time pay. As far as tips – I found that a lot of people weren’t respectful of my schedule and I ended up in the office many days that I should have been home. Be sure to set your boundaries and be forceful about it if necessary 
You should also look into the policy on benefits for part-time employees. At my job I needed to work at least 25 hrs/week in order to qualify for benefits but I’m sure this varies by company.
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
At my company, your salary will just scale based on how many hours you work, but benefits might not scale as much. For example, earning vacation days isn't based on a percentage. If you work 20-24 hours, you accrue a certain amount of vacation. For 25-28 hours, you accrue another set. So you kind of want to figure out what those numbers are to get the most bang for your buck!
honeydew / 7488 posts
This has worked out great for me for the past few years. I also scale up and down as the work demands. This has enabled me to ensure that I'm not working more than I'm being paid for (when I worked 100% this happened all the time). If I had to support a project that required me to work a lot of extra hours, I asked for my percentage to be adjusted just for that period. To qualify for benefits, I have to work at least 50% (which I always do), but we use my husband's anyway. My pay and PTO are prorated based on my percentage. It's worth it to ask! It's very typical in my company to do this; I hope your company is just as supportive.
pomegranate / 3658 posts
My company is remarkably flexible about this. I honestly think it's fairly insane they still offer 100% benefits to people on 80% schedule but it's nice to know the option is available. I did 80% for my first three months back at work after maternity leave simply because it seemed like that's what everybody expected me to do, but then transitioned to full time pretty seamlessly after that. I wouldn't hesitate to ask again if I wanted to go to part time. It's easy since I work at a company where you bill your hours to the client though.
As someone else mentioned, you just have to have an iron wall about actually working 80% though, and not bleeding over into doing work on the fifth day. Or have a clear understanding about what will happen if you do work those days, in terms of extra pay.
nectarine / 2242 posts
@Shantuck: good point I hadn't considered that
@Ginabean3: I do but could get them via my husband if necessary.
@T.H.O.U.: oh I didn't even think of PTO!
@Adira: ah that makes sense I'll have to check on that!
Thanks for all the amazing feedback everyone, this is super helpful!
pear / 1767 posts
@HappyBaker: I'd check your company's benefit info for part time employees to see how many hours have to be worked to keep benefits. Otherwise, you will likely need to time your change to when your husband's insurance would take effect since I doubt this would constitute a life event that would allow you to make changes mid-year.
squash / 13208 posts
@HappyBaker: 30 days in advance
Oh and where I work 30 hours is FT so we still get benefits
My PTO did go down a little but it all works out in the end since I'm only taking 30 PTO hours for a week vacation instead of 40
nectarine / 2243 posts
I don't know where you worked or how it is staffed but at my hospital everything is configured by FTEs (full time employees) or parts thereof. If there isn't a 1/2 time FTE position open, you can't move to one, because the employer would essentially be giving up a full time position.
I had to go per diem (which was totally fine for me, I make way more per hour, but I am on DHs insurance and don't need other benefits which is often not the case)
Have any of your coworkers gone part time? Before you go to management or your boss I'd seek out some opinions from a trusted coworker if you can. The road to part-time often takes on various shapes for different people; you want to make sure you know your potential options before going into negotiations.
apricot / 364 posts
I did this for 3 years and have the same feedback that a lot of others have mentioned (PTO schedule, benefits eligibility, overtime, hard boundaries on schedule). I am actually on our company's pension plan and it was very important to me that I didn't lose that so something I checked into. Also something that both my boss and I found out later (I was her first employee to do part time, it's not common in my company/business) that while part time I was not eligible for standard performance raises, she had to ask for those outside of the normal raise pool during performance evaluation. In addition, part time associates do not get promotions. I still got raises and was willing to give up the opportunity for promotions but would definitely want to understand that better going in if I were to ever go part time again. I probably did not ask enough questions. Also look into if you decide part time is no longer for you, are there rules about when/how you come back full time. Good luck!
pomegranate / 3521 posts
@HappyBaker: that's what I did. Everything at 80% but that includes sick/vacation/LT etc
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