Work-life balance is very important to a working mom. It makes you able to have a personal life and spend time with your friends and family besides work. However, achieving this balance depends highly on the amount of time you spend working.
If you are working 40 hours and above per week, you are working full time and may have difficulties achieving a work-life balance. Limiting this time is crucial in giving you the time and freedom for working on your own projects , have time for yourself, family and friends. You may hence wish to request a part-time work arrangement with your employer.
Benefits of Working Part-Time for Moms
There are so many benefits you will get by switching from full time job to part time job such as;
A. More Time to Care for your Family
Work part time allows you more time so that you can care for a newborn, or a sick child/spouse/family member or any other family reasons. You may not achieve this when you are working full time. The main most moms need to quit full time for part time is the need for more time outside work.
B. Improve your Health & Quality of Life
Working full time can be so demanding and overwhelming. Without proper self-care, this can turn into negative health effects. If you realize that your full time job is affecting your physical and mental health, it is enough reason and time to quit or switch to part time.
Part time will allow you to take care of your health and avoid too much work pressure. You will be able to enjoy your life more. You family time will be more quality and your social life will thrive.
C. Pursue Personal Projects
Full time jobs literally take up all your time. You are left with none for family, friends and even yourself. There is no time or energy to purse your things or projects. As such your personal projects may suffer when woe king full time.
Switching to part time allows to grow and develop personally. It gives you more time to think and put your future into perspective. You are able to have create a vision and work towards it.
You can even start your own business or go back to school. Overall your career will grow and develop more. You may not be able to achieve this when working full time.
Read: Reasons for Taking a Career Step Back
What Happens when you Switch from Full Time to Part Time
1. Enjoy Better Work-Life Balance
What happens when you quit full time and start on part time, you will get time for your family and personal time. You become more available for your family and friends as well as pursue your own things such as hobbies, growth, and parenting among others.
2. Fewer Work Hours & Less Workload
The main goal of requesting to work part time instead of full time is to work fewer hours. A full time is often from 40 hours per work. When you go on part-time it means you get a reduction to around 20-30 hours per week.
The reduction automatically results in less workload. As a result when you start working part time, you will experience more free time and less work pressure.
3. Less Work Stress/Pressure
Working full time can be really stressful and straining to a mom. But the nature of part-time work means you are handling less work less. Therefore what happens when you shifting to part time work, it significantly lifts work stress off your shoulders.
You will notice you have less work-related stress and you are able to enjoy life more. You also get more time and energy for exercise, read, learning new skills, and being a better friend/mom/spouse/family member.
4. Increase in your Productivity
Working full time does not necessarily mean that you are being effective, efficient and productive at work. Chances are full-time working moms are less productive especially towards the last hours of the week. The drop in performance is affected by the amount of time and energy that they put into the work.
On the other hand, you are likely to be more productive working part-time due to the better work-life balance, motivation, and improved focus. You are able to make better use of personal time and knowledge when you are working part time compared to full time.
5. Retains your Benefits
When you switch to part time, you may not necessarily lose your benefits. If you keep your hours to a certain level, you may still get to keep your company benefits such as health insurance. This is often stipulated by your company policy and something you should consider while pushing for part-time.
In most companies, you still need to work 30 hours per week for instance. In this case you may need to keep your part time hours on this range if you want to keep this benefit. However, you can still go ahead to lesser work hours if your partner has better such benefits in their company.
6. More Flexibility
Full time jobs are highly inflexible and inconvenient for working moms. Part time work on the other hand is highly flexible and you can work around other schedules. The fact that you are not needed full time allows you the flexibility to do just anything else within the day or week.
For instance you can work on another side job if you like, work on your projects, or simply pursue your hobbies. Part-time work does not tie you and you have the flexibility of efficiently scheduling your day reliably.
7. Get Lesser Pay
When you switch from full time to part time, you will be earning part pay. What happens is that taking a cut in workload and hours goes hand in hand with a cut in pay. This can tend to be pretty significant to even over 50% of your salary. In addition, you may lose benefits such as health insurance.
As such you may experience financial strain from this transition. You, therefore, need to be able to afford this cut. At the very least you need to have a lot of savings/investments and still be able to afford health insurance before requesting to go part time.
You may also opt to supplement the income with other sources such as another part time job, support from partner to starting your own business.
Top Tips on Getting Approved for Part-time at Work
1. Improve your Performance
You are likely to succeed in getting a part-time offer from your boss or manager if you are a really good performer. Your boss is likely to accommodate your request when your performance and productivity are worth it.
You must be really valuable to your employer for him/her to consider your offer. As such you need to have consistent exemplary performance reviews. Also having a good work relationship with your colleagues and boss helps in getting you part-time from full time.
Read: How to Get a Positive Performance Review
2. Have a Good Work Personality
Be easy to work with as this may make it easy for you to get your request from your employer to work part time accepted. You need to demonstrate your ability to effectively work part-time to be considered for it.
For instance you need to be someone who is easy to work with and willing to work with everyone in the office to ensure work goes on interrupted on off time. You must also be able to work without supervision as this is important in getting work done in part time arrangements.
3. Have Valid Reasons for Needing Part Time
While you do not need to have one, having a valid reason to request going from full-time to part-time makes it easier for you. As a mom, this can include caring for a newborn, a sick child/spouse/family member, being ill, needing to get more time for your projects, going to school, etc.
Including these reasons in your request may make it easier for you. If your reason is to start a new business in the same line as your employer, they are more likely to decline your request.
4. Acquire Soft Skills
Having soft skills puts you at an advantage while requesting part-time from your employer. It makes you more valuable and hard to replace.
However, you need to balance this by ensuring you have people who can handle your workload at your workplace in your absence. It makes it easier for the employer to consider your offer as they are confident work will still get done on your off hours.
5.Verify the Possibility of Part Time for your Position
A large part of your plan going through will depend on whether your position can go part time or not. If your industry or position can not adequately accommodate a part time arrangement, then you are likely to have your request declined.
The nature of your work and the industry will determine if a part-time work arrangement is feasible and an option for you. In some industries part-time work is impossible and hence your request to go part-time from full time is more likely to be rejected.
In other words where soft skills are needed than hard skills, you are more likely to have your request accepted.
Read: Mom Friendly Jobs and Careers
How to Request for Part Time at Work
To request to switch from full time to part time at your work place, you need to prepare a formal request letter. While having a talk may be reasonable for some cases, you need to accompany it with a letter to make the proposal more official and professional.
In the letter, write your proposal to move to part time on the subject and address it to your HR/supervisor/employer. Acknowledge and thank the employer for the job opportunity so far. State the number of hours that you are willing to work in a week.
Then list your reasons why it is necessary for your to work part time. After this demonstrate your capability to meet the needs of the company and the practicality of this position. Sell yourself and the reason the company should really consider your request. Remember your worth is in your skills.
Ensure you keep a copy of this letter. You shall get the feedback soon after this on whether you shall now work part-time instead of full-time.
Also hand in the letter well in advance to give your manager enough time to consider your proposal. Don’t just spring the part time request on your boss when you’re ready for the shift. Before handing in your request, you need to prepare well in advance by ensuring your performance is excellent, your employee relations are good, you have a backup plan, and can afford to lose the job either way.
You can also email your HR/supervisor/employer with your request to go part time from full time. State your offer, sell yourself and validate your need for the new work arrangement. You can then wait to hear whether your request from going from full to part-time has been approved by your employer.
If you are close with your employer, you can have a chat with them instead about your proposal to go part time from full time. Ensure you remain objective in selling yourself, and why both of you and the employer will benefit from the new part-time work arrangement that you are requesting.
There is a chance that your employer may not approve your request to go part-time from full-time. The reason why your request may be declined can range from company policy to the impracticality of the arrangement.
It takes time and skills to transition a job from high-hourly expectations to lower-hourly expectation so your employer needs to be sure the part-time arrangement can work. If not they will decline your request.
Also consider that for some employers, if you want fewer hours, they will fire you. To counter this you need to have an alternative plan when you cant take in the part time position. At the very least you should be in a position to walk away either for work elsewhere or start your own business.
You may even consider quitting your job altogether and looking for a part time elsewhere. You need not continue working here if the full time arrangement is not working for you. Quit and figure something else out. Another plan could be negotiating an independent contractor relationship instead of part-time.
You may still need to follow the necessary procedure and give in the required notice. Refer back to your company policy and contract and what they say about resigning from position. Most positions will need you to give in a 14 days notice.
