“The further you get into your career, the more you start to weigh up what is important to you,” says Simon Thompson, 52. “Do you need to earn more money? Or do you want more time? For me, it started to swing a bit more to the latter direction.”
Simon, a customer experience manager with insurer Zurich for the past 25 years, went part time five years ago. He now works four days a week – and uses his day off to go cycling or swimming in a nearby lake. He also takes the time to visit and care for his elderly mother.
“It is massively beneficial to me, from both a fitness and enjoyment perspective, and also for my mental health,” he says. “I can escape from the routine. Just one day makes such a difference to me. ”
He’s part of a growing trend. New data from the latest British Social Attitudes Survey shows a sharp decline in the number of people who want to work full-time — from 57 per cent in 2015 compared with 47 per cent last year. The survey showed levels of job satisfaction are at their lowest since the survey began in 1983. Sir John Curtice, the co-editor, said the analysis showed the current difficulties in Britain’s labour market cannot simply be explained by “workshy” attitudes: “If workers are to be fully engaged in their work, it has seemingly become more important for employers to provide jobs that are both financially rewarding and have flexible work hours.”
The decline was largely driven by men – just 62 per cent of those surveyed were happy to work full time, down from 77 per cent. The number of women remained the same, at 38 per cent. The biggest fall was amongst 30 to 49-year-old men without children, which is down 26 percentage points. Simon, who does not have children, says the reduction in his salary has been worth it for the flexibility, allowing him to care for his mother.
“When you get to this age, your parents start to get to that point where they do need a bit more support, and that can be a strain. This extra flexibility allows me to spend more time with her during the week,” he says.
His employer, Zurich, says the number of part-time workers it employs has increased by 41 per cent since it started offering all its job vacancies on a part-time, job-share, or flexible basis in 2019 – 10 per cent of those are now men, up 48 per cent in six years.
Craig Glover, 53, a senior underwriter at Zurich, first went part-time in 2013, when his previous employer, AIG, asked for people to volunteer to reduce their hours to minimise the number of redundancies they planned to make.
With his children aged three and one at the time, nursery fees were stacking up to around £1,000 per week for both children to attend full-time. His wife, a doctor, was also working four days a week, so between them, they were able to reduce nursery hours.
Craig Glover, 53, says that he doesn’t think he would be able to cope with going back to working five days a weekBut even though his children are now 14 and 16, Craig says he wouldn’t return to full-time work. He says having Wednesdays off is crucial to avoid burnout and to keep his mental health in check.
He takes the time to tackle DIY and related jobs around the house, as well as play football and snooker. It means he can dedicate the weekend to his family. It’s also given his wife, Abbie, space to progress in her career in medicine.
“Having that day off has helped me keep everything in perspective. It’s not all about work. We’re in a lucky position where money’s not everything. I’m not here to just try and hoard as much money as I possibly can,” says Craig.
“Going back to five days a week would be such a mental change to me that I don’t think I could cope with it.”
Money will become more of a consideration for Craig, he acknowledges, when his children reach university age.
Unless they work for the handful of companies that pay a five-day salary for a four-day week, a part-time worker will earn less. But along with the financial impact, what does it mean for your career?
Craig says he is content to remain at a certain level. “I think I’ve allowed myself to take a bit of a back step in my career – I’ve sort of plateaued.”
But having your career plateau because you’re part-time can be risky.
Tina Rahman, founder of HR Consultancy HR Habitat, says that in her 12-year career, she has yet to see a senior role at a part-time level. She asserts that it’s not necessarily right – but it’s reality.
“People who opt to work part-time, realistically, don’t get the same promotion or progression opportunities as people who work in the office,” observes London-based Rahman.
“People in part-time positions have less of a voice and less of a seat at the table. It’s easier to ask the person next to you a question than to pick up the phone and call the person who is at home.”
Rahman adds: “Companies allow for part-time and flexible work because it looks good on paper. But responsibilities are stripped back, and more responsibility means more opportunity to show your worth. Unfortunately, it’s the reality that most of us need to face.”
Men, Rahman points out, get penalised even more for going part-time. Research backs that up. Academics from the University of London, University of Manchester and University of Salzburg analysed forty years of data to find that, for every year men work part-time, their hourly pay drops by 3.5 per cent. For women, on the other hand, it’s one per cent.
“A man going part-time is unconsciously read as somebody who’s stepping back and not as serious, and it’s the silent judgement that never gets mentioned in performance appraisals or development reviews,” says Rahman.
“I’ve seen more women fight for their value when they go part-time than men doing the same. In my view, both the company and the part-time male workers avoid the topic of career progression and responsibility, because nobody really knows where this career could head.”
Mark Pavlika, who works four days a week as chief people and purpose officer for advertising agency Bicycle London, says attitudes are changing. He uses his day off to work on the odd consulting project, but largely takes advantage of the downtime and enjoys a three-day weekend.
Mark Pavlika, 55, is in the rare position of being a senior executive while working part-time“A lot of people have changed their view of work since the pandemic, believing they can be as good, if not better, by going part-time, and that life is more important – rather than striving to be the best at everything and then everything else suffers,” says Mark, 55.
While he’s a rare part-time senior executive, he notes that he’s reached a stage in his career where being part-time isn’t detrimental. He is also prepared to go full-time again when the company grows to the stage where he’ll be needed more.
“If I were a junior person, then probably I couldn’t afford to have a three-day weekend and a four-day work week. Because I’m quite comfortable, I can afford to do that,” says
“But I am still an aspiring person, and want to grow and develop and learn, even at 55. We don’t want to have people that want to plateau.”
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