I finally asked my boss this morning about this. I've been meaning to ask every day since I started this post but I keep getting too nervous to do it. I had a few days where I was going to step into his office and talk to him and then I chickened out. I tend to get nervous and emotional when talking to employers about some things. But I just finally walked down and asked him if he had time this morning to meet with me about something and he said Sure, that he had time today or we could meet now. So I shut his office door and sat down and laid it out for him. I said I was wondering about the possibility of working a reduced schedule and that I really wanted to be home with my kids when they get out of school. And the whole time he was looking receptive and said "yeah", like he understood. So I told him how in order to do that I would need to leave by 2:30 but that I would come in earlier at 7:30, and that I could even come in at 7:00 if I absolutely needed to.
He said he was completely fine with that and he knows we have (in other departments) people who work similar hours. He just needs to talk to the HR person about what # of hours they consider to be "full time". So it sounds like it will defintely happen for me. I just need to figure out what would happen to my pay and to my benefits. Yay! I wish I hadnt been so nervous about asking. I've kind of been worrying myself sick about it.
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I want to ask my boss about dropping my hours. It would be a 20% drop in my hours. 7.5 hours less a week. I propose that I will come in 30 minutes earlier each day (M-F) and leave 2 hours earlier than I do right now.
My job is pretty relaxed and honestly I dont have enough work to do most of the time. I dont think it would be a big deal to work less hours. I feel I could easily get my job done in 30 vs 37.5 hours each week. I would expect a 20% pay cut and I'd probably lose my benefits (health, dental, life insurance). And I would expect to earn 20% less in vacation time each year. This wouldnt matter to me since I currently get my health care/dental thru DH's work anyways. The reason I want to cut hours is so that I can be home for the school bus when my kids get home from school. I could quit paying for after-school care.
I very rarely have meetings and I dont see why things couldnt be scheduled from the hours of 8am - 2:30pm so that I could attend.
So how would you ask your boss about doing this? I feel funny bringing it up and just talking about how it would be great for my kids. But really, that IS why I want to do it.
We are having alot of changes lately around here and our director has left, our VP is retiring, we ended a big project and they arent going to rehire for this positions since the president is also retiring next year and they want to let new president hire the director & VP of our department. So it might be a great time to try working less hours since the work load this coming year will be less.
Also, I can do alot of my work from home so if something came up between my new proposed leave time (2:30pm) and the time I leave now (4:30pm) I could potentially work on something from home. But I've had this job for 3+ years and I've never had to do work after-hours. So the chance of needing to do that is slim to none.
So how would you bring this up with your boss? My boss is a really nice guy. I cant imagine him saying no. But I know he will have to OK it with HR and higher ups.