Fitting New Moms into the Schedule

Allowing employees to job-share is one way to accommodate requests for fewer hours, but sometimes it's just not possible

by Liz Ryan

Dear Liz,

Yours,
Marcia

Dear Marcia,

It is great that you are trying to accommodate the new moms of your team. It is a wonderful thing when those accommodations suit the employee's needs and the company's as well, but that ideal situation is not always possible. Here are a few suggestions to think over:

1) If the two new moms would be willing to split one full-time job in half, each taking on half the schedule, that might be a solution. In that case, you'd hire one person to fill the other full-time slot and keep the two new moms on board, each working 20 hours. That arrangement is called job-sharing. Such plans vary, but typically each job-sharer receives half the normal days off, and there's often an adjustment to the health-care plans as well.

2) Since you'll have two employees who each want to work 30 hours a week, you'll have a deficit of 20 hours per week to be filled. You may be able to hire a part-time employee who is delighted to work 20 hours during the week, filling in one 10-hour slot for each of your two 30-hour/week employees. Of course, in that case the schedules would have to mesh in such a way that your 20-hour person isn't replacing two people at the same time.

If neither of these ideas is workable, it may simply be that you can't accommodate these employees' requests. In that case you'd let them know (sooner rather than later) that the jobs you'll hold open for them during their maternity leave are the jobs they have now—full-time positions.

If all parties have tried to bend and there simply isn't a fit, it may be that one or both of these folks can't return to the job after maternity leave. It is a shame when that happens, but there may be no better solution.

I worked with a front-desk receptionist who requested an 8-to-4 schedule upon her return from maternity leave so she could pick up her baby from a day-care center far away from the office. Even though the company was family-friendly in many ways, our office hours were 8:30-5 and we really needed someone there then. We had to inform our new-mom employee that her desired schedule just wasn't going to work. She found a day-care center closer to the office.

Work/life accommodation (it's not just for parents, by the way) is all about flexibility. Companies and employees both need to be creative in finding solutions, but bear in mind that there are limits to what yours or any company can do in the way of family-friendliness. I'm all for companies bending and flexing to make work/life balance a reality, but as a manager it's O.K. to say "Gee, that isn't going to work for the team" sometimes as well.

Cheers,
Liz

Liz Ryan is an expert on the new-millennium workplace, a former Fortune 500 HR executive, and the author of Happy About Online Networking: the Virtual-ly Simple Way to Build Professional Relationships. Liz speaks to audiences around the world about work, life and networking, and works with employers on attracting and retaining world-class talent.