The needle in the haystack: Finding a part-time job to fit with caring and/or your own health condition.
Very few jobs are advertised with part-time options in the UK – making it hard for carers, and people with health conditions to find roles to fit with their patterns of availability. No wonder 600 carers a day leave work, and 300,000 people a year do the same citing long-term health conditions.
But is there a way to ‘hack’ the system? Erica Fitchie and Rebekah Zammett are carers. Shaline Manhertz has post-cancer fatigue. Erica and Shaline have found part-time work in two very different ways, and Rebekah is taking the route of further study. Hear about their three journeys here.
Podnotes: Your 7-step guide to finding work that works for you
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0.07
Clare McNeil: For most people, just two things really matter in life, our health and our loved ones. These essential parts of life are also now increasingly shaping the way we work. Every day, 600 people are leaving their job to care for a loved one, and 300,000 people a year are leaving their job because of poor health. This is putting people at risk of poverty and worsening health and poor working age. Health is placing the public finances under considerable strain.
Health and care are inextricable part of our daily lives, but work as we know it is not always designed to take this into account, and that means that when life happens, people fall out of work and often for good.
I’m Clare McNeil, the CEO of Timewise, and our mission is to work with employers to create healthier working lives. Part-time Works is a campaign we run in partnership with the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement.
Our campaign says that, quite simply, many more people need and want to work part time than there are jobs available. There are four people chasing every part time job advertised. Just imagine if we could change that. We want to encourage employers to rethink the design, shape and size of jobs they offer, and in doing so, to open up their jobs to a hidden population of talent.
In this three part special, we will look at how hard it is to currently find a good quality part time job, and how you can boost your chances of getting one how to maintain and thrive in part time work when you’re caring or have your own health condition to manage, and what advice and support would really help carers and people managing health conditions who are listening at home. Now, in our first episode, we look at that narrow job market for good quality part time jobs.
Shaline Manhertz, who is 50, is talking about her experience of looking for part time work to fit with her recovery from blood cancer. Post cancer, fatigue means Shaline cannot work more than 24 hours a week without getting exhausted.
Rebekah Zammett, who is 39, had her son Jack when she was just 21. Rebekah, who has always dreamt of becoming a barrister, was just preparing to go to university. This was a dream that had to be shelved when Jack was born with complex needs, including cerebral palsy, epilepsy and autism. While Rebekah adores her children and family life, she had never had the chance to pursue her own career until she won a carer scholarship from the Open University to study law. Mid-studies, Rebekah now looks ahead and sees full time work as virtually impossible, and is exploring alternative, more flexible careers.
Erica Fitchie, who is 40 and cares for her mother. Erica’s mother has dementia. She also previously cared for her father, who has now sadly passed away from cancer. Erica has recently found a part time job at her level of skill and ability. Here they are introducing themselves.
3.17
Erica Fitchie: I’m Erica Fitchie. I currently work as a corporate tax partner at a firm called AAB.
Rebekah Zammett: Hi, I’m Rebekah Zammett, and I’m currently a law student, approaching the end of my law degree, and I’m also a mum to three children, and our eldest child, our son, has complex disabilities.
Shaline Manhertz: Hello. My name is Shaline Manhertz. I’m currently a business owner, and also work for Big Local SW11, which is a resident led organisation.
3.50
Erica Fitchie : My story and my life kind of changed a little bit back in 2018, not long after my younger daughter was born. So at that point in time, my parents decided to relocate so they could spend more time with their grandchildren, which we were all very excited about, because up until then, they’d lived in Hertfordshire, and I’m based in just outside of Glasgow, so they were a long, a long way away and didn’t get to see their grandkids very often.
So they took the decision to relocate once they both retired and moved into a house in a village, kind of five minutes down the road from us. But unfortunately, later that year, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. So we went from a situation where he was excited to be spending time with his grandchildren to, you know, a few years where he was being treated quite successfully and managed to carry on most of his life, kind of fairly normally on a day to day basis. But as things carried on, unfortunately, he became quite unwell, and then was put onto course of chemotherapy. But he wasn’t well enough to be able to drive, and my mum doesn’t drive, so I stepped in and said, Okay, I’ll be able to take you to and from all of your appointments, and I’ll be able to, you know, help out whenever, whenever is needed. But that involved me, obviously, really needing to spend a bit of time negotiating what that looked like with my boss.
But I was able to do that, and because I’d had a part time role in the past, I kind of knew what was required in terms of planning and being able to make sure that I could work out how I could spend time with my dad and helping him at the same time, as, you know, carrying on with my work commitments.
5.22
Shaline Manhertz: In 2017 I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and then prior to that, I’d been working full time. My background is in communications. When I was diagnosed, literally overnight, I was not working. I didn’t go back to work for another year, almost.
So at the time, I had been thinking about starting my own business and with a business partner, and she literally, she said, Well, you can’t go back to work, so I’ll get you a subcontract and we will start working. However, as you know, as most small businesses, the ebbs and flow of work means that cash flow becomes a bit challenging. So I thought, Oh, I’ll look for part time work to supplement that. I looked for, spent quite a long time looking for, part time work. Obviously, I’ve got 25 years experience in communications at public sector level, so wanted something that was commensurate with using my skills at that level, which I found extremely challenging to find. I then found a role that was a freelance role, and I run that alongside my business.
6.25
Rebekah Zammett: I had my son at 22. I was about to begin my first degree when I discovered I was pregnant with him. I was 21. And I had to let that degree place go after he’d been born, and it was clear that he was very unwell.
So then I found a few years later, he wasn’t particularly medically stable at that point, but financially we were unstable, and it was trying, and he was by that point, Jack, we’d had our other daughter, and then we had another daughter after that. So when we just had Jack and our first daughter, she had started nursery with the funded hours, and Jack had a place, and was very settled at an incredible special school just down the road from us, so I had a parameter with which I could look in. It needed to be term time only, and it needed to be school hours within term time only. So really, it needed to be in a school. So that immediately narrowed down what on earth I could look for. So yeah, at the time, that meant working as a classroom assistant, which is, as we know, notoriously poorly paid. And the work required of those, largely women, that fulfil that role, is absolutely enormous. And I tried to work for four days a week, and it was just I was a complete mess by the time it got to a Friday, and I thought, There’s got to be an alternative to this role. I have to see if I can find a way.
We’d had our third daughter by then as well. So then began another, you know, this, this was a cycle that would then emerge. I would try a different way. I’d try a different job, and then that’s what then led me on to then saying, that’s it. I’m going to pursue my degree. I have to do it for myself, first of all, and second of all, because I want to alter what options are actually in front of me. And to do that, I need to change one of the variables. So one of my variables, I could change what’s the qualification and to achieve a degree, particularly in law. So yeah, looking for part time work has been an incredible challenge, a really bleak one at times, if I’m really honest, and I feel like I’m gearing myself up to do it all over again, having changed one of my variables and hopefully begun to build up that network.
8.34
Erica Fitchie : Shaline, can you tell me about your experience of looking for part time work, and how it went?
8.38
Shaline Manhertz: When I was looking for part time work, what I found was there were very few roles that were offering me the seniority within a… that I was used to. And if I’m going to be working in a part time role, I want to be able to feel like I’m using my skills, but I’m also gaining and learning. I don’t, I’m not somebody who’s ever worked just for finance. I mean, obviously that it’s important to get paid, and I’ve got a mortgage like everybody else, but it’s really important. We’re here. We’re here for however long we’re blessed to be in this world. And when I’m here, I want to be giving something back. I want to be learning. I want to be growing. I want to be challenged.
And so, yes, there were other roles that probably, yes, I could do. But then again, I, you know, I could go for a lower role, and somebody’ll be like – she’s got all this experience. Can I manage her? Do I want to manage somebody who might know more than me, has more experience than me, and because there aren’t enough creative thinkers, and then challenging all employees out there be creative, to think about how they can utilise people with more senior seniority or a raft of experience, it was extremely challenging. And I didn’t really get any interviews, and I was, you know, I’m in communications. I like to think I’m able to write a good letter and communicate well with people. But I didn’t really get very many interviews. And the one interview that I did get, I got the role, but then that was the, that was the freelance opportunity. So for them, they were really very happy, because probably they would have struggled to find somebody with the extended knowledge that they actually need to do the role. I just fear for other people that might not be as fortunate as I was, because it is very challenging, how you interact at home, because you’re stressed all the time. You’re worried about it.
10.44
Rebekah Zammett: I think that’s a great point that you’ve mentioned there about the impact that it can have within your family dynamic, and that’s something I’ve really struggled with. And my husband and I have to, well, particularly, I have to work really hard to not let kind of a general rumbling sense of resentment sit on my chest, and I feel that sometimes I look at him, and I see him experiencing and enjoying professional fulfilment. And at times it feels – sometimes I feel like that will never happen for me. I will continue to do what, I think by the sounds of it, you did Shaline, which is to just keep going, but it absolutely has this wider bearing on life.
I feel really conscious of giving my girls an example of how women can have a functional relationship with the working world and to create an independence in my own existence, that doesn’t look quite so 1950s. Which has been the kind of motherhood they’ve experienced me giving them. I feel quite conscious of that as well, and wanting to carve out my own path that actually has nothing to do with my family, that is just about me. That’s really tough to feel that kind of stress. And for me, it’s the, it’s a sense of uncertainty that I feel I’m living with. And given the experiences we’ve had as Jack’s parents, we’ve been given many statistics, and every time we’ve been on the wrong side.
So when you have experienced life like that, where you always fall on the wrong side of the coin, trying to separate those ideas from this current coin that I’m tossing up in the air, and trying to hold some, a healthy level of hope as to where this is all going to go. For me, feels like walking a tightrope, and it’s really uncomfortable and really difficult.
12.28
Erica Fitchie: But that that point around meaningful work, in some sense, all work has meaning, so long as it’s meaningful to use. And, then, then that’s enough. And so, you know, we all do different types of work because we all have different different values and we enjoy different things, but in some sense, the work itself is, is the meaning, because it gives you that sense of personal identity, that sense of achievement. You know, everybody likes to feel they’ve got some accomplishments that they can be proud of.
Our self worth, and that’s so important, because all of the other roles that we have. Can sometimes feel like you’re giving, giving, giving all the time. And people can, you know, really feel like their energy levels are really quite depleted if you’re constantly, you know, looking out for other people and always putting yourself at the kind of the bottom of the priority list. So having, having something which is, is yours, and you have a sense of ownership over it, you know, whether it’s a job or a kind of long term career, or whatever those achievements are, it’s so important for your own sense of self worth to have that. And it can look, it can look different for everybody, but, but just, it’s just a thing that you can be proud, that you’ve, you’ve done for yourself. And you know, whether it’s a degree or, you know, setting up your own business, they’re all things that that, you know, we ought to be incredibly proud of, because they are really difficult to accomplish, and being able to do that in amongst all the other responsibilities and commitments is something that really needs to be celebrated.
So for me, personally, looking for part time work has been relatively straightforward, and I guess I, you know, I realise I’m lucky and privileged in that respect. I work in an area which is which is in demand. It’s fairly niche, and I have spent over 20 years building up my expertise. So when it came to looking for a role, I was in a position where I felt confident enough to say, I am available, but on part time, hours, right from the get go. And that was a non negotiable for me, but I’m able to look at myself now and see the value that I can bring, and know that my experience and my skills are worthwhile, you know, for an organisation to have.
But for me, it was always going to be a part time role. Whatever that role was, what I didn’t do was go looking for something that was advertised as a part time role, and I guess that might be different from some people’s experiences. So it can be very hard if you are looking for something which is advertised as part time. Sometimes it’s just not there. But if you if you are able to go, to your networks, or to, you know, people who are recruiting and say, this role looks like it’s really good for me. I realise it’s advertised as a full time role, but what is the role, what does the role actually entail? And if you’re able to then negotiate, to say, we know I can do all of these things, but I can only give you four days a week, or three days a week, or whatever, the time commitment is that you can have, all you can then do is have a conversation to see whether that’s possible.
And it has to be a two way thing. But for me, that’s how I approached it. It was a non negotiable for me, and I just felt like if, if they weren’t willing to negotiate, then it wasn’t a role that I wanted to do.
15.30
Rebekah Zammett: That’s really interesting Erica, I think that’s, it’s a really great kind of exemplification of of where your starting point can really impact, reaching that, that moment of finding that sweet spot with the part time work, that is commensurate with your level of skill, to speak to what you mentioned earlier, Shaline, that aligns with your personal, you know, I will not work full time and, etc, etc. It’s reflective of where you have reached in your career, and I have tried to obtain part time work coming from the other end of the scale. I might not have the profile of your average graduate, that is ready to throw themselves in and how you described Erica, if you know, allow work to fill their lives. I’m not doing that. That’s a hard line for me. I’ve already sold my soul to my family, so I’m not selling it again to an employer.
16.20
Erica Fitchie: Yeah, and I think Shaline, you mentioned, you know, employers need to get creative. That’s such a good point, because, you know, there is this sort of assumption that a lot of jobs will be done in standard hours and fit a certain pattern. And that assumption has come from a very particular period of time when, you know, a lot of people were working in, say, sort of factory type environments, and the factory was open at a certain time of day, closed at certain time of day, and the world of work is nothing like that anymore.
Why should we be constrained by those hours?
16.52
Shaline Manhertz: Most of my career has been done in the public sector, and even now, I work with public sector adjacent companies often. And for me, I always remember back in the early 2000s working with a communications consultant in central government who came into the office at three o’clock in the afternoon and left at nine. And I just thought that was amazing. And I think it’s that kind of creativity – looking at, okay, this reason why it came about was because she’d been working full time before, and she had moved outside of London, and she’d come back from maternity leave, and she just couldn’t do nine to five anymore.
And so they looked and said, Okay, we – really you’re a great worker. You know, you really love that. You’ve got great skills. We don’t want to lose them, so they looked at what would suit her, and that’s how that role came about.
Now, if you were to look generally at most areas of work and look at what kind of work are we doing and what do we need to facilitate that work, it would probably look quite different from most job descriptions that are given. But no one ever seems to look at work like that. And I challenge people to look at what is it that you actually need? Not what do you think you need, but what do you actually need? And that takes work. And I think sometimes, because it takes work, people are not – kind of shy away from that. I would probably argue that with the advent now and the speed of AI coming in, people are going to have to do that anyway.
18.22
Rebekah Zammett: Erica, what advice would you give to somebody who would find themselves in the situation that you were in, say, 10 years ago?
Erica Fitchie: The first thing I would say would be to figure out what your own boundaries are, and it’s really important to have that sense of what you can and can’t commit to, and be really clear with that, because then when you’re going into discussions with prospective employers, or when you’re talking about you know what you can commit to in terms of a caring role, you have the self confidence to hold those boundaries and not be pushed into something which you actually don’t feel comfortable with.
And then the other thing I would say is look back at everything you have achieved so far in your life. Whether you’re starting out in your career or whether you’re very experienced, you will have a series of accomplishments and achievements that have led you to your current point. Put all of those together and think about how your employer would value them, and then have that discussion about you as an individual, and how you can fulfil what the employer is looking for, without necessarily fitting into that kind of stereotypical model, because perhaps they haven’t just explored what’s really possible and what’s really necessary. And I think one of the things that’s been really powerful for me is also the power of my kind of network, my professional network. So that’s been really valuable to me in finding my current role. And everybody has a network or can build a network over a period of time – use that network to allow you to test out what possibilities and what opportunities are out there. And you know, you might find something that you hadn’t even considered comes your way, and it turns out to be a great fit for you and for the organisation.
So I think to find your boundaries and using your professional network would be my two top tips.
20.06
Shaline Manhertz: My top tips would kind of, they kind of echo in terms of just making sure that you remember what’s important to you. I’m a coach, so I’ll always say to people, the answers are within, just take the time to be still and think about how can you look at it from a different perspective? How can you showcase your skills in a different perspective? How can you look at the type of work that you want to engage with from a different perspective? What perspective could you give an employer that would encourage them to see you differently, to appreciate your skills, over and above other people who might be going for the same role. Think about it from a full time perspective, and think about freelance. I’m not saying that it’s going to be an easy road, because, as you can see, I was looking for a part time work to supplement my business, but what I would say is that it is an opportunity. It might not be. It might be an opportunity for now. Time changes. Everything changes. So what you want now could be different in six months time. So just be open to change in terms of your own mindset around what you want, and also the creativity around thinking about things.
21.22
Rebekah Zammett: Shaline and Erica – both you’ve given some amazing nuggets of advice there, and I find myself sitting here nodding emphatically at so many of the things that you’re both saying. And it’s, it’s, I hope you both know that it, you’re a real source of admiration and both hope and inspiration, for me to know that there are routes to finding, you know, good quality paid work, and that’s part time, and that, you know, I feel much better equipped now, actually, to kind of map that path out for myself.
Actually, Erica to have those firm boundaries, and Shaline to really think outside the box. That such valuable takeaways for me, I think from my perspective, obviously coming at it from a slightly different kind of vantage point than you both, is for me, it was – I want – that I’d identified that there was an area I wanted to work in, and I worked backwards and established what I needed to do to get there.
And so for me, kind of tracing that all the way back, I kind of actually even pre, pre to working out where I wanted to work in. It was to identify that, that the current status quo that I was operating within was not working for me. So first of all, it’s to say I’m actually going to not continue to stay in that cycle. I’m going to seek an alternative. Where do I want to be? Okay, I want to be over here at point B, okay. So how do I get there? And then I kind of worked my way backwards. So that would be my best piece of advice would be to research, research, research, to explore. You know, thankfully, most of us have the world at our fingertips on our phones and laptops and things like that.
So I would say spend some time doing real deep dives into what’s out there. And I would say explore opportunities that are open to you within the parameters that you’re currently sitting. So for lots of people, a key parameter will be financial and a key parameter will be the responsibilities that you currently have. So a really practical sign post from me would be to go and explore a website called The Open Learn website. It’s run and kind of orchestrated and set up by the Open University, but it’s free to anybody and everybody who’d like to use it. And there are lots of courses on there, both long and short, that can give you that first kind of dip your toe in the water to try and establish what route might work for you.
And of course, formal qualifications are not the only route to good, good quality paid work, but it is a route, and it’s the route that I chose. So for me, that’s what I would say, work out where it is that you’d like to be, and then calculate the journey that you need to go on to get there. But do build in both Shaline’s advice, which is to be creative with your thinking. Don’t accept the status quo that there’s only one route to get to that point. And Erica’s advice, which is to actually work out a way to do it that still honours the boundaries that you want to set for yourself within your work and your life, you know, and hopefully, if you do that glorious equation, two plus two equal four.
24.10
Clare McNeil: It’s clear from listening to Shaline, Rebekah and Erica that for them, as for many of us, work is more than just a job. It can offer self esteem, give us a sense of identity, and in amongst all of our other commitments and responsibilities, it’s just for us. But work needn’t just come in one, shape and size, the standard nine to five, five days a week. If you’re an employer, we encourage you, as Shaline said, to think about what you actually need, not what you think you need when it comes to recruiting and hiring for a new role, or when someone’s circumstances change. Could a role be done part time as a job share or with some other form of flexibility?
If you’re looking for part time or flexible work, have a conversation to see what’s possible, and if you want a recap of the excellent examples and advice you’ve listened to here, you’ll find this and more in the pod notes which accompany this series.
So a huge thank you to our guests, Shaline, Erica and Rebekah, and to the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement for partnering with us on this series.
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