Hi all,
I am a carer for my husband who has PPMS and I would like to reduce my hours at work but not reduce my salary too much either…I was thinking of suggesting 9-4pm Mon-Fri but wondered if anyone has done this because of their caring duties…
Any help and info greatly appreciated 
Caz
It depends on your employers. I reduced my hours,then got fired after 3 mounths.
Hi I hope this helps I was a cook in a nursing home and I was working 30 hours a week because I now care for my son who has MS I have reduced my hours to 12 hours now my workplace were brilliantly sympathetic towards me which has been great I don’t pay tax or national insurance now I work these lower hours I have claimed Carers allowance now cause I need to the requirements for that are you cannot work over 16 hrs per week and earn no more than £433 per month before deductions. Have a word with your employer and ask if you can mabe trial it for a month to see how you get on it certainly worked for me good luck with what you decide xxx
Hi Caz,
I’m afraid you’re not automatically entitled to reduce your hours. People are allowed “reasonable” time off for family emergencies, such as someone suddenly being admitted to hospital, but routine carers’ duties wouldn’t count as an emergency.
That doesn’t mean to say it’s not worth asking, however.
I think a difficulty you will face is that if you only want to reduce by a small amount, it’s actually harder to find cover for those hours you’ll be dropping. Nobody - or very few people - are going to apply to work just one hour a day, between four and five. It’s inconvenient, and not worthwhile. Therefore, in practice, the likelihood is that your work either won’t be covered for that period each day (which may or may not matter, depending how critical your role is), or will have to be covered by colleagues, in addition to their own work - which might not go down too well. So in a way, it would be easier to accommodate if you wanted to reduce more. If you switched to, say, mornings only, it would probably be relatively easy to find someone who would like to work only afternoons. Similarly, if you switched to a 3-day week, there’s almost certainly someone around who would like the other two. But five hours at just one hour per day would be hard to fill.
Tina
Thanks everyone.
Wow Anon who got fired after 3 months not good at all.
Tina my work is such that I would not need to be covered on that last hour of the day. It was my boss that did suggest the flexible hours however how it would benefit is the problem.
At least if I did do something like 9-4pm it would get me home earlier to hubby. I know it would be a reduction in my salary but I would also work half my lunch hour so really only leaving 30 mins earlier each day. By law I only need to take 20mins for every 6 hours worked.
Thanks all
Caz
Hi, my husband has recently changed his working hours to help me more when the children get home from school. He now works 8-4 mon/thur and 8-3.30 Friday with half an hour lunch. Ok he has lost some salary (not much though). Before I had an official ms diagnosis (but already had kidney failure) he started to work from home which has been a great help as well. I know not everyone has the kind of job to let them do this, it if you can it is certainly worth trying and I realise how lucky I am to get this much needed help at the time of day when however hard I try not to I have usually “hit the wall” of fatigue! Good luck with whatever you decide to do x