Term time working - any experiences?

Henny Penny

Registered User
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559
Hi folks.

Does anyone have experience of term time working? How does it work. Is your salary pro-rataed over the 12 months? I would appreciate your views.
 
In the Civil Service you can choose to be paid pro-rata or to just receive no pay for the duration of your absence. It is no longer called term time though as it is open to everyone, not just those with school going children. It's called the Shorter Working Year Scheme or something like that.
 
thanks for the reply liaconn ... good to know that all staff can avail of it. I presume in private companies it's at the discretion of the employer to allow or not allow it? Thanks again.
 
Hi HP. I would imagine very few private sector companies offer this type of flexibility as it would effectively mean recruiting to cover the gap which could be costly. It is definitey available in the civil/public service depending on business need.
 
I reckon it'll be harder to get in the Civil Service in future, as most sections are losing staff due to early retirement and the incentivised career break plus any staff who leave in future won't be replaced. I can't see too many managers agreeing to let several staff take the entire Summer off.
 
My own area in the HSE didn't allow any term time this summer because of the ban in recruitment (and the staff would have to be replaced).
 
thanks again folks for the replies. In my case staff on leave (parental or maternity or other leave) are not replaced. Everyone else is just expected to pick up the slack ... in this case you would question the fairness of introducing a scheme such as this to the workplace. Maybe it sounds better in theory than in reality!
 
To be honest, I always thought this was a badly thought out scheme. Even though term time staff were recruited for the Summer, they were usually just given bits of filing and stuff to do because they would have been ready to leave again by the time they'd been 'trained in' to the real work. An 'acting up' allowance was paid to staff who had to fill in for their manager, but this was given regardless of suitability, just based on who happened to report to the manager in question.