Changing from Full Time to Part Time

cleanslate

Hi, I am considering asking to change my working week from 5 days on a 37.5hr week to 5 days on a 30hr week (reducing my day by 1.5hrs a day, from 7.5 to 6) for personal reasons. But I can't find any answers to my queries online.
1. Can they reduce my salary other than a pro-rata basis? Obviously I would be losing the equivalent of a full day's pay per week, but can they change my salary? I hope I'm making sense.
2. My holiday entitlement would change but I don't know what else would change?

We have no benefits at all, so (I think) I wouldn't be losing anything other than a day's pay per week and some holiday days.

Due to family circumstances changing (illness etc) I have to be home by a certain time so can no longer work full days where I am located, so my only other option would be to leave my job and find something full time locally but a. I like where I work and b. I have been looking for a while and haven't seen much suitable.

I'm just so confused, it probably won't be granted but I don't want to then be in a worse position.
Thanks

Sir Ophiuchus

Couple of separate points here. The first one is that the main thing to consider is your workplace's culture. Have they allowed this to other people in the past? How long have those people been there? Do they advertise family-friendly policies? Anyone there do worksharing or something like that?

I'd say the best approach would be to have a proper chat with your manager and say that due to family circumstances you were wondering if it would be possible to reduce your hours. You could explain you had some ideas for how it might work without impacting the team / job / projects you work on, but wanted to talk it over with her/him first. At that point they should make it pretty clear as to whether they're gonna hear you out.

Now, your actual questions!

1) Legally, no (not a lawyer). If you make €30k annually full-time, then you should be paid pro rata if you work fewer hours/days. If you have an employment contract they can't change your rate of pay unless you agree. (Technically you could be at risk of being fired if you said no, but that might be grounds for unfair dismissal - anyway, we're into edge cases here.)

2) Off the top of my head: holiday entitlement, sick leave limits (possibly), pension and/or PRSI contributions (depending on what they are).

Hope that helps. But the main thing is to actually have the conversation with your employer and see if they'll consider it at all.

cleanslate

thank you