Hours issues at work due to childcare

It's worth bearing in mind that parental leave can be postponed. Not declined... But postponing might as well be a decline sometimes!

If you wanted, say 2 weeks off in August but it's a super popular holiday time, your employer can postpone until September, for example.

I might have missed this, but assuming you don't have a partner or you would at least be sharing the early finish times and Fridays in school holidays ?

If the company isn't one that works with school terms then I understand why they just want an all year round pattern

They have a business to run, and it’s not their problem you dont have childcare in the holidays, so basically you need to find some, or ask to reduce hours to Monday to Thursday yearround and see if they accept that

Your childcare issue is your problem, not the businesses

If you have childcare for 4 days is that nursery? Can you ask them if there's room to take your child for 5 days?

No you’re not being unreasonable. When I returned to work my new employer had it written in my contract that I would be part time up until the term after her third birthday when I would go full time. They had it in writing that on a certain day I would be unavailable for a few hours (nursery run) and work flexibly to make up those hours. If they wanted to do it they would have and I think you should look elsewhere for work! Big companies have the best policies IMO

Also nobody would ever cover, I would always be on email just FYI thanks
I think this might the sticking point.

In my experience people (bosses and colleagues) like clarity.

For example if the whole company has core hours from 9.30-3 and then it's up to employees to make up the rest of their hours as required then nobody's going to be arsey if someone signs in at 9.25 because it's expected that people have a soft start.

If another company has a big lunch window that's 11.30-1.30 and people can be absent within that window as it's convenient to them, it's fine that someone isn't on teams at 11.45.

If someone takes annual leave in the school holidays one day a week then everyone knows that colleague is off and their work will either be reallocated that day or they'll pick it up their next working day.

If another colleague formally compresses their hours then nobody's expecting them in on a Thursday because they do 5 days compressed into 4.

In your proposed situation it's quite vague so you're at work and being paid to be at work, but not properly working and you'll be on email, and you might or might not be free depending on what your child needs.

I suspect if you went to work and proposed having DC in holiday club for the Friday mornings and you could compress your afternoon hours into your 4 other days, they might be open to it. Or maybe there's the option to build up some TOIL that you take each Friday in the holidays. They sound flexible, just not open to impractical arrangements.

You need to formalise what hours you do work on a Friday, i.e., 9.30-2.30 Friday and X-X Mon - Thurs, so it’s all above board and transparent.
I do feel for you re childcare, but making up hrs in a vague way at an unspecified time is really hard to manage as a manager and what if everyone wanted to do it.

I am a bit thick but I don't get it?

@SuzieQ2024 what do you think work have verbally agreed to? That you do a 5 day week in term time and 4 day week in school holidays?

Can the child's father do the Fridays? Why does it all fall on you?

Are you shouldering all the childcare stress OP? Do you have a DP? If so, he needs to step up too.

You may be able to get a block of unpaid leave even if it isn’t parental leave.

The legislation states parental leave to be taken in blocks. Easy work around.
You normally take eg 10 days annual leave for family holiday. Take that as parental, leaves you 10 paid days holiday to take each Friday. Same money.

Where is the other parent of this child and their annual leave entitlement?

Well done for taking points on board, OP

Our unit manager is going through so,etching similar with some of the admin team at the moment. She's got adult children and always paid up for childcare from when they were small - and she was a single parent for most of it as well.
It seems like our workplace - a very busy hospital btw - is the one that must always lose out on staff cover (I mean it's not that we are over staffed or anything) because the husbands job is always more important.
It is starting to take the piss.

Not addressing the OP but the majority of people who are doing this take us for fools. It spoils it for the rest of us who are trying to get through the glass ceiling or who just want to do a good job (not cover for you!).

Fortunately I am out of all of this now and only work part time but clearly its now rife

If you don’t have childcare then you can’t work so what they’ve suggested is reasonable.

Your posts really aren’t entirely clear so I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought you’d communicated what you expected to happen/receive, but the company understood something else, and because it was never put in writing, they had to wait and see what you actually did in practice.

In my experience the work of most office jobs can be condensed into fewer hours than a working week, and there’s a lot of waiting around, but each job relies on someone else’s job, so you can’t actually condense them in practice and just not be there on Friday afternoons, because there’ll be a person who needs an answer from you on Friday afternoon. The waiting around part of jobs and having everyone there at the same time even if they’re not always actively doing something is how it all runs smoothly. It’s why working part time, even when enshrined in contracts, is often shit because you find you’re paid for 3 or 4 days but working 5 to make sure work isn’t held up.

Yep. Or log on late to show they're online, yet no work actually gets done. We all knew it.

I think you need to frame it to your employer less as about your childcare arrangements and more about what working hours you are asking for and explain how they meet business need. And put it all in a flexible working application so it's clear to everyone.

The obvious options seem to be -

You work 5 days in 4 as compressed hours

You work 4 and a half days and organise a half day or childcare in the holidays - babysitter, playdate, annual leave, holiday club, nursery

I think just a vague promise to make up the hours is difficult to sell