To think more people WFH with DC than let on

@nappyvalley2024 well here lies the problem. You cannot make working from home only for those in the private sector with jobs which don't really mean anything. We are having a recruitment crisis and if working from home is the one carrot that can be offered then local authorities/ NHS/ civil service will have to offer that or we will lose even more employees. Especially as we can't compete salary wise.
All the things that people moan about on MN, five year waiting lists for autism, lack of care home spaces, DLA waiting lists. Yet they continue to WFH with children, doing half a job. Do they not consider that maybe this is all linked? Covid happened, WFH was suddenly a thing and now we cannot put that back in the box. Yes it absolutely is the government's fault too, for underfunding. But the reality is that we are heading towards a two tier society where one half saves on childcare, saves on petrol, saves on office clothes, saves on food, saves on commuting costs, saves on cleaners/ gardeners/ gym memberships and gets the cushty life of WFH. The other has to work outside the home, pay all the extras listed above and are often in essential jobs (teaching, nursing, retail, care homes, early years) so what can we do? What can we offer the out of the home workers to make amends?

Plus you know when I say paperwork I don't mean actual papers? I mean the admin which goes with social care. I don't see that working from home

I had to do it over the first lockdown when nurseries were shut and we were in ‘bubbles’ and it was a total nightmare. DS was two and it was just us two, and my job requires a lot of thinking and brainstorming and concentration and picking up small details.

no way could I wfh with my kids - my work requires me to focus 100%. And they also need attention. (Especially because I’m a single parent so I can’t hand off to anyone - and even if I weren’t, their dad works too)

I do have a friend who is a lawyer and wfh with her toddler without childcare. She’s up working through the night while he’s asleep. Not sustainable. But then some people have no choice, and it enables some to work when they can’t afford childcare.

Hmm, I would have thought that paperwork would be quite sensitive, probably not appropriate to be working from home.

@nappyvalley2024 depends on the sector but not really, visits are only part of the workload. The rest is the paperwork (vast).

How can a social worker work from home? Surely they are constantly out and about on visits?

Also it makes me wonder whether half of these jobs need to exist in the first place of people can quite easily do them whilst looking after a toddler at the same time.
I bet a lot are quite well paid too...

The problem is the knock on effects on the country. I'm a social worker. A huge percentage of social workers are women. Lots are doing this. Now we have a two year wait in our local authority for a carers assessment.
TWO YEARS
You imagine the impact of all the work people are not doing across the land. You might be doing some but are you doing enough? What is the impact of this on your team, your customers. We moan about everything going down hill but this must have an impact.
The receptionist in our office has to pay for childcare. So does the cleaner. The lady in McDonalds, the lady in the petrol station, the lady in Greggs. It is not fair that the middle classes can make these huge savings on childcare.
I have a child with additional needs. I pay for good childcare. It's a massive part of my salary. I'm a single mum with no entitlement to UC. It's just part of my outgoings which I know I have to budget for. To not do that would be a disservice to all the people who pay their council tax to pay for social care workers.

Yeah absolutely so many friends have had it written into their contracts that they have to actually go to work!

In saying that life is hard at the moment for us all in this country so people have to do whatever it takes to get by. My dh has done when I’m at work and one of the dc has been off sick. I just wouldn’t want to do it all the time as he would get bored. It’s prob different if you have two entertaining each other etc

I don’t see the problem work wise..who cares if you’re getting the job done? Sounds like a bit of a crap deal for the kids though if a regular thing

Why do people blame their problems with service on WFH when we're clearly seeing the country fall to bits around us?

Services have been run into the ground. It's not all the fault of WFH.

I do something similar to this - I work 4 days over 5, so I do 3 school hours days and 2 longer days and am paid as if 4 long days. It works ok, though I frequently end up working unpaid on my short days from 3.30 when we get home / responding to emails so we’ve agreed I’ll go to 90 percent with flex on when I do the last ten percent

Conversely when I returned to work after maternity leave, I only wanted to go back two days, and my boss seemed keen for me to go back more. One of his arguments was "you can work from home now, instead of coming into the office"?! I could only take from that, that he was implying I work from home some of the time, whilst somehow also looking after a 1yo 🤔I told him "Yes, but I still only have childcare for two days". He didn't come out with it outright, as probably knew it wasn't really allowed. I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to wfh regularly with a toddler. But there would have been no chance with mine! He was (and remains) very noisy and smashy. Definitely not in the "plays quietly in a corner not making a fuss" camp! 😬

I know so many people who WFH and only have what I'd call marginal childcare like Granny is available for 1/2 a day or a day a week out of 5 days. Or child does 2 am's at a nursery and the parent or parents are full time WFH. Interestingly these are not lower income friends, they are my wealthier friends/colleagues.

I imagine your situation is unlike that of the majority of the contributors to this thread.

I do this two days a week with my toddler to save on childcare costs. My partner and I both wfh full time and we juggle her between us on two days a week, roughly an hour on, an hour off. We also cover meetings for each other. Our toddler has a 3 hour nap every day, which leaves 5 hours of the work day for us to split between us. If there's any work to catch up on we do that after she goes to bed at 7pm.

I rarely have any work to catch up on - my job is light touch, not customer facing either. I also front load most of my meetings and workload on the days our toddler is at childcare.

While I can juggle it like this I will. I enjoy seeing her more in the week, and its a lifesaver in terms of money. My mortgage has gone up a lot and I'm relieved to be able to cut back on childcare.

Also to the person who said moralising work performance = bootlicking... you are my spirit animal.

How do you stop a young child interrupting a Teams call?
What do the children do all day, not even going to the playground?

But that’s not getting your work done well and on time, is it?

Depends what the ‘emergency’ is. Not many industries have genuine emergencies. Companies just make you feel as if it is, when 99% of the time it can simply be handled in a timely manner, within 24hrs.

My DC are all adults but I can’t WFH due to Dcat unless I lock him in another room or decamp to my bedroom
I I am utterly fed up with rubbish customer service due to so many WFH
Flaky colleagues and those who I have to deal with on a professional level who are not doing their jobs properly due to WFH
I am not sure this is all due to issues with WFH with DC or just WFH not working…..

I only know one person who did this with pre-schoolers, outside of exceptional circumstances like illness. I don't know how they managed, I struggle to even go to the loo without my toddler following me! No way I'd get any work done.

Some days it is much easier for me to WFH because the alternative is getting my toddler up at 4am to get him to grandma’s. What I do instead is get up early and start work whilst he sleeps. I get him up at 8, dressed and fed then grandma collects him at 9. I’d do the same with nursery as I wouldn’t be able to drop him early enough to get into work on time. I start working earlier than I’m scheduled to, so actually work doesn’t lose any time from me but yes I’m technically in charge of my child whilst WFH for those three hours. I don’t know how people do full days with small ones as I wouldn’t be able to get anything done once he was awake.

Depends on the age of the child, surely? And the job.

As a baby/toddler - just completely impossible, he wanted my full attention all the time he was awake, and it would have been ridiculously risky to just shut myself away and ignore him for the morning, fuck knows what he’d have got up to.

Now he is 7, I often finish early to do the school run then do some more work once he is in bed at 8pm. That works fine, he gets my full attention when he is in the house, and work gets my full attention when I am working. I can also plonk him in front of the TV for 30mins while I join a call, if it’s essential. Again though, I couldn’t do a full day’s work doing the school holidays when he is around all day - it wouldn’t be fair on him if I was actually working solidly, and it would be immediately noticeable if I was slacking off.

Luckily my employer only cared about the results didn't care about how I got them.

I could. do it with a baby . Not with a toddler ever. Occasionally with a pre schooler for short spurts and it was OK once they'd started school proper.

Yes to when I was designing, planning, researching

No to when I was on meetings or calls.

My friend did even though it was in her contract. She was caught out after a colleague reported her to their manager and she was disciplined for that.

She sorted proper childcare although her eldest is now old enough to get himself to and from school and sort himself after school while she finishes work.