Working from home - how can I do it?

[Littlebees]

I'm currently on maternity leave and desperately don't want to go back to my job when baby is a year old in a few months.

My work won't entertain part timers and there no way I want to work full time and leave baby 5 days a week.

I'd like to get a job that I can do from home, I'm in credit control so something along those lines would be ideal. How do I go about doing this? Or is there some other route I could do that would be relatively easy to pick up?

If you are working for yourself and can work flexible hours (e.g. early morning/late at night) you can make it work. But if you would have to be available during the work day it will still be a challenge.

I know someone who does WFH without any childcare but she works remotely for a company overseas and they are online in the evening when her DC is in bed. The other mums I know who tried it have either gone for nursery/nanny/family babysitting or have given up work.

Just be aware the self employed book keeping and HMRC money laundering regulations, compliance, fees etc are getting increasingly stringent

It's possible to work a few flexible hours without childcare (naps, evening, weekends) but it's not easy and many work from home companies underpay and prey on the desperate. Work out the income you need and look at the options

Oh it's just so easy to become a bookkeeper and work from home..........NOT !!! It's a skilled profession with rules and regulation. I spend half my life picking up work from so called bookkeepers who've made an absolute pigs ear of a clients records. Anyone who's worked in a purchase ledger dept thinks they can be a bookkeeper

If you work in credit control now then stick to that. Perhaps take the Institute of Credit Management exams ? But you're going to have to go out networking to get clients. You'll still need child care

But OP working for yourself is diol working for someone else; people will be paying you to do stuff for them, but in reality they are paying you to look after your kids. You can't WFH with kids there u less you have some childcare, it simply isn't fair oh the kids, you or the people paying you!!

Worked from home for 6 years. Still used after school club, holiday club etc. You cannot work and do childcare at the same time.

Oh it's just so easy to become a bookkeeper and work from home..........NOT !!! It's a skilled profession with rules and regulation

People do retrain. Lots of them. It's a thing that people do.

OP hasn't said that she's going to work from home without childcare. She's looking for options to work from home rather than go back to full time office work.

I would have thought that if you did very part-time freelance work you could fit it around naps/when dad is home etc. With the making tax digital thing I am sure there are lots of smallish businesses out there who would need your book-keeping skills and you wouldn't be tied to certain hours

Have you asked your employer if you can use your parental leave by taking 1 day off per week. I know a number of mums in my company have done this. Also, would your partner/husband consider doing this too?

The statutory entitlement to parental leave is to take it only in one week blocks and many companies are not flexible on that.

Echoing what everyone else said I WFH and you'd def still need childcare but it makes it all so much easier.

I work for a company that allows us to fully work at home, it's getting more popular and I'd start by looking around at WFH jobs and seeing if there is anything that might fit your experience

How big is the company you work for? Over a certain size and you can make a flexible working request (part time hours/wfh). They don’t have to honour it but they do have to give a business reason to refuse (we don’t like part time workers isn’t a business reason). Perhaps it’s worth starting there instead of trying to sort something new.

Really appreciate all the advice and it certainly makes sense.

I will start by looking to see if there's any flexible part time wfh jobs but imagine they are like gold dust.

I'm also going to apply to work part time at current employer as that would be ideal but I'm very doubtful it will be honoured.