Working mums - what do you do when childcare fails?

[Ozgirl75]

I’m writing from the perspective of the employer and I will say I’m not based in the U.K. but I have a business there and we’re having an issue that we’ve never come up against before.
I’ve always tried to hire mums for our office as I like to support working parents, I’ll say that first.
We have a woman working in our office who has been with us for about 10 months. She has a young child, about 18 months. Her mum is the childcare.
Her mum has let her down with childcare on a few occasions and we’ve dealt with this fine. However, her mum now has Covid and can’t look after her child for 10 days. Her dad caught it a week later and this adds on another 10 days.
She has basically said she can’t come into work for this whole period as she has no other childcare.
It isn’t a role that can be done from home. We’ve said she can take holiday but she won’t have enough to cover the whole period.
So my question is, can she do this? Just cite no childcare and not come to work? How do other people deal with this?

From 0-5 years she can request a number of weeks unpaid leave (I think it's six but can't remember) it's at the discretion of the employer when this time is taken though.
Some people don't have child care back up. Unless your staff member is in a decent salary a nanny is simply out of reach for most parents on or just above minimum wage (it may be more economically viable if there is more than one child though).
Covid has caused no end of issues for women in the workplace.

Child care agencies maybe available in some parts of cosmopolitan UK, but certainly aren't available in many areas (if she's in a major city it should be available, but again Covid has caused issues for some agencies).
I suspect eventually she'll quit, especially if she is conscientious as she'll be very stressed with it all...
I gave up my job because of nightmare childcare issues. I think so many people really aren't aware of how difficult childcare can be especially for lower wage, and or folk who don't live in cities / large towns. Add Covid into the equation and it's just a shit show all round.

@TreesoftheField

Lol my boss asked me to look into emergency childcare once (no family nearby) its £200 a day, more than I earn? All my Friends work full time, and I do too so can't reciprocate for others. My kids have had 24 days off school/nursery since September- it's completely unprecedented times. Illness is rampant, luckily I can work from home, I've no idea how others manage. Childcare is insanely expensive and inaccessible to people earning under a certain salary - that's why so many are dependent on family till the kids are 3.

Where do you live for it to cost so much?

I’m in zone 2 London, and an emergency nanny for a 10 hour day would be around £150, if making a same day booking
An ad hoc day at a nursery/childminder would be £120-150 depending on the age of the child

Obviously that’s still more than a lot of people earn, but if it’s pay that from time to time and keep your job, or get marked as unreliable and then lose your job, you’ve got to balance what is worth more in the longer run

I think a factor here is how much she is paid. If she's a high earner then yes she could get a nanny, but I'm guessing she isn't.

Emergency childcare is not really a thing, unless you live in a city and can afford to pay for a temporary nanny. I've never heard of a nursery offering emergency childcare for a week here or there, and it would be distressing for a young child to be placed in an unfamiliar situation just for a week or two.

For most people there just aren't many back up solutions, especially with covid.

Don’t say you want to support working parents and then lack understanding when a working parent has a childcare issues.

This is key.

We both work full-time with two children in nursery. We have no further backup as we have no family nearby. Fortunately we have flexible jobs that can be done from home so we alternate days, prioritise important meetings etc. I've lost track of the number of days we've had a child home this winter, but if I've worked five full weeks since September I'd be amazed. They catch everything when they're little and it's well documented that this has been an unusually tough winter from that pov, and then adding covid testing and isolation requirements on top makes it even worse. I'm at breaking point tbh.

Having said that, it does sound like her mum might be unreliable (the counterpoint is that her DC is probably picking up fewer doses with granny than they would at nursery), and her partner absolutely should be doing half.

Nurseries and childminders can't take sick kids though?
I expect there's more provision in London as its more needed. Like someone mentioned above, I live in a smaller city where 70% of parents seem to have family nearby on tap. There's only 1 emergency childcare provider here who can come watch a sick child in its own home and that's what they charge for same day callout.
Fine if you're a lawyer but no good on my wage.
My employer benefits because I work flexibly including evenings and weekends and I won't leave because they treat me well. Also v lucky that other half earns the same and does their share.

Don’t say you want to support working parents and then lack understanding when a working parent has a childcare issues.

Agree with this point.
At my work I would generally work in evenings/weekends to make up time, or around child, and I work sufficient unpaid overtime that my boss wouldn't raise an eyebrow when the DC were younger if I couldn't work for a day or so. Our partners are supposed to take on some of the burden. I've been stuffed recently - grandparents shielding, can't ask neighbours and friends due to risk of infection, emergency nannies costing £200/day.

Be as flexible as you can and remember it's a pandemic still and it's still hard to get extra help. I'm assuming from points you've made that this is not a particularly senior or well paid role, so paying for emergency nannies is probably out of the question.

• Offer unpaid parental leave. This is a legal right she has for a certain number of weeks per year for each child up to age 16 I think. Often companies have a policy of a certain amount of notice being given, or that it should be taken in weekly blocks. An enlightened employer, especially in current circs, would be changing that policy to allow short notice leave, and in blocks of 1 day if necessary.

• Assuming the employee is not rolling in cash and probably can't go without pay for these weeks, can you be flexible and pay for the hours that can be worked at home/in the evenings etc. So if 50% of her job is doable at home, she does that and you pay her for that and she takes unpaid parental leave for the rest? Could she work an extra few hours a week in December to make up for this period, and so still get all or most pay?
• Is there any other work she could temporarily take on that would still be useful to you, be doable at home, and allow her still to be paid?

There’s no emergency childcare near me, we do a 40 min round trip to the nearest day nursery. There are two registered childminders within 10 miles-ish and they are full to bursting as there’s not even wrap-around care at the school! Even if we had the money you couldn’t get a same day nanny here. And even if there was I wouldn’t leave my 2 year old with a stranger, not unless it was a life/death scenario.
I’d love some back-up, but when DD had Covid recently it was our employers that had to accommodate it. Fortunately they were lovely (and paid in full for it as additional leave). I am grateful to be in my sector (HE) and DH’s (financial services).

I’ve always used a nursery, where even if someone is out sick, there are other staff to cover (rather than family or a childminder). Literally, in the 7 years we have had chin nursery, it has never once had to close because of staff sickness, even during COVID.

When our dc are I’ll though, Dh (who is self employed) and I split the time depending on who can better afford the time off (obviously he only gets unpaid leave). Generally, unless illness is really serious, I just work from home and do my best to get on with it. No one benefits from me taking time off as just have to make up the work when I get back so it’s always better to just try to push through, even with dc at home.

I actually don’t feel like we’ve been inflexible at all. She has already used all her annual leave and had a number of unpaid days. I’m perfectly happy with her taking unpaid days, it’s not that at all. It’s that she has a job, in a small business, that can’t be done from home (parts can but it’s a receptionist role too).
Our plan was to ride out the Covid time, at least both her childcare options have now had it so won’t have it again!
It’s also a very difficult thing to expect employers to be so flexible and understanding when work needs to be done and one staff member is just off so often with seemingly zero backup.
But anyway, it’s good to get input from people, even if some of the feedback is that employers just have to accept that employees will take as much unpaid time off as they need.

People's options can depend on what their earnings are. Nursery will generally be more reliable than GPs and CMs because there's no single point of failure - that's one of several reasons we chose it. But it is also more expensive.

I think it's reasonable to expect her to find more reliable childcare in the long term if you are building evidence that it is repeatedly impacting on the business, and to expect her partner to take their share of the childcare. Unfortunately there can be good reasons why families can't or won't do this. Sometimes it's just ingrained sexism within the family or the partner's employer though, often it's economic necessity.

We can't comment on the law where you are and the levers you and your employee can pull might be different to what we have here. But I would think you're accommodating with a genuine emergency but you can ask her to find a more reliable solution if it keeps happening. Other options might include her dropping to PT and letting her flex her working days, letting her make up work in the evenings, maybe giving more holiday allowance if you give the minimum. In my office, WFH while looking after a young child has never been acceptable except during lockdown. It's bloody impossible, if you want to be paid you find childcare. A child over about 8 with an occasional sofa day, ok.

I would say that it is genuinely difficult, and extremely expensive, to find emergency childcare. We guard against this by picking inherently reliable childcare (not a GP), saving annual leave for emergencies, splitting the burden between partners, swapping hours which is easier if one of you is PT. If you're a higher earner I think it's what any conscientious employee would do, but it can be a lot harder for lower earners. Some people will call in sick themselves if they feel they have no other choice and can't afford to lose the day's pay. You're right, it's not your problem to solve but it's difficult to know whether she just isn't trying or is genuinely constrained in her options.

Of course work is a lower priority than immediate child's needs.

It's not just parents who have this situation - a friend's sister has terminal illness and friend has dropped everything to be with her for her last weeks. Not a situation that would recur, but similarly the family need is there and takes priority over work.

Emergency dependents leave is just for a day or 2 to put in place other arrangements. However in practice sometimes other arrangements just aren't possible or practical. If she doesn't have a partner willing to do a share, doesn't have non-working close friends or family who can step in, can't afford to pay for emergency childcare. To be honest, with a young child who hadn't been in childcare setting, I would be reluctant to leave with unfamiliar carer. If she can work from home, there are agencies she could use to have someone in the house to enable her to get some work done. But to leave a very young child in the care of a stranger (albeit a vetted one) is hard. A supportive employer would recognise that, allow some use of holiday, explore what could be done from home. Some employers offer on site creches or access to emergency childcare. Some would allow them to take parental leave (usually unpaid).

@BluebelllsRosesDaffodills

You can get emergency childcare through an agency, she just doesn’t want to pay for it.

I’d ring ACAS and ask advice about starting the disciplinary process.

Has she been there two years or more? I’d just get rid, she is taking the piss. Her childcare arrangements are not your problem.

Yes, I recall DH's employer telling him this. But the reality is you can't leave a sick child with a stranger, and you can't leave a small child with a stranger for a whole day. When a child starts with a childcarer, you build up sessions, spend a bit of time with the carer, make sure that the child is comfortable with them. It would be really cruel and potentially unsafe to leave a child with somebody they and you don't know from Adam. In real life, this is why working mothers are under such stress. Not everyone has family or someone else that can step up in case of emergency. I don't know what the solution is. In your particular case, yes the family need to get more reliable childcare, but any carer could get Covid and not be able to look after the child. Nurseries won't take sick children. There are going to be times when childcare falls apart. What flexibility can you realistically offer? wfh for part of the day if the mother can split the day with the father? Different hours ? You say you employ working mothers because you want to support them, but what support do you offer? Do you have emergency workers you can call on at short notice to plug the gap? Temps? You expect her to be able get childcare on no notice but can you sort out the cover for your employee?

So the flexibility we offer is; flexi time working, reduced/compressed hours, part time working, temp cover but to be honest that’s all we’ve needed in the past, we’ve employed staff with children for 20+ years and obviously haven’t been through Covid before so this level of being off for 10 days at a time has never come up.

Covid is exceptional, but it sounds like this is a deeper issue. Also, are other staff understanding about this, or starting to be resentful?

I think you, or her line manager, needs to have a meeting with her to get her to commit to a plan for childcare going forward given that her DM has been unreliable and she has no backup.

Is there any chance she could bring the child in with her?

I think its really difficult for working mums (it should be working parents but we all know who the responsibility falls on the shoulders of 99% of the time). Employers have to cut working mums slack if the need for absence is Covid related, by way of unpaid parental leave and a back up temping agency etc, but its also up to parents to make plans for illness. You loose too much money and opportunity to progress otherwise. I set up my own business, but I still have a locum I can and have called on to cover.

In the past, sick days, parental leave days etc have always covered sickness for days off here and there.
One of our employees had cancer and she wanted to work throughout (we said she could take unlimited sick days, work part time etc) and to be fair even she was more reliable (although we said she could be off, on full pay for as long as she liked). We’re not the bad guys but we are trying to build back up after Covid as well, there’s no money in the system for crèches.

Unpaid parental leave. Think they're allowed 12 weeks up to the child's 5th birthday.

When I was working. Although for a large company. If I couldn't get childcare it went as 'other absence' unpaid. I then had a tosser manager who made it go against my sickness absence. I nearly lost my job. Ds had hand foot and mouth. Then followed by me being ill for 2 days d&v then ds getting shingles age 7. Because they all fell in 12 week period. He tried to put me through disciplinary. He didn't succeed.

How old is child. Can the child go to work with the mum? I've known some to do that in office based work. Boring for the child but needs must and all that?

It's hard definitely.

I think the key issue is what the child's father is doing. There is generally no reason why the brunt of this kind of problem falls on the mother's employer. I get there will be extenuating circumstances - the father is stuck on an oil rig or whatever. But I've heard a few times "I have to take the time off because he earns more than me, so him taking unpaid time off costs us more". I know that is a problem. It may sound harsh, but as a family you have to suck that up and share the burden. Otherwise women are adding to the reasons that people are reluctant to hire mothers.

No, they couldn’t come in, they’re tiny. It’s a factory so no way would it be safe.
We did have another employees 10 year old come in during Covid lockdown and do her school work there which was totally fine.

Covid has definitely made things harder for working parents, I'm lucky that I don't rely on one provider full time, I work 3 days per week and my husband 4 long days, luckily with very flexible employers, so we would swap our working days round, is that a possibility for her? I would be able to use emergency dependents leave in this scenario, but it would be a couple of days to sort out something else, not just take the whole 3 weeks off!

Its a bit of an impossible situation, because while it does sound like you've been incredibly patient and flexible, what are her options really? Going forward she could arrange some paid childcare but that takes time.

It might be worth having a chat with her when she gets back, I'm wondering if she's really trying to make a case for WFH, have you made it very clear that this isn't an option?

What did I do?
Used a nursery so provision is much more reliable
Split child sick days with partner or asked a relative
Worked part time and swapped hours around if possible
I think the most I had was 2 days off in a year.

Is she trying to find an alternative? I’m afraid some people do take the Mickey. If she’s only be with you 10 months and has had that much time off do you want to keep her on long term? Can you afford to?

Is there a reason the grandmother can’t look after the child at the child’s house when she’s finished the isolation? Why is it necessary to wait for the grandfather?

I think she absolutely is trying to work from home, but we have been very clear that this role is required in the office. We can let her leave early, come in later etc but she needs to be there to be on the reception desk.
We do want to keep her, she’s great when she’s there!

I feel bad for her. Life is so very difficult for working parents.

First you get no sodding help until your kid is 3. Childcare is very expensive. And round here it’s limited. Barely any childminders. After school club just opened this year. I spent all my wages at one point on childcare for my twins.

Covid hit and now any illness and we get chucked out of nursery.

I can’t send my poorly children to my mums. For obvious reasons.

I end up arguing with DH about who has the more important work day. Eventually one of us will book holiday.

Also, I have 3 kids. If we get a tummy bug or chicken pox it can last ages and ages as each member of our family goes down with it. I mean a simple tummy bug could easily wipe a fortnight off our schedule. And sometimes it’s one thing after another… all those germs from nursery and school. Not to mention any accidents they have that might need me to collect from nursery.

I’m not saying your employee is right but the whole system is shit. And I’m counting down the days til mine are old enough to not need me so much if they do get sick I can still kind of get by.

I am very lucky I can work from home 100%. Nightmare if I couldn’t. Sometimes I wonder if our life isn’t really compatible with both parents working. The system is just against us at all steps