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?

I don’t know where you are OP, but covid has absolutely fucked us parents with young kids in the U.K. I feel sorry for this woman at risk of loosing her job over it. No one wants this situation to happen to them.

She’s not at risk of losing her job! I wouldn’t sack someone over this, it’s more about finding solutions that work for both of us.

Covid is unusual. Usually the grandparents would probably try to muddle through (for instance, if they caught a cold).

What do you pay her? Is it enough to make it worth her while to pay for a full-time nursery place (£70-90 per day around here)? If not, the reality is that putting her child into formal childcare really isn't something she's going to do to be able to work for you.

For low-paid jobs, family childcare is often the only way parents can make the numbers add up.

Of course the dad should be splitting it. But often they don't, either with the excuse of earning more or because they're a bit shit and see childcare as a women's issue. Yes, that penalises mothers unfairly but that's the reality of the world we live in.

She’s not a high earner, but well above minimum. I don’t think nursery would work financially for her though, I can totally understand why she doesn’t use it.

And in answer to your question, we have zero family support usually (family live too far away) so I take time off or wfh if our childcare fails. But that's usually because my DS is ill so I couldn't leave them in a creche/nursery or with an unfamiliar babysitter anyway. My employer has to suck it up because I work in a niche but underpaid sector and it would be very difficult to get anyone else to do my job. But I'm assuming you could find someone more reliable?

No children so no first hand experience but others in my team at work have. Most take the odd day off every now and then if DC is ill last min etc. We are allowed 10 days unpaid parental leave per year and the company also offer a load of emergency childcare hours through a specific provider. During covid lockdowns, there were allowances made for parents having no choice but to work and look after DC when WFH however, nurseries, child minders etc are all open again. When people WFH, you are to WFH, you cannot use this as means of free childcare. I assume if you have a DC of an age where they can largely look after themselves you might be able to just do it and say nothing but you would not be allowed to look after a baby or toddler whilst WFH and it would likely be quite apparent if you fell behind with tasks

Not everyone has family who would help. My family wouldn't help me. I paid a fortune for nursery etc. I would have had to take this as holiday or unpaid parental leave.

I don't know what you want from her.

Her childcare is having to isolate due to COVID.
Unfortunately her childcare is her family so she can't now ask her family to step in and help.
You've said that, financially, paid childcare on a permanent basis wouldn't work for her.
Emergency childcare is extortionate and many people just don't have that kind of money sitting in the bank to use last-minute.
You won't let her WFH even though part of the role appears to be doable at home.
She can't bring the child to work for safety reasons.

So what do you expect her to do? She has no choice but to take the time off.

We used to do a mixture of:

Taking it in turns between DH and me - parental leave, annual leave, WFH if we were both home and could tag team.

Paid a babysitting agency that employs qualified childcare workers. Used this with early start and finish times between DH and I to keep the hours down.

Asked grandparents for the odd day when child was better but not ready for school/childcare. But we decided at the outset that paying for childcare would lessen the risk of a similar problem

It is a nightmare, and although DH and I did split the responsibility he was loathe to “waste” annual leave or give the impression to his employer that he was having childcare difficulties as I assume in his company that’s something the women have to deal with.

@Ozgirl75. I am going on your username here. Are you a member here smallbusinessassociation.com.au/meet-our-team/sbaa-team/sbaa-services/. They should be able to help.

Perhaps here. business.gov.au/news/free-legal-assistance-for-employers-and-employees

This is precisely why I put my DDs in nursery and not with a childminder or with family. I used to work with a colleague that used a childminder and she seemed to be permanently off because the childminder was ill, or their DC were ill, or they were on holiday. I'm afraid it does grate on other members of the team after a while if they're left to pick up the slack and it also gives other working mums a bad name if employers view them as unreliable.

As others have said, she is entitled to unpaid leave but I would be having a return to work interview with her when she's back to try to explore if there are alternative options. 2 or 3 days EACH month is a very high absence rate.... look at the Bradford Factor calculation and ultimately if she's been there for less than 2 years and has that high an absence rate already you could get rid of her. That's in theory though and hopefully something can be worked out but I think having that formal return to work chat can stop people endlessly taking the mickey.

Lone parent here. It is so tough but I have loads of back up with family and friends however covid isolation would screw me over. I'm lucky really, we all had it at the same time so I was off anyway but if one of the kids got it, I would have to be off (luckily my company pay us to isolate with someone in the household even though they don't have to).

My main childcare and my babysitter both had ops at the same time in the summer and I took 2 weeks annual leave due to no other options as I work long shifts but I was able to plan that. She does need to find a suitable alternative or alternate time with her partner.

Compared to the families I know with young children, 2 or 3 days a month to care for sick it isolating children is not a high absence rate at the moment, normal to low I'd say (although if OP is in Australia o guess they'll have different patterns of seasonal illnesses ATM). I say that as someone who averaged less than a day a year off sick pre children.

Gran may be unavailable as looking after her husband or still feeling not great even beyond the 10 days.

If employee is not taking advantage then unpaid leave should be enough incentive for her to sort back up plans in future but doesn't help you right now unfortunately. If gran is regularly unavailable she needs to look at nursery/childminder etc.

Tricky one. Usually I would say she is bu, but the past year has been a nightmare in terms of kids being sent home and isolation. I am very fortunate that dh and I can both wfh and usually take turns, plus our kids are older. In this case her partner will have already had 20 days off so I can see why it might be tough for him to help.

What I can’t understand is why the usual childcare won’t be coming back after isolation period? I also can’t understand why she can’t use a nursery for at least some of the period. Yes it may be too expensive under normal circumstances but I would not expect to take nearly 3 weeks off for childcare reasons unless my dc was seriously ill. I’m in the UK and vaccinated close contacts no longer have to isolate unless showing symptoms. Is that the case where you are? If isolation for close contacts is mandatory they I’m sorry but yabu.

@LuaDipa

Tricky one. Usually I would say she is bu, but the past year has been a nightmare in terms of kids being sent home and isolation. I am very fortunate that dh and I can both wfh and usually take turns, plus our kids are older. In this case her partner will have already had 20 days off so I can see why it might be tough for him to help.

What I can’t understand is why the usual childcare won’t be coming back after isolation period? I also can’t understand why she can’t use a nursery for at least some of the period. Yes it may be too expensive under normal circumstances but I would not expect to take nearly 3 weeks off for childcare reasons unless my dc was seriously ill. I’m in the UK and vaccinated close contacts no longer have to isolate unless showing symptoms. Is that the case where you are? If isolation for close contacts is mandatory they I’m sorry but yabu.

There’s waiting lists for most nurseries-then you have to do settling in sessions and sign a contract. I don’t know any nurseries where you can rock up last minute in a pandemic.

OP, I think you sound like a really nice employer just trying to get the right balance.
I don't think there is an answer though, any consolation, my kid was off school all of last week and has to be off now till Wednesday at least as he has some kind of virus which is giving him the shits. I feel very stressed about sorting out time off between my partner and I, I'm half torn between letting my work down, but if I go in, my bfriend will have to take the hit which means we lose more money. Don't know what to do!
It's never black and white, is it?

I also can’t understand why she can’t use a nursery for at least some of the period. Yes it may be too expensive under normal circumstances but I would not expect to take nearly 3 weeks off for childcare reasons unless my dc was seriously ill.

Good nurseries are unlikely to have spaces available for emergency childcare. Why would they, when they can get full-time children attending and paying full-time rates?

She might have more luck with informal/creche-type settings but the availability of these will depend on where she lives. They're mostly available in urban areas and charge a premium for emergency one-off childcare.

An emergency sitter will be around £100 or more a day to cover an 8 hour working day plus commute. So that's £1,500 at least for three weeks.

A nursery as a permanent solution has benefits in that if a staff member is off, the nursery stays open - unlike a childminder or grandparent - but the downside is that the child will be mixing with many more children and will therefore pick up more illnesses. Nursery contracts, even outside of a pandemic, state that any fever, diarrhoea, rash has mandatory isolation at home. IME the first 2 years at nursery were constant fever, vomiting bugs, colds etc, until the DC had become immune to many of the bugs circulating locally. In Covid times, fever, cough, sore throat etc are going to trigger isolation and testing, so even more time off.

And you can't just drop off a child in another nursery, even in normal times. There's a contract to be signed, months to years of waiting lists in busy areas (we had our DC on nursery waiting lists from birth), and then 'settling sessions' over a period of weeks, often starting with nursery key worker visiting you at home, then child playing for an hour in nursery while you're there, and then more sessions whilst you gradually withdraw. So even if you could find a nursery with emergency spaces (non-existent here, hence the waiting lists), you still couldn't just drop the child and run...

It's a common misconception I had to explain with my org's HR department.