AIBU to think that flexible, family-friendly jobs do not exist.

[MothersRuinart]

A job where you don't get penalised for having to stay home with a sick child, either by having to use annual leave or take unpaid leave. A job where you can leave earlier or start later at a short notice and be able to work up the lost hours another time. A job that would allow you to work from home regularly and/or often and/or at short notice. A company or a work environment that doesn't resent you for having to miss workdays due to childcare issues. Where you're not overlooked for a promotion because you're a parent.

I've never worked for a company like that, neither have any of my friends as far as I know. Tbf, most problems would be solved if more companies allowed their staff to work from home more often or were more flexible with their hours.

I understand that there are jobs where flexibility is not an option but I think most jobs could be much more flexible than they are now.

And what noone has mentioned is that people with dcs, (especially women) often miss out on the promotions and pay rises their child free colleagues receive. So yes you don't get the 'luxury' of taking three hours off to wipe bums and clean up vomit, but your employer sees this and rewards you accordingly. And in relative terms this money is worth a lot more because you only have yourself or two people to spend it on. Good for you

Parenthood is not a lifestyle choice.
Without parents we would have no human race, nor be in a position to choose whether to have children or not.

My job is pretty flexible.

I wouldn't offer more flexibility to a parent than a non parent though. So if someone without children was WFH for whatever reason, I may not be able to offer it to someone with children that day.

They are hard to come by. But they do exist. I have one. My employer is my mum, but she offers the same to all her staff. Basically we're contracted to a certain number of hours and as long as we fulfill those hours she doesn't mind when. So the full timers would generally do Mon-Fri 9-5, but if they need time off for whatever reason they can make their hours up at home or come in on the Saturday. We're a small digital marketing company and if you've any marketing experience, including copy writing, then we are actually looking to fill a position

I've never worked in a job where a colleague would actually cover my workload if I wasn't there. It would just wait until I came back. Obviously in jobs like nursing etc someone has to do your work if you're not there but in a lot of jobs it will just pile up until you come back. Or a colleague will deal with one or two very urgent things to keep a client from taking their business elsewhere but everything else will just wait.

In our business we are very careful to ensure that we are flexible, it's how we keep good employees. We also do it for all employees, men and women.

I find that you get so much back from people if you give them the flexibility to arrive later or leave early, or work from home or take time off at very short notice. We certainly wouldn't dock someone's salary.

We are a small business, if we can do it, anyone can.

I've never even worked somewhere where temporary cover is arranged for maternity leave, it has always been a case of splitting the work amongst other colleagues. Which is fine if there are ten on the team and not so good if there are only two of you.

My jobs has flexi time and the boss is also flexible with core hours, being able to take time off at short notice or working from home occasionally. This is for everyone, not just people who've been there for a while. I presume parents do have to take unpaid leave or part of their annual leave to look after children unless they've built up the flexi. I don't see how it would be fair for them not to.

No promotion prospects in my job, but there wouldn't be somewhere else without the flexi either because of the nature of what I do.

"I've never even worked somewhere where temporary cover is arranged for maternity leave"

This has been 2 of my recent jobs and also a few of the jobs I've interviewed for.

user1487175389 but the childfree seem to have 3 hours spare regularly to cover parents.Children are not the 'top trump' of responsibility you know! I know because I have been the one pressured to stay on in the past because someone has gone home who was on a late shift. I have been told at short notice I was going to work away for 3 days and I had to fund care for my pet - even though it wasn't my position that required it, it was for someone else job. I also was told that this working away meant being up all night to cover the responsibilities needed but that I was required to be in for my own role at 8am. So I worked my own role the day before, I then was up all night then was expected to drive from this place to work and do another full day. Luckily my colleague who came to relieve me said "Ive told them you can't leave until 9am so go home and get a shower". I still had to work on no sleep but at least I was able to freshen up and get something decent to eat. How is it fair that childfree are expected to work 31 hours straight because someone with children who was meant to, said no at the last minute? Did that colleague cover my role? Nope she stayed in work and had time to do tidying while I did her job and my own. Oh and it was unpaid! No one else time is more important than another persons'.

Whilst my job did get in a year's worth of cover for my maternity leave, there was no mechanism for covering the annual leave I took either side of it - which meant the service had to close for four weeks before and three weeks after!

Obviously no one normally covers my annual leave, but I generally take it in small amounts rather than blocks, and at quieter times of year.

But that's why we have European working time directives. (at present anyway) so employers can't get away with the kind of thing you've experienced. By law you're supposed to have a minimum number of hours between shifts. It's hardly the fault of parents of your employer treats you this way. Sounds awful by the way.

It was - she wanted time to go to watch her child get an award for his football that evening so refused to go. Had I refused to go then I a school trip for 30 children would've been cancelled. Thousands of pounds would've been lost - no pressure at all! I had to go on an overnight trip - with a focus on the solar system so were up all night with telescopes. Drive back to school to teach my normal class while said teacher swanned off to her football presentation and then sat tidying her classroom all day. Had she covered my class I would've had to prepare for her so it would've meant more workload too. I had to pay for my dog to go into kennels. So the impact on colleagues is massive. Please don't underestimate the impact that taking time off has on other work colleagues. And working time directive doesn't apply to teachers it seems!

What you are describing is poor management Clarence.

She can only behave like that if allowed to behave like that by management.

It's not the working time directive. It's Working Time Regulations 1998 (Amended 2007).

Directives are not law until passed as Acts and our laws in U.K. are sometimes broader than the provision contained in the directive. As per WTR.

It was the impact of colleagues on others that caused it. Management had no choice to cover as they were accompanying the visit anyway. Had I said no the option was cancel the trip and waste ££ and parents paying out £X for nothing wouldn't go down well. It wouldn't have been put on management had the colleague not shit on us. Shifting the blame to management in a very difficult situation is unfair - she caused the situation by cancelling at the last minute.

Not rtft so someone may already have said this (sorry if they have) but I'm in the civil service and, certainly in my department, the rules are absolutely explicit that while working from home can be absolutely fine, combining working from home with looking after a child is completely unacceptable. Yes we have flexible working, yes you can negotiate alternative working patterns yes it's easier to negotiate unpaid leave for holidays but it isn't perfect and will always require some level of compromise on all sides (worker, manager and coworkers)

It does sound like your colleague was being unreasonable on this occasion (and management should have agency staff they can call on for exactly these sorts of situations). However most working parents I know wouldn't dream of taking time off unless their dcs were actually ill and there was no-one to help.

Non-parents get those hours to do whatever they please, - that is a perk of being child free. That's their down time to unwind from work. Therefore they are working considerably less hard outside of work hours. Therefore parents should be cut some slack during working hours.

I know a lot of people have already commented on this obvious madness but... It makes it sound like children are an affliction distributed at random (like eczema or something!) and so we should all feel sorry for the sufferers! Becoming a parent is a choice - and does anyone really not know beforehand that it's a choice that takes away a lot of your free time?

Agency staff wouldn't do residential trips - they are not contracted for it or paid for it. They do teach and that is it because that is all they are paid to do. Neither are regular staff - hence the reason she was able to back out as residential are an extra that happens on the kindness of staff.

It also doesn't acknowledge that lots of people have the following additional commitments:

Caring responsibilities (maybe a partner or elderly relative)
Studying for qualifications, some of which may be requirements of the job
Another job (possibly these people are just about scraping by)

To just name three.

My job used to be quite family friendly but then management changed (a family man and a family woman replaced by one man who works full time while his wife is a sahm, and one single childless woman) and now all the part timers are being treated like shit and pressured to go full time. Employer (public sector) has a policy of flexible working, equality etc. but that seems to have been thrown out the window

Management had no choice

Of course they had a choice. Insubordination or refusal to follow a reasonable management request is usually gross misconduct. So is going awol and refusing to work.

The management had a choice. They could have disciplined and dismissed. The chose to indulge her and it became your problem Clarence.

Totally not on but totally management responsibility.

Yes management could've cancelled the trip but each child would've lost £400. Not something working parents would take kindly to. Yes I agreed to go because I didn't want to let the children down. These were the same class who had had a trip cancelled at the beginning of the year because there was an outbreak of sickness where they were due to be staying.

That isn't what I wrote at all. I didn't say management should cancel the trip or even mention the trip at all. I stated how an employee should be allowed to get away with misconduct.

I think you are a star for stepping up and I would probably do the same (have done similar in the past as it happens) but it sounds like management handled it badly.

You are looking at this the wrong way round (in my opinion). You need to be thinking big picture and who is responsible and accountable once personal responsibility ends.

Management are paid and paid extra to manage. The clue is in the name.