To ask my employees why their DH’s aren’t pulling their weight when it comes to childcare?

[TheHoneyHunt]

So I know that my DH and me are fairly unusual in that we have a very equal approach to childcare and household chores. To be fair I wasn’t born lucky. My first H was an abusive freeloader, and I swore never to make that mistake again. However, I’ve now got so used to this way of living that I now find it normal.

I’m now lucky enough to have got to the stage in my career where I manage a large team. These are well paid jobs, paying £40k+, but do require some out of hours working.

Two of my team are on maternity leave. In discussing their return to work they both seem to be assuming that they will do all the childcare. Every pick up, every drop off. Their DH’s don’t seem to appear in the equation. As the employer of the mother, I am asked to accept all the flexibility required. And yet they are still talking about wanting to be treated as equals with their male counterparts.

If the want to be treated as equals in the workplace, AIBU to question why their childcare arrangements aren’t equal?

(I know there is an official “HR” answer to this...which will definitely go along the lines of “don’t even go there”....but what I want to know is am I being unreasonable to think this)

I have n’t read the whole thread but I’m wondering if the op, like a lot of employees, is annoyed she has to deal with requests for flexible working and is dressing it up as concern for women.

Wow, you sound like the boss of the place I just left, who just assumed that I had a useless husband, when actually I was the one who had the car when my son needed picking up from Nursery after the snowy period back in March. She also thought that me not being able to go to the Xmas do due to (then) baby DS serious separation anxiety was just me being a big girls blouse, rather than me not wanting to distress my DS and the rest of the family for the sake of a night out. I left for a reason, and from what I near my boss is really struggling to replace me. Don't be that boss OP

Oh and yes YABU. You'll find it far more effective to treat your staff like human beings who have a life outside of work, who will work harder when they have an accommodating boss, than treating them like bots

Because in most couples the man still earns more than the woman AND there is still a strong cultural presumption tha childcare duties belong to women.

As an employee you could start to change things by encouraging flexible working for all staff, promoting the importance of work life balance and in particular recognising caring and family commitments within the organisation and making senior posts and promotion available on a flexible or part time basis for those who want it.

As an employer!

If I have a baby with my boyfriend we have already agreed to split parental leave. He already has his son from a previous more than half the time so I know how involved he is as a parent. I might do the first 4.5 months and him the second.

YABU .
Flexible working patterns dont mean a peson is incapable of doing their job well or unworthy of a promotion.
Moreover just because a particular set up works for you it does not mean it works for others or is the best solution for them. It is just the best solution for you as an employer who does not want to adjust to a world where flexible working is on the increase and has been proven to increase productivity. In some employment sectors where it is prevelant surveys show that it leads to a deeper sense of job satisfaction and commited employees resulting in lower levels of staff turnover.

OP certainly isn’t being unreasonable. Women’s career progression is limited due to outdated attitudes that amplify female responsibility for childcare duties over their male counterparts. Why is this even a controversial thing to suggest? More of us should be discussing this issue.

Flexible working patterns dont mean a peson is incapable of doing their job well or unworthy of a promotion.
Correct.
But there is a difference between someone working flexible hours, compressed hours etc as defined by a change of contract and one parent disproportionately wanting to come in late on odd days, leave early, swap hours regularly, then have odd afternoons and mornings, then it's a childcare emergency etc.
Someone who was doing the latter probably would get bypassed for promotion because they've made their position clear, they're unreliable.

In my job it's typical to work late. I will be splitting nursery pickups and dropoffs equally with my partner, but I will still want to leave work at what is considered an "early" time simply so I can see my child before bedtime. It may be that some of these women are just trying to do that, or perhaps that it makes sense for them to do evenings whilst their partners do the morning dropoffs. But I do agree - it's bizarre that a lot of people seem to think it's the woman's responsibility to take care of the kids. Unfortunately employers need to proactively support their male employees to pick up some of this slack too, so that it starts to balance out.

Interesting single post from the OP. Nothing at all like throwing a grenade and running...

Maybe so Annie but it’s prompted a really interesting debate.

Rosetintedglasses: so why aren’t employers encouraging men to work these super-productive flexible child-friendly hours? Why aren’t men clamouring / demanding to do so, so that they can be better employees AND take an equal responsibility for their children?

MaisyPops also true but if the employer ammended the contract accordingly its unlkely such disruptions would occur.

I worked for an incredibly rigid employer for two years my unpaid absences and sickness was high.

I now work for a parent friendly flexible employer no absences in 4 years and two promotions.

KnotsInMay its not the employers job to encourage men to work flexibly. However in my current company the men that work there do also. Its up to the individual to determine what work pattern makes them the most effective. For some its one thst offers balance for caring responsibilities for others its the option to do compressed hours so that they can travel to another city to see their partner for 3 day out of 7.
The reason are not just down to parenting.

@KnotsInMay one of my friends' got carried away before marriage with changing her last name. She didn't hear her husband saying he didn't care if she kept it the same as her husband knew the hassle of changing it plus knew her name is linked to her business reputation. He actually repeated that fact quite regularly but my friend and her mother got carried away with name changing. It was only went she started moaning about the problems around it, did she finally hear that he would have been very happy to have a wife with a different last name.

@glintandglide if you don't have a workplace where flexible hours work for your customers you need to make that very clear before people even take the roles. Looking back over the last 15 years I've refused to work for employers/companies who have no flexibility in their working hours even though I don't have children, as I like spending my non-working time doing other things rather than sitting in traffic. In one role were the managers moaned about people working flexibly they soon stopped moaning when they realised they could utilise myself and another guy, who came in early, to show one of their large customers they had people around for 14 out of 24 hours in the UK.

My DH earns over twice as much though so there's no contest we have to prioritise his salary.

Sorry to pick on a comment from way up thread. Attitudes like this ^ is what prevents equality in the workplace.

What the OP has said is totally valid. In my job, it is always the mother who takes time off. And then people wonder why women are valued less at work. If men did do half then it would become more normalised and probably make flexibility at work better for everyone. (Nothing really changes until men realise the change won't be detrimental to them.)

Why are pps getting shirty and defensive rather than saying you are right and tomorrow dh can sort out the drop off/pick up?

My husband works in the emergency services and taking last minute time off due to a sick child is possible but a complete nightmare as it involves lots of jugging around, drafting in someone else to cover him from another station as they absolutely cannot fall below the minimum staffing levels.

I, on the other hand, worked as part of a very large team in a call centre where it wasn't exactly life or death to lose me at short notice so the decision was made between DH and I that I would be the one to drop everything and rush to school whenever we had the school on the phone asking us to pick up a sick child. My manager didn't know our agreement and if they had questioned this, they would be told that it was none of their business.

Like a PP said, my family always comes before work.

Rosetintedglass
What happens at 230 when 80% of the team all go to do the pick up, does every thing stop? Do clients stop needing assurance or contact? Do people do the hours at home from 230-5pm later? How do you know the work has been done for those hours and not half arsed on the laptop whilst watching corrie?

I'm all for having alternative working patterns (and had flexi time with the option to work from home) but think they should be generally more formalised rather than an expectation of coming and going as and when, wanting days swapping and and when etc.

I got handed my head last night and this morning, with all kinds of veiled threads about unlawful working practices, so I have my tin hat on!

Our company is definitely non standard consumer B2B, and it isn't family friendly in the sense of offering work that fits around family life.

But after the shit storm that rained on me, I wanted to put on record that the person who formerly did the office management job for 15 years or so (before our first female employee arrived) had a very ill wife, and needed several days leave every month to do transport to hospitals and specialists all over the UK for her care. For all the people who have castigated our SME for un-family friendly flouting of rules (none broken AFAIK) this gentleman was allowed unlimited free time on full pay to make the care work. Plus his full holiday entitlement, without question. We haven't managed a holiday together in several years, but hey ho, we are the bad guys. It ain't always quite as simple as employees would like to think.

But wasn't he on the other side of the world with bodyguards

MaisyPops thats based on the assumption that every single member of staff have the exact same needs. Some do school run in the morning and finish late some start early and finish early as said above some do long days over a shorter number of days and yes some do work from home in the evenings as I have done many times and not once would I say Ive half arsed it.

People are able to find a balance that doesnt require them to just drop everything every other day for a home emergency they are rare. In my old place to be frank I often had emergencies-a pressing migrane (so I wouldnt miss a school play etc). In my current place I simply swap things around to manage it.
Perhaps in a company where every staff member has to be micromanaged in order for them to do their job this is not feasible but in ones where they are treated like adults committed to the task at hand it does.
However I do accept that certain sectors like the medical proffession or emergency services make this less feasible

this gentleman was allowed unlimited free time on full pay to make the care work. Plus his full holiday entitlement, without question.

That’s interesting. So this man was afforded unlimited time off on full pay to care for a relative and full holiday entitlement without question, but you openly admit to binning applications from women because, in your opinion, they would want time off to care for kids. If that’s not even more proof of your blatant sexual discrimination then I don’t know what is.

Xing - stop digging. Seriously.

Xing - but that's part of BEING an employer. Taking the responsibility for ensuring your customers are served WITHOUT breaking enployment law (which going on what YOU said is what your company IS doing).

Yes you have the right to run your business in the best way possible for your customers, and of course to make a profit BUT you have a responsibility to your employees as well. You have a duty of care to them and you have to adhere to the laws in the country your business is based in.

That's great what you did for that employee with a sick wife. I'm sure he was very grateful too.

But that's one employee. How long have you been in business? How many employees have you had in total?

You don't have to answer me of course, but it is i think an important issue.