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)

No, StealthPolarBear, we send willing volunteers/employees to war zones to fix (for example) remote oil pipeline pumping systems and places like West African free port zones where you need bodyguards to walk home/hotel in safety. My DH is too old to do that any more, but it doesn't mean we compromise our staff's safety.

Rosetintedglass
So to me what that would look like is:
Sarah does 8-3 & takes a half hour lunch so she can get away for afternoon pickup
Danielle does 11-7 because her D'S has regular morning medical.appointments
Suzy does compressed hour so she can have a day off mid week
Etc.

That makes perfect sense to me. Everyone knows the score.

Or if it's a place where people tend to have their own projects have a series of core hours when everyone must be in and then how they opt to make up the rest is up to them. E.g Everyone has to be in 10-3 (unless you're part time or on a compressed hour contract to have a day off) and then the rest you make up as is convenient.

It's the random coming and going and the expectation of one partner always being the one to drop work in it that I find potentially irritating.
If I had a job to do and every few weeks the person I need to see is off for whatever reason at randpm then them being off etc impacts my ability to do my job. Chain of events. But if I knew everyone was in for core hours then it's fine because of only try to see them in core hours.

We are very very small; until this year, we have had four FT employees, excluding self and DH. Not much scope to lose 25% of your capability to maternity leave. We have been in business more than 20 years.

Yes and you’re still using employment law firm 29 years ago. You’re dinosaurs.

from 20

I had a run in late last year with my boss because I wanted to take another days holiday because school was shut due to snow. Dh could go cos he was dealing with a multiple murder. I was questioned why we didn’t share childcare and it was pointed out to me that ds has two parent (thanks I know that) however dh cantjust go “sorry I’m off now” at 5pm everyday because people have literally died. It’s not that he
Doesn’t do his share. He does when he can but sometimes his job is actually more pressing than mine

Choude and I don't think anyone really disagrees. But in general that is not the case and often the more "important" (in terms of being present immediately when needed) are the lower paid of the two. Nurse, teacher, carer.

OP I think you are being entirely reasonable. I despair of women with jobs who take the full childcare burden.

I mean, I despair of their cosseted partners more, but don't be such enablers. You're letting the side down.

Some partners will have jobs that don't bend to childcare pickups, but women as the default childcare-managers? Nononononoooooo....

Some posters have asked about teaching. In my experience it's no different to most other workplaces, although it's very inflexible. If you're teaching a class you have to be there. Male teachers (who are very often parents), rarely ask for less than full time hours but if they do, they sometimes get them. Women often do and sometimes get them, sometimes don't (schools have been very slow to adopt part time working/job shares despite the shortage of staff and some won't let part time staff take on positions of responsibility such as head of department while insisting they travel in for e.g. INSET and parents' evenings on non-teaching days). DH and I both work in education (I'm a secondary teacher, he's a lecturer) and at one point when our DD was little we were both working 0.8 but his was unofficial and mine involved a 20% pay cut yet still having to go in to work 5 days a week. I was working twice the hours he was for half the pay. By unofficial, I mean he 'worked from home' once a week and when he had to go in for an essential meeting, often the admin staff would entertain DD for however long it took. I would not have dared try that! I got the impression he was considered rather heroic by his colleagues - he certainly was by both grandmas - but the fact is, he paid no financial penalty for the flexibility at all (maybe a little in career progression).

The situation sucks for many.

@MaisyPops I've worked for companies where I'm a remote worker some or most of the time. I actually get more work done working remotely as I don't have the distractions in the office where I end up talking to people, having lots of drinks and wasting time.

I remember one company years ago where they first tried remote working with a man with young children, and the managers were surprised that his productivity actually went up. I started work consistently earlier than all the others in that department - again they were surprised that I was more productive than most of their staff who started at normal times. They also had another man who went part-time to share childcare with his wife, and his productivity while he was at work also increased.

The department had to make people redundant. Neither myself or the two other guys with unorthodox working hours/methods for that company were selected. In my case due to the type of contract I was on they should have ended it but they didn't. Instead they chose to make a couple of people who worked normal hours redundant as they weren't as productive.

MaisyPops what I was trying to say is that roles where everyone knows the score as you say, lead to a reduction in the random commings and goings you are worried about. In my experience such things are more common with employers who dont make ajustments so people tend to have little random emergencies to free up the time they need.

BlueBug45
That's awesome if you found a way to make sure things got done and you could demonstrate it to work.
I've always wondered a bit how people check on home working. Nobody ever checked mine when i could some of mine from home and seemed to take the view as long as my deadlines were hit and the project was running then that's fine. I was really diligent but it did make me realise that it would be really easy for someone to say 'oh I just got held up on...'
Nice to hear of it working well and work being able to recognise wjat you have achieved.

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

And interestingly, the poster who earns twice as much as the husband a couple of pages back does not feel there's 'no contest'. Because no penis.

Must be great for your employees having such a lovely, supportive female boss. There's more to being a working female than how you organise your childcare. Too bloody right they want to be treated equally to their male counterparts. Wait...do your male employees not help out their wives and girlfriends with childcare??

Possibly dinosaurs, CeilingFan, but definitely operating legally and still capable of snatching the occasional contract from some famous engineering names.

XingMing - but you aren't operating legally. You are using hiring practices that are the very definition of sexual discrimination. That is breaking the law.

still capable of snatching the occasional contract from some famous engineering names.

Oh so that proves you’re not practising sexual discrimination? (it doesn’t btw)

If people don't apply for jobs..? We don't advertise. Our team look for people they might like to work with. We ask the people they like to chat with us to see if we get on and if there is anything in common. We make a job if we see someone we really like. When did that become illegal?

We make a job if we see someone we really like. When did that become illegal?
I'm no expert on the technicalities but going out of your way to discriminate on sex is illegal. It sounds like what you are doing is designing a hiring system to get around the equalities act.
Or are you going to argue that in your process you 'just happen to only click with people who are male are child free' etc.

Hang on, you’re a small business who can’t afford to cover a 6 month maternity leave.... and yet you can afford to just create jobs for men you like chatting to, even if that means paying them full pay for unlimited time off for sick wives and full holiday entitlement no questions asked? You’re sounding better, and more identifiable every time you post.

All of those arguing that they work part time and therefore their job is less important - when I was only working 3 days a week after DC1 was born, we took the opposite view. My job paid less but was still important to our overall income & it was in a sector where part time jobs were few & far between so I didn't want to piss my boss off. DH always knew my non-working days were his "safe" days as I would obviously look after DC1 whether she was full of beans or unwell and the day I worked from home was also likely to be a day when I would do the nursery dash if needed. The two days I was in the office then DH was the primary point of contact for nursery.

@MinisterforCheekyFuckery and if it were you as a woman with children in his job, what then? What would happen? Would you just have to leave your job to look after the kids or try to negotiate flexible hours?

Returning to work from ML, I tried to make it as equal as possible but I had to jump through hundreds of hoops just to move my working hours half an hour each side to do Nursery pick up and drop off.
DH works 10 minutes from home (and Nursery) so if we ever got the call to collect DS for sickness etc he was the one to collect him and bring him home, as I worked an hours commute away,
I don't think it's fair that the childcare seems to always fall to women, and that's coming as both an employee and a manager. But it is all circumstantial. I'm lucky that DH works for his family business so he can sort of come and go as he pleases but not everyone is in this circumstance.
We now work together and I know full well it DS was poorly, it would be expected of me to take time off to collect him or take care of him.
A friend has all the childcare fall on her as she is in a full time position and her partner is a contractor. If he's not in, he doesn't get paid.

Gender really isn't as much of an issue as this thread has made it. I should have stayed schtumm but thought it interesting to start and now find myself fighting a battle I cannot win.

Traditionally there were very few female master toolmakers and I don't think there are many now because it is the apex of metal machinistry, and since the end of WW2, not many women have taken it up as a career. We chose it as the skill set we sought out because toolmakers were versatile and improvisational in unorthodox circumstances, which worked for us and our customers.

Our hiring practices don't run to a schedule. Most of our people were first casual and stayed because we thought they were too good to lose so we created work for them. Most recently, when our old administrator needed to retire, we employed a person to fill those shoes. We hire very cautiously and recognise the danger of mat leave hiatus as it happened to me, but show me where there is discrimination when an agency gives you five CVs, all female, with similar qualifications for general admin duties. You choose the person who suits your business and who you like and want to work with. And that is what we did. We chose one of the older candidates. Think of it as positive discrimination in favour of old biddies.

If he's not in, he doesn't get paid.

So your friend expects to leave work to fulfil childcare responsibilities and to still be paid for it? Even though she's not at work? Meaning her company takes the hit?