To not want to waste annual leave on unwell child?

[coffeeforone]

DH & I work full time and DC (age 1 and 3) go to nursery. If they are ill we alternate staying at home with them. I can do my job from home but my employer doesn't really encourage it, if DC is unwell and its my turn then I usually say I'll work remotely, doing as much as I can and make up the work in the evening once DH gets home. I don't think they are keen on this as I've done it 3 times since October and I don't get the impression they like it. They say 'ok, as a one off' but try to make alternative arrangements for next time. My alternatives would be:

1. emergency unpaid leave (legal right I think). Can't really afford lots of these days, and I don't think they'd like this either.
2. call in sick myself (I would get paid but it's a bit fraudulent). I'm never Ill myself if that makes a difference.
3. last minute holiday (which could potentially mean needing to cancel booked holiday or asking for unpaid leave

There are no alternatives are there. What would your employer ask you to do?

I get 8 days dependent leave paid a year. Luckily I rarely need to use it. I can't work from home in this role (2 days per week) . I also run my own business on the other days so if there was something urgent I'd swap and come in another day.

In your position though, given that your dc are not yet school age and assuming you pay for nursery all year round I would save 5 days annual leave, both you and dh for emergencies and then if you don't need it book a holiday/ time off at the end of the annual leave year. It's actually easier when they're at nursery. When they get 13 weeks off a year and you're saving annual leave for it it's much worse!

I can work remotely when mine are sick. But mine are much older than yours - 11 and 6. It’s pushing it a bit to be home with a 6 yo and working, so if he was properly ill and needing constant attention then I would ask for either unpaid leave, use a day’s annual leave or perhaps ask if I could work on a Saturday to make it up.

It's frustrating but part and parcel of being a parent. Though imagine how much more frustrating it is for single parents who only have one lot of annual leave to somehow manage these occasions.

What does irk me however is the refusal by some employers to grant working from home when it's possible to do so .... whether that's while an ill child is asleep, or when the other parent's back to take over. So long as the work gets done and you have the kind of role which doesn't require your presence at specific times it feels incredibly petty not to compromise.

I basically want to know is it the norm to have to take annual leave? Some posters have mentioned paid dependants leave so obviously some employers are more accommodating than mine, but maybe that's just a rare few lucky ones.

OrangeSamphire has outlined some common problems.

We don't live in a perfect world.
Many of us don;t earn enough to employ nannies.
Many of us have no family support.
Many of us have children that have children with chronic illness or additional needs.

OP the fact that you are even in a position to be able to choose holidays/social events or leave to care for a sick child makes you very fortunate.

Of course you don't want to use annual leave, but unfortunately you have to. Or, I suppose, take the unpaid leave. They don't have to agree to flexible working arrangements that aren't in your contract.

I am a parent and also a line manager in a senior role
I am super flexible with my team and we have all been there with sick kids as parents - they just KNOW for timings..
BUT
One of my team is always off with a sick child
She lives with (older) inlaws
Her husband works locally (she commutes)
Her child was illagain last week and then she has been signed off sick for a week- that’s a huge amount of leave in a short time so I always start with a ‘is everything ok’ three if is, it’s a very clear holiday or in approach. The unpaid leave piece can be an issue Because then there is more time out of office later and this puts pressure in the rest of their team

It's my employers discretion whether I get paid or not...

As it is I've only ever taken one day in 4 years for an ill child... I earn more than my husband and work mornings so he can take half a day and then go in after I finish... (he starts later then finishes in the evening)

Or I beg my mum n dad...or my in laws have driven across the country before!

In my previous job I had to use my holiday time. In my current job they let me make the hours up otherwise it would be unpaid leave.

I almost always have accrued TOIL I could use.

You need to find an emergency nanny. If you don't want to use leave and you can't work from home with a child then I can't see what other solution there is?

You're a parent. that means saving some annual leave for days when your kid is sick, unless you have family who can help or can take it unpaid. I've never booked to actually be away for more than 2-3 weeks of my 6w annual leave since I've had kids.

or you could get an emergency nanny. but that may cost you more than a day's pay

I can understand why your employers would be pissed off as 3 times since October is a lot. How many days each time did this involve? For context I've had 1 day in 8 years off with dd . If you're taking it in turns with your DP that's 6 sickness episodes in 3 months? That seems a massive amount unless there's underlying illnesses

We also get 30 days leave each, and DH gets the days his company closes down completely in addition not included within those...

I can't take leave at no notice anyway due to the nature of my job - I'm often the only qualified person working and were not allowed not to have a qualified staff member on shift. So nobody actually cares about whether I'm being paid, just whether anyone is covering the shift. So I'd swap.

I had to spend ten days in hospital with DD when she was 9 and was paid for it because she was in a life threatening condition :( If she'd just broken her leg at age 9 it would have been unpaid. If she'd broken her leg at 6 it would have been paid. There's an anomaly in the system which somewhat implies children of 7+ can fend for themselves if ill and don't need a parent with them in hospital unless in a life threatening condition, but it's still better than the UK system!

Lipper force majeure doesn't apply in the UK - I assume you're in Ireland. OP, your options are dependents leave, parental leave (both unpaid) or annual leave unless your company has a policy stating otherwise.

I would just work from home. Poorly kids need very little attention as they're lying down sleeping/watching TV.

But then I have a wfh job where I often do longer hours etc so it's horses for courses.

@catsmother it is because some employees take the piss. They also refuse to be flexible e.g. work later or on a Saturday to make up for lost time.

I work a four day week so use that day if my son is ill. I work hard have had no days off sick aince 2014 ao my boss knows that when I say my son is ill I am serious and not swinging the lead. I dont take the mick at work i general and cover other people's work in their absence. Good will goes both ways. There are other people in my team who take take take anything they can get their hands on but it bites them on the bum when they genuinely need time off and work suddenly become less than generous.

Yes, it's absolutely the norm to use annual leave. But if you do a lot of extra hours at evening/weekend I would expect your manager to use some discretion ie say half a day holiday is sufficient or whatever.

It's an unexpected benefit of being part time, if you do 4 days you get an extra day to make hours up!

My employers are very flexible. Providing you dont miss your deadlines, they don't mind if we stay home with poorly DCs.
My employers have the same view as you OP. We are paid a salary to do a job. Providing that job is done, they aren't too precious about where we do it. They provide us an office to do our job but they've even let one of the team work remotely so they could visit family for a week without needing to take annual leave. The only restrictions are we have to be there for any and all important meetings. We have to dial in for the daily standups, we have to be contactable during business hours (unless agreed in advance), we have to hit all deadlines and our customers cannot be impacted by our working week.
In 2020 I can't understand why employers are so precious about where staff work. If you don't trust them to do their job, then why are they working for you?

In the past my DH and I have both worked from home, and then tag teamed it through a 5am - 8pm day. E.g. I'd work 5am - 1pm, and he would do 1pm to 8, and we'd swap back and forth a few times in the middle. It never seems to work out that well though. Last time he got calls all day and I swore never again.

A lot of people build up a bit of TOIL for this purpose at my current employer.

I generally try to save a handful of leave days per year for this purpose.

I'm lucky enough I can largely flex my hours and make it up when she's asleep/when DH is home but if I can't fit all the hours in then it's annual leave.

I always try and leave at least a week of annual leave to cover sickness. So far that has been enough as my husband is senior enough that he can get away with working from home but I cannot. I’m hoping the sickness will reduce as the children get older but it is always going to be a risk. It’s even more rubbish if you’re trying to juggle school holidays as well as saving time for the inevitable sickness of the younger ones.

Annual leave is for other things as well as holidays.

You seem to think that it's wasted unless you're using it for a holiday, but it's not 'holiday' it's 'leave' for whatever it's needed for.

In answer to the question, 'yes' it's normal to use annual leave for this sort of thing if you aren't going to request it unpaid.

I wouldn't let my team 'work remotely' to look after a sick child because there'll be sod all work going on, if we're being honest. I will help them in other ways - make up time later maybe or if they're doing business trips, or if there's some weekend work needed to complete a project, they can swap that.

I guess you wouldn't be happy with that sort of thing though - if you're insistent that annual leave is only for going away on holiday I can't imagine you're the type who'd turn in on a weekend if needed.

@wannabebetter wow I didn’t know that it didn’t apply in the uk! Thanks wonder why that is!??!