To ask what employers will think when people refuse to send their kids back to school?

[ArgumentativeAardvaark]

Quite a lot of people on MN are business owners or senior managers. The general mood seems to be shifting towards parents deciding not to send their kids back to school when they re-open.

Many employers have, rightly, been happy to make allowances for employees working at less than full ability/hours while they have had children at home needing care. Do you think that tolerance is likely to change if an employee has school or nursery available but chooses not to use it?

Let’s hope not. Jenny Harries said yesterday that the community R is lower than hospitals/ care homes and this is what is driving it up. If that can be sorted out then it may have a positive impact the other way.

Even if schools do go back, it wont be many weeks until the summer holidays and with no grandparent/extended family care allowed everyone will surely be back in exactly the same situation they are in now with no childcare. Unless of course, the government suddenly decide seeing grandparents is miraculously a safe thing to do (and just coincidently very convenient to keep workers at work too).
I don’t trust this gov in the slightest, we are literally pieces on their chess board. Time we all start listening to the real and unbiased experts and taking charge of our own decisions.

www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2020/may/17/reopen-the-schools-or-a-generation-will-bear-the-mental-health-scars?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

This is a good article and surprisingly enough in the guardian....

I think most employee who wfh will be fine as long as they are managing to keep up with their workload - if they can't I can imagine they'd be the first asked to leave if redundancies were needed. For us - if staff can't complete their normal workload due to childcare responsibilities, someone else has to do it - that situation is not sustainable - we'd have to insist the person went part-time (or unpaid leave) and then employ someone else part time, we'd do everything we could to keep them but we can't carry people who can't work for months on end - we're too small.

I work in the NHS and my trust has already stopped paid leave for childcare reasons. Technically everybody can send their dcs to school under the keyworker scheme but in reality there is still the problems of wraparound care not being available and people not using family and friends to help with drop off etc. My dcs use a school bus and although they are “entitled” to a school place I haven’t sent them because I can’t get them there and get to work. They are older so don’t need school as childcare.
It’s had a big impact on people who are now only available for work from 9:30-2:30 but it also has a big impact on the trust to have to pay overtime or employ bank staff to plug the holes. It’s an awful situation but the reality is business can’t indefinitely pay people to not work, not because they are all capitalist bastards, but because they will just go to the wall and everyone will be out on their arse. If by September normal school provision is back then parents can’t expect to be paid to not work anymore than a parent who homeschools for any other reason can expect to. (I assume they actually will be homeschooling rather than delivering someone else’s lessons by then or are teachers expected to teach bathe their physical and virtual classes?)

The current yR, y1, y6 thing helps almost zero people back to work

So basically parents will be screwed first. Like it's not hard enough for those already juggling work and childcare and homeschooling!

It's a huge ask expecting parents of reception and year 1 children to keep up with their full time workload, realistically they'll be in school maybe 10 hours a week once school runs are accounted for. Mine usually attend for 10 hours a DAY.

@sultanarama your part time work solution is at least reasonable.

@OllyBJolly the job will no longer exist as new working practices and changes to turnover will mean redundancies are justified. They have used a fair method to measure productivity working from home, adjusted for those with caring responsibilities and it is clear that productivity is severely impacted so wfh will not continue past a certain point.

Sadly business is not charity. It exists to make profit. Now more than ever measures to decrease overheads are justified (once furlough starts costing money).

It’s an awful situation but the reality is business can’t indefinitely pay people to not work, not because they are all capitalist bastards, but because they will just go to the wall and everyone will be out on their arse.

This. My god, finally common sense.

I think September is going to be the tricky bit.
I think employers will be fairly flexible until then. Knowing childcare provision will be patchy. Furlough still ticking along in some form.

September ironically being as we come into autumn and winter with colds and flu meaning you could be repeatedly self isolating.

Dh's company are looking at many people still working from home if they need to and they are able to. Most of them can in some capacity, and come August the furlough scheme allows for part time return with furlough support which will help.

They're being flexible about who can work in the office and are flexible with the hours and times.

It helps that more than one of the senior partners have teacher spouses, so they know that the headline news of 'schools are reopening' is far from the truth.

It doesn't affect us anymore as dd is 18, but it affects a fair few of the staff in his department. It's been interesting for me - as we work at the same table at home - as I've been able to keep dh informed of what returning to school could be like and that the actual DfE guidance is very different to the highlights in the briefings. And he's then been able to use that information in the partner meetings for his work.

A friend tells me how a couple of lawyers they know arrange their wfh day and childcare responsibilities. One parent does morning, the other parent does afternoon, both do dinner and bed. Then they both work till midnight. It sounds brutal but they make it work and their productivity is unaffected.
Being a single parent would be a bit of a challenge though(understatement).

Not all jobs can be done from home and employers will run out of patience. It was different when we were all in the same boat and HAD to stay at home.
I think once the schools are back it's unreasonable not to expect people to go back into their usual jobs.

I think it's academic (no pun intended) at least until the new school year as and a "proper" return. I have a year 1 child and she's been offered a place for 2.5 hours a day. With the journey to and from school, it barely helps us with childcare/full time hours of work we still have to do. Our offices are not open currently, though we both commute and that definitely wouldn't be possible with only 2.5 hours childcare. Our childminder won't be doing drop off, no after school club and our nanny (usually does 2 days a week) we are still paying but she isn't coming (usually brings her own children so it seems unnecessary risk when we're both at home).

Lots of parents are saying that they have other children who they'd have to drag along on the school run (other kids haven't been offered a school place yet and other parent is a key worker) and one of the schools rules is (understandably) that drop off must be by one adult only. So practically it's not possible for lots of people for their children to go back yet even if they have been offered a place.

Plus the unions may succeed in resisting the June opening.

I am still working but I can't envisage being in the office again for many months. My husband's work has just announced work from home remains compulsory until 31st August.

I think a lot of people will not be sending back so there will have to be some understanding from employers because it won’t be a rare phenomenon

This is naive. It is likely that the employer will go under and there will be no jobs at all.

@peoplepleaser1

I don't disagree. Many companies will be downsizing because they have to. There just won't be sufficient work or cash to maintain the total workforce.

However, here will be people who are unable to work because their children are not at school and it's not possible for them to work productively at home and take care of children. Their jobs will still exist and the employer will require the work to be done. That wouldn't be a redundancy situation.

For us, it's not about profit. We've given up even thinking about that. It's about maintaining the livelihoods of as many of our people as possible. The weight of that responsibility is huge. We're not all capitalist bastards in the SME world.

A friend tells me how a couple of lawyers they know arrange their wfh day and childcare responsibilities. One parent does morning, the other parent does afternoon, both do dinner and bed. Then they both work till midnight. It sounds brutal but they make it work and their productivity is unaffected.
Being a single parent would be a bit of a challenge though(understatement).

I don't think it's sustainable to do this for another 3-4 months. A few people I know doing similar are close to mental breakdown as a result. Moreover this will fuck your immune system so if you do get CV it's likely you'll get it more severely.

think a lot of people will not be sending back so there will have to be some understanding from employers because it won’t be a rare phenomenon

And that's a flying pig with Santa on its back just gone past my window
Get real

A friend tells me how a couple of lawyers they know arrange their wfh day and childcare responsibilities. One parent does morning, the other parent does afternoon, both do dinner and bed. Then they both work till midnight. It sounds brutal but they make it work and their productivity is unaffected

We did this in the school holidays when DC were little

But user school holidays last 6 weeks. And presumably you also took some annual leave during this time.

This situation will last six months if not more, for most families.

I'm not willing to sacrifice my mental health for my job, and frankly if I worked until midnight then got up at 5 I'd be a grumpy, disengaged and shouty parent too.

Employers are ok with that though?

I have a colleague who has been furloughed because of childcare issues.

Which is fine, apart from his kids have always had a place at school as his wife is a key worker.

His choice is that they don’t go, and work have allowed it. It has put increased pressure on me as the person directly picking up his work.

I would agree with anyone not wanting to send their children back is put on unpaid leave for a period of time.

You can’t just choose not to work because it suits you, and hide behind your children as an excuse.

Sorry I posted too soon
Yes am definitely not recommending it for a sustained period
It's no life
We all need to get back to work

I wouldn't send one of mine if mine were those ages, I'd have to give up work, or dh would, or we'd both go pt, i suppose. what planet are some mners on?! No one I know would have the luxury of making themselves unemployed or part time!

Howaboutanewname I work in a care home and we've been told by the LA if a colleague has it we still go to work as normal, we only isolate if it's someone in the household who is positive.

Personally I don't want the schools to go back this quickly because there is a much higher chance of my residents catching it now through the higher potential of my son catching it and passing it onto me without my knowledge. But then the way care homes have been treated (not just in the pandemic, always the bottom of the list) makes me think the government would be happy to kill off the residents of care homes. They would have a reduced care and pension bill.

YahBasic Our school requires 2 parents to be key workers (me and my partner are plus ds's dad and stepmum are) so don't assume your colleagues children could be at school.

In that case is it time to consider ending lockdown for those over 70 who, as many provide childcare after 3pm?

@WaterOffADucksCrack the rule for his children’s school is one parent.