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?

@user1487194234 Your post was a useful response to the OP. There was no sense at all of you "being Lady Bountiful".

That was a very unfair comment lauriemarlow

I found the reference to ‘allowing’ wfh objectionable.

If I’ve broken any guidelines, feel free to report the post.

Employers do have to allow WFH though?

It depends if a job can be done from home and the nature of the jobs eg some people have to be on conference calls for 7 hours a day and cannot do that with children around so those people may need to hire childcare in their home in order to work from home or they may need to go into the office.

Unless people have kids who are higher risk and doctors advise they stay at home, I think employers should not be too flexible. Ie If kids are supposed to be at school, they should be there as per normal. This will help society get back to normal.

If schools only accept kids some days/ part time, employers will have to lump that I suppose!

Sorry, I was replying to laurie and I meant

Employers do have to "allow" wfh, in that they need to agree to it, it isn't a right.

@LaurieMarlow I don't think you broke any guidelines, so your post would not be remotely reportable. It was just an unnecessarily mean and sarcastic interpretation of a harmless and factual response to the OP's question.

if you could keep existing, competent, trained staff by giving them the ability to work evenings or split shifts from home why wouldn't you?

Because our customers (40% public sector, 30% corporate, 20% professional services, 10% third sector) work 9-5 and expect us to be available when they want us?

Laurie
No interest in reporting you
I stand by what I have said but am sorry if Ai have upset anyone
Difficult times all round

Thanks Etopp and others

@ArgumentativeAardvaark just 31 minutes ago you responded to someone saying that many parents could work from home without detriment by saying:

Only if their kids are older than 14.

How am I misinterpreting that?

That was a general comment about what I think is likely to be the make-up of the “many” described by that poster. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe that you are an exception to that- you’ve explained it, I believe you, I believe that it may work for others too, but I doubt that your situation is all that common. Not sure what else you want me to say?

In any event, the point that @user1487194234 was making was not that her company had allowed WFH, it was that they had allowed wfh while in charge of children.

My employer does not allow this in “normal” times. (When my colleague applied to be allowed to wfh one day a week they made her sign to say she had both childcare and back up childcare arranged.) Therefore, anyone who was aware of this policy and did not have a partner available to do childcare while they worked might well have wondered if they were going to have to take annual or unpaid parental leave. It did need to be stated clearly.

Yes and for confidentiality reasons etc a lot of things have to fit into place to let people in some jobs work from home. It is very hard to generalise. Even back in 1999 I was writing a section in a law book I wrote that covered the legal issues of working from home - not a new issue at all.

As far as I am aware there has not been a change in any of the CV legislation which says an employer must let someone who has children work from home although they are encouraged to do so. A lot will depend on the work eg I can only do conference calls when the other people are around (and one today is in the UK but if it were Japan or the USA that is always an issue of time zones and you might have to work late or early). If you are keying data in you might be able to do that from 8pm to 4am (after a full day of childcare with the toddler although I doubt your accuracy would be that good if the toddler then gets you up at 6am every day so not every employer will think that can work)

Are you suggesting that all those 40% can do their jobs to the contractually-required standard with kids there? That as long as you are able to work from home it is possible to keep your kids off and still perform at work? That is fantasy.

What evidence do you have to the contrary @ArgumentativeAardvaark? You present no evidence of anything except your opinion throughout this thread. Yet everyone else is living in a fantasy world, well you are living in your own world which cannot accept the views of others. It seems you started this thread to berate and mock others who don’t hold the same opinion as you. What do you gain out of that?

I’m laughing about the stories of the lawyers and how “unsustainable” it is. You know a lot of people work like that anyway?

This can't last- employers have generally been v flexible with working from home/shorter hours or irregular hours.

Once parents make a decision not to send their children to school it is likely to cause difficulties with their employers if it causes them not to able to carry out usual duties/come into the workplace

I think employers won’t necessarily know which school years each child is in. Unless employers ask which year each child is in and where they go they won’t know who COULD go back and who can’t.

So many also have one child due in on 1 June but other children not. Can’t leave 7 year old dd to go to work!

Also there’s reputational risk for employers to consider. Employees are much more vocal now on Twitter, Instagram etc and I certainly would avoid future use of any local businesses who dump parents over needing or wanting to wfh in this situation

@crikeycrumbsblimey I’ve managed it by working weekends and long hours. Hard but have done it

Employees are much more vocal now on Twitter, Instagram etc and I certainly would avoid future use of any local businesses who dump parents over needing or wanting to wfh in this situation I take rants on social media with a pinch of salt - how on earth can you tell who is right and wrong?

@Onceuponatimethen
Exactly - it’s hard work but some of us will make that choice.

Me too, but if it’s a number of people complaining they have been sacked then the odds are some potential/previous customers will notice and be put off.

Sorry me too was to @RitzSpy

I don't understand why there is so much nit-picking:

• some jobs can be done from home and some can't
• some which ideally aren't, have been adapted for the crisis period but this isn't a long term option
• some require e.g. 9-5 hours and some can be flexed into evenings and weekends
• some people don't have children at home or have older children and can give 100% productivity
• some people are having to juggle work and childcare and are not giving 100%. They are not furloughed and are therefore reliant on employer's good will and reasonableness. Not to mention that if colleagues if they're having to pick up work.

It makes perfect sense that this tolerance probably won't last, and especially not if childcare options are available, but an employee chooses not to use them.

@MaggieFS

& some of us are at home with younger children and are managing to retain productivity!

I do think it comes down to productivity and ability to do the job. We have one woman who works for us, she's part-time with primary kids - but I don't think that would ever stand in her way as she is mind blowingly fast and very bloody good at her job. Lunch time we ask her for a piece of analysis and it comes back to us sooner than we'd expect and it's superb quality. We'll bend over backwards to keep her happy because she's a bloody genius.