To feel my employer are suddenly discriminating because I have a young child?

[Tayo23]

I work for a government dpt where it is not usually commonplace to be able to work from home. On 19th/20th March when the schools closed, I was asked in work if this would impact me in regards to childcare - it does, and I was offered a laptop to work from home which I gratefully took.

At this point all my colleagues (except for a minority shielding or in similar positions) remained in the office every day as there were a lack of laptops for them - it was BAU. I worked remotely from home, with colleagues in the office uploading my (and other remote workers) work. A week later my office closed (a non-critical govt dpt) however I have continued to work from home since then although my colleagues without laptops were not working at all. My partner was furloughed a week or so after my office closed so has been a great help keeping 4yo entertained.

At the end of April my office advised those without laptops must return to the office one day a week on a rota basis to upload, (to maintain social distancing). I was not asked because it was understood I was working from home. Last week they provided everyone in my office (around 80 people) with laptops. I have now been told that because everyone else now has a laptop, I am now too required to work one day a week in the office, and spend the rest of the week working from home.

My partner returns to work next week. I now am in same position as end of March before lockdown re childcare. They are allowing me to take special leave for the one day a week I can’t come into the office, for 4 weeks. After then I have to use annual leave. I have repeatedly stressed I am willing to continue working each day from home. I just simply cannot leave my child at home alone. My partner is unable to get paid leave off and we would struggle without his pay.

AIBU to feel this way, they understood initially and accommodated me which I was extremely grateful for. I have worked each day whilst my colleagues barely have done until now, but now they too have the facilities to work from home, the goalposts have been moved.

I am not happy being told when to take AL when I have not asked for any time off. Do I have a leg to stand on here if I take this higher than my own line manager (who robotically regurgitates things without much compassion or consideration for people’s individual circumstances)

I can’t see how you are being discriminated against under the Equality Act 2010?

I think they are being reasonable in their offering (speaking from a HR Advisor role).

If you are in a trade union perhaps speak to them too.

@Tayo23 this is what you said earlier which makes it sound a bit like sour grapes:

‘The only reason I’ve brought up that I was working and they weren’t is because they have all had time ‘off’ from working’

To go back to basics: if at the start, one of your colleagues had gone complaining to the manager that ‘Tayo is allowed to work from home so why can’t I?’ the manager would rightly have pointed out, ‘Tayo’s circumstances are different. Adjustments have been made to take that into account.’

Can you not see that to suggest that you ‘deserve’ time off because your colleagues (in your eyes) were getting it is as ridiculous as it would have been for colleagues to complain that you were being given preferential treatment. If you go to your manager and ask for time off because your colleagues got it, they should quite rightly say ‘no, their circumstances were different. The office closed, there were not enough laptops to enable them to work at home so they were forcibly having ‘time off.’

We’re all agreed that treating people equitably doesn’t mean treating them all the same. It does feel rather like you’re happy to take the different treatment when it goes in your favour but seem rather aggrieved about the different treatment your colleagues got when they were forced to stay home without the means to get on with their job.

They might not be discriminating against you in a legal sense but compelling you to work or take AL when you have a young child and no childcare isn’t reasonable or fair. It’s it not against the rule then the rules need to be reconsidered. For that reason I’d escalate this, even if you don’t get the outcome you want for you, pushing back might make it easier for the next working parent.

Caleano

I’m not sure why you’ve read into that so much the way you have. You’re drawing your own conclusions behind simple sentences and disregarding me when I’ve said that isn’t the case. I said they’d had time off from working, as they were not doing any work at that time. How else should I have phrased it? at the time I genuinely thought (and said, many times to DP etc) “most people are going into the office one day a week. They’ve got the rest of the week off because they haven’t got laptops yet. But to be honest that’s fair enough, they can’t all go in every day because of social distancing, and I’ve got the means to work from home and they haven’t, so not sure how else it could be done”. So to keep telling me I begrudged them this or am suddenly ‘niggling’ at them really is incorrect. My point has nothing to do with me being jealous of my colleagues - it’s not their fault they were no laptops left - it’s also not mine either. I brought it up to demonstrate that I have been working every day for weeks - and am more than happy to continue doing so.

And had one of my colleagues approached our employer and complained I was wfh and they weren’t the response wouldn’t have been as you said. It would’ve been “Tayo asked for one because she has no childcare, we need people to keep working rather than being off so she got one. They’ve ran out now but we’re ordering more for everyone else so you can all wfh. We’ll contact you when we get them”. The office shut down 2 days later.

Again, my OP was about AL and if my employer was BU asking me to take it when I wasn’t asking for time off - just to simply continue doing what they have expected me to do all this time (whilst in the exact same circs)

I suppose a simple way to look at it is: what did you expect the employer to do when the office was forced to close and there weren’t enough laptops for everyone to wfh? Would it have felt ‘fairer’ if the employer had said ‘right, Tayo you need to stop working now (even though we’ve given you the means to work) because other people aren’t working?

Can you not see how ludicrous that it? It’s as ludicrous as if other colleagues had said in the first place: ‘its not fair that Tayo can work from home and we can’t’
Or if they were now saying, ‘Tayo’s getting special treatment again, she’s getting 4 weeks special leave to not have to come into the office one day a week and we’re not getting it.’

Can you not see that in actual fact your employer, far from discriminating against you has made (and is continuing to make) adjustments for your circumstances?

Cross posted. So what you’re basically saying is, unless the employer allows the special adjustments they’ve made for you to continue indefinitely, they are guilty of discrimination?

Well, they aren’t.

Nope. Didn’t expect that at all whatsoever. Why are you continuing to disregard me. I am NOT nor have I ever been complaining that I was working when they weren’t - as I’ve just said. 100% was and still and willing to work every day. I asked for a laptop to work from home - I got one.

Please stop hammering the same point and completely disregarding my responses. My post was about AL.

I think that the point raised above re the employer’s responsibility to create a safe working environment and minimise potential virus spread is a good one- would it not make more sense for them to designate a core “in office” team who worked permanently from the office and just keep everyone else at home?

Not indefinitely no. But to take away the provisions they put in place, before the national (not just specific to me - that would be different) situation has changed I felt was unfair. Important for me to point out if we weren’t in these times, and say, my sons nursery closed, then I wouldn’t dream of posting this because ofc I would BU. But the government has closed down all childcare through no fault of our own. All parents are in the same boat. What are we to do?

Well, take the AL many posters have said. And yes, I have admitted I will be.

We could play a drinking game based on every time @Caelano harasses OP with ‘Can you not see...? 🤣 I can see 4 instances on one page. Weird axe to grind.

ArgumentativeAardvaark

That’s what they were doing whilst the majority of people were home. Mainly lower grade admin staff who do similar things. They’ve now decided everyone else must come in presumably because they were fed up of paying them to do nothing. Now they all have laptops, I’m not sure why they haven’t reverted back to the core admin team. They don’t really do ‘logical’ things and rather for the sake of it. Another reason why I felt them asking me to go in suddenly could’ve been another example of this.

They’ve now decided everyone else must come in presumably because they were fed up of paying them to do nothing.

Therefore be grateful that you’ve been fully employed and can prove you are worth your salary when redundancies come knocking. I wouldn’t jeopardise that position.

@SharonasCorona be my guest, if it gives you a thrill

@Tayo it sounds like a very badly run Dept, I grant you! But you need to approach it from that angle. Why not suggest to management that a small admin team so the in office stuff? It’s completely the wrong angle to try to claim discrimination because it simply isn’t

@Caelano no thrill, but it’s very weird that you keep harassing OP when she has already said she will take her AL. Very odd!

@Caelano

Why not suggest to management that a small admin team so the in office stuff?

Already suggested by @ArgumentativeAardvaark, RTFT!

@Tayo23 you could also discuss the possibility of your employer furloughing you. It doesn’t sound very doable to be on a 5 day working week and full pay with no childcare for a 4 year old. Even the most self reliant 4 year olds need some level of care and interaction. Some form of childcare will open up before long anyway

Caleano

It’s a government department so furlough isn’t an option. They don’t seem to mind/care that people are working whilst looking after their children.

It sounds like there’s probably a whole host of issues then around productivity as well as how people are deployed

I’m not sure why they haven’t reverted back to the core admin team. They don’t really do ‘logical’ things and rather for the sake of it.

It seems like they are being driven by some misguided sense of fairness rather than coming at it from a “how can we do our utmost to minimise spread of Coronavirus”. As a government department you’d think that controlling the virus would be their guiding principle.

"The government took away childcare"

I've seen this trotted out so many times by posters (nearly all parents) but it's simply not true. The government took away alternative childcare. As parent you are the foremost childcare for any children you have, you can try and find alternative childcare in the form of nurseries or babysitters but ultimately they are your children and you are the childcare unless you can find someone else to do it/outsource it. The government have closed many industries right now which people employ to do things for them that they would otherwise have to do themselves. It just means people have to start doing more things themselves rather than outsourcing them by paying someone else to do them.

"You were working while others were not, so i would say you have 'banked' some additional days which puts you in a reasonable negotiating position when it comes to being given some flexibility now."

This flexibility will be afforded when OP inevitably can't keep up her level of productivity, and possibly hours logged too, whilst being in sole charge of a 4 year old.

The government took away alternative childcare. As parent you are the foremost childcare for any children you have, you can try and find alternative childcare in the form of nurseries or babysitters but ultimately they are your children and you are the childcare unless you can find someone else to do it/outsource it. The government have closed many industries right now which people employ to do things for them that they would otherwise have to do themselves. It just means people have to start doing more things themselves rather than outsourcing them by paying someone else to do them

This goes without saying and is the reason I felt like I was in a difficult position being asked to come into the office . At present ‘alternative’ childcare is not an option.

Looking after my own dc isn't called Childcare. It's called Parenting.

Sometimes parents need childcare.

Did you consider a nanny or babysitter @Tayo23?

Sometimes parents need childcare.

Quite.

Childcare is pretty much fundamental to being able to do jobs properly.

So much so, that prior to this crisis, the necessity of it was often written into contracts in situations where there may have been a danger that would be overlooked.

I am getting heartily sick of the gaslighting going on now, where its importance is being swept under the carpet, and we’re all expected to just carry on like nothing is different.

OP forgive me as I'm late to the thread as I read it:

• your husband works M-F in a job that has to be done in the workplace.
• your husbands employer is not the best and would not accommodate any type of flexible working e.g compressed hours over 4 days or working a Saturday.
• your job is also M-F and you have been successfully WFH since March
• your employer has introduced a new manual process requiring 1/5 th of the team to be in the office each day so the rest of the work can be done at home
• the manual process has to be done M -F and can't be done at the weekend.
• to be 'fair' your employer is requiring each employee to be in the office 1 day a week
• you have a child but no child care until nurseries etc. open - once they are open you would be able and willing to work one day a week in the office to 'take yor turn'
• your department have offered one day a week paid special leave for the next four weeks and then asked you to take annual leave - this does not make sense as you can and are willing to WFH so why pay you not to work just because you can't get in to the office one day a week.

Do you have any HR Covid 19 guidance on your depts intranet? If so read it to see what it says about not being able to attend the office due to child care and/or your circumstances. The requirement for everyone to be in the office one day a week seems to be driven by presanteeism and 'fairness'.

I can't see if you have contacted your HR department so I would suggest you write to them and request temporary flexible working until you have child care in place.
Confirm you are:

• currently working 5 days a week from home and this is working successfully
• the proposed change from 1 June is you WFH 4 days and 1 day in the office
• the 1 day in the office is to cover a new temporary manual process to enable everyone in your team to WFH 4 days a week
• due to lack of childcare you are not able to work 1 day in the office but can continue to WFH 5 days
• whilst you appreciate and have accepted the offer of paid special leave 1day a week during June this is an unnecessary expense to dept as you are happy to continue to WFH 5 days a week
• as soon as childcare is available you would be able to join the rota and work in the office 1 day a week (or even 2 days to make up for the weeks you couldn't do)
• you are requesting temporary flexible working of WFH 5 days a week until childcare is available.

The worst they can say is no, in that case you are no better off and will have to use your leave.