To ask for another week of furlough?

[Fasttrack321]

I was furloughed at the start of lockdown and have not been working since end of March. I have been looking after my 2 young children full time as my DP has been working full time. Luckily DP's job is secure and their employer is flexible with WFH.

My furlough pay is capped at the limit of £2,500 and has not been topped up so my income has been about half of my normal pay. I am very grateful to have been furloughed rather than lose my job.

My employer wrote to me on Friday and informed me my furlough was ending and I was expected back to work on Monday. I discussed this with my DP (who is classed as a key worker, not front line) as the kids are only in part time childcare. DS is 5 and in Reception, DD is 3 and in nursery 3 days per week.

My DP is working full time 9-5 and cannot change working hours this week at such short notice. So cannot do drop off and pick up for the children (nursery and school are about 15 minutes drive apart). DP also cannot WFH and look after DD who is 3 and needs constant supervision.

This week will be impossible to juggle, but from the following week we can manage with flexible working hours and the help of a grandparent.

AIBU in asking my employer to extend my furlough by one more week? I checked the government guidance and there is a specific provision for this which allows furlough for those with caring responsibilities. I would only want this for 1 additional week.

I am incredibly grateful my employer has asked me to return and I do want to return. I have been there years and have a good reputation for being one of their top employers and managers.

My only other option would be to use a weeks annual leave, but then I'd have none left for the rest of the year and summer holidays when I would need to take leave to cover childcare again.

Most of the company were furloughed and now being brought back bit by bit.

YABU - get back to work immediately.
YANBU - take an extra week furlough to sort your childcare out.

Sorry OP but loads of parents who have not been furloughed and have been working from home have been juggling home education and/or demanding toddlers/ babies since March.

Its either annual leave or your partner is just going to have to find a way to deal with it. You are in a good position with school and nursery picking up a lot of the slack.

Your employer may have given formal notice on Friday, however they must have been having informal conversations with you and the other employees along the lines on "we'll be needing more people in from Monday 6 July as operations will be ramping up etc etc".

Allowing those conversations to completely pass you by should not mean that you can continue to stay at home while the taxpayer pays you a wage, given you have a DP who is working from home. The fact that your DP is unwilling to take leave at short notice to look after your children is no excuse.

I think it is tough with such short notice however you should not be asking the taxpayer to pay you for any more time than is necessary. Also parents across the country have been wfh while having kids at home, in some cases both parents and continuously since March! Yeah it sucks but it’s what’s happened. If your dh can work from home then I’m not sure why he can’t take a bit of time off to pick up/drop off and do the best he can, just for a week. His employer should be more understanding, given that presumably he’s been able to work without interruption for months.
If that really isn’t possible ask for unpaid parental
Leave.

So the partner is wfh? I missed that

It’s so unreasonable to be given a weekend to sort out childcare. We need at least a month to manage a change in work pattern!!!

The furlough thing is always going to be a touchy subject. I’ve fallen through the gaps and have had zero government help, so I’m not sure how I personally feel about someone asking about another week.

I would discuss with the employer that it’s too short notice to arrange childcare, and see if extending furlough, AL or unpaid leave are possible. An emergency nanny in lockdown is gonna be hard to come by!

You keep saying your dp can't look after the dc whilst working from home but have yet to explain why? What makes them so special / different to all the other thousands of people that have been doing this for months? Many of whom also can't do childcare whilst wfh but are doing so anyway because they have to

@ Gobbolino7825 Exactly! Most of us have just had to figure it out!

I do agree that OP hasn’t been given much notice! However many families have been in this situation since the closing of schools, nurseries and lockdown over 100 days ago.

I still don’t know when I will have ANY childcare as that’s our schools now on their summer holidays and nurseries have yet to open in Scotland. My childminder is also not working yet as she doesn’t feel comfortable. Eve

Our children get far more TV than we would have usually allowed. We sit in the kitchen with our laptops whilst they paint, or do other crafts. They make appearances on my conference calls (I’m in calls most of the day 😔). It’s not ideal, productivity will have most certainly suffered but we get on with it.

Key workers have not been getting access to childcare here either if ONE of the parents is able to do some work from home so your situation doesn’t really seem to be out of the ordinary right now.

You keep saying your dp can't look after the dc whilst working from home but have yet to explain why?

I just don't understand this particularly as they must have a role with some degree of autonomy (due to high salary).

I think both yout employers are being unreasonable. Yours, for telling you on Friday you are expected back on Monday, and your DP's, because for emergencies, any key worker employer that I can think of, would be more understanding of the childcare thing, even at a high level. Everyone at my 'key worker' employer, at all levels, was thrown without notice into a WFH plus childcare situation and we were told to muddle through. We have had kids gate-crashing meetings etc. My kids' schools did not want them to have a key worker place because they could safely be in the house while we worked from home.

But as you say him working 9-5 without flexibility is non-negotiable we cannot know what the reason is for this. So I would try to extend your furlough because of the lack of notice and your caring responsibilities if the guidelines say this. Or take a week's leave which doesn't seem fair to you. I am not sure why emergency parental leave for either of you is not applicable due to covid if being furloughed for an extra week is not acceptable. It suggests they expect people in this situation to apply for extra furlough.

@Fasttrack321

The government guidance to employers on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (referred to as furlough) is clear:

“Employees who are unable to work because they have caring responsibilities resulting from Coronavirus (covid-19) can be furloughed. For example, employees that need to look after children can be furloughed”.

You keep repeating this but fail to see the key word 'can't they can furlough you ot doesn't say 'MUST' so its an option not a rule.

Yabu and incredibly entitled. Take annual leave and use it up you cannot have everything, be furloughed and still have leave.

Your lucky you haven't had to work throughout and you still have a job to go back to imagine how your peers who had to work throughout feel.

@Grobagsforever

Your DP should cover and stop belly aching about not being able to rearrange his precious man job, a woman would manage.

So sick of entitled men on lockdown thinking women or the government should cover their childcare responsibilities

I haven't mentioned the gender of myself or DP, but you have assumed I am female and my partner is male.

In 'normal' times we split everything 50/50 and it works perfectly.

I think what is frustrating many people is that you are asserting that your partner, while WFH, absolutely cannot do this while looking after the children. Thus showing absolutely no appreciation of the fact that this has been many people's lives for the past three months. How many people, if asked before lockdown, whether they could maintain their full time job and look after children, would have said "Yes, of course, no problem"? But how many have had to find ways of doing just that, not for one week, but for week after week after week?

You and your partner (whose sex is a secret for some obscure reason) have been incredibly fortunate that you have been furloughed for that time. But nursery is open, school is open, so the childcare reason for remaining on furlough that you keep citing no longer applies, does it? So your partner is just going to have to do - for five days - what some employees have been managing to do for weeks and weeks and weeks now.

@Frozenfrogs86

My brother’s company have part time furloughed and part time brought back parents whose children are only back in school or nursery on a rota/part time. I gather it’s working well. Parents not too stressed by juggling, company getting some work done.

I know this isn't relevant to the OP so apologies for the side track but my relative might possibly be offered this and is wondering how it might work but as it's only been a available for since 1 July she hasn't been able to find anyone who has started it to get some feedback, how do they know it's working well after less than a week? She's worried about the practicalities of hanfing over work etc

@hadenoughbleach

Your employer may have given formal notice on Friday, however they must have been having informal conversations with you and the other employees along the lines on "we'll be needing more people in from Monday 6 July as operations will be ramping up etc etc".

Allowing those conversations to completely pass you by should not mean that you can continue to stay at home while the taxpayer pays you a wage, given you have a DP who is working from home. The fact that your DP is unwilling to take leave at short notice to look after your children is no excuse.

@hadenoughbleach
I haven't let anything 'pass me by'. There have been general company updates but no specific plan of return to work dates. I have asked several times but did not receive any information until I got the call to return to work. My employer has made some quick decisions and has not given me much notice. I'm in the same position as other parents who work there as we now need to scramble for childcare this week.

I think what is frustrating many people is that you are asserting that your partner, while WFH, absolutely cannot do this while looking after the children.

It doesn't make sense particularly And if they took a week off with no notice this week then there would be severe consequences that would negatively affect the lives of others

How can you be on 120k & have no flexibility or autonomy but also be wfh so not in your traditional working environment? It doesn't make sense.

In all fairness your H could take time at short notice, you just don’t want to.
Do what you want to do, if they give you more Furlough fab for you if not take annual leave.

It would have been sensible to have thought about child care issues sooner. Furlough was never going to last forever and OP was aware that other employees were gradually being asked back to work.
As an employer I would be a bit fed up if one of our staff came up with this when I asked them back, especially as some of our staff (with kids) have been working without a break.

YANBU!! People on this thread are nuts. Ask for another extra week of furlough

You’re quite caught up on the fact we don’t know your or your DP’s sex, but it won’t make a difference to most posters’ response - your DP needs to step up and cope with 2.5 days juggling childcare and work, like countless other parents have done. Your DP’s work should just be counting their blessings that you have been on furlough and doing childcare up to now.

OP, leaving aside the morality of requesting additional furlough, I believe another poster has already suggested emergency childcare nannies. Obviously these would be out of reach for many, but as you are high earners this could be an option for you. This was one of the first hits when I googled emergency nanny uk. Fully DBS checked etc. I'd give them a call and see if it's possible to arrange cover for a week.
www.emergencychildcare.co.uk/emergency-nannies/

I'm curious what your partner does that they absolutely cannot WFH and look after the children (rather than prefers not to).

I think you're getting a hard time @Fasttrack321 but it's not a surprise, if you're a regular poster you must have expected that.

Of course it's hard with very little notice to magic childcare in a pandemic, there are some very hard of thinking posters who can't comprehend that because they've had to work from home everyone else can, surely anyone could name 10 jobs of the top of their head that can't be done from home even if you have no children.

The thing that does surprise me though is that it didn't occur to you to ask to take the week as holiday, that kind of suggests you've actually given the problem no thought at all. You have a problem now, even if you'd booked holiday for later in the year you need to prioritise the present and sort anything else out when the time comes.

If your DP is physically in the house at the same time as your dc then that is what passes as being able to WFH and do childcare at the moment.

I am actually feeling really depressed at this thread, that people actually think it has been possible for anyone! What sort of jobs do you imagine we have? It hasn't! But we've done it anyway, because we've had no choice. To the detriment of our children and our work, not to mention our mental health.

BTW - I am not passing judgement on people furloughed. I was initially furloughed myself, but returned at the start of May. The morality I'm referring to is someone asking for additional furlough when on a stonkingly high wage because they'd rather save their annual leave.

@PleasantVille the dp is working from home though...

Annual leave.