To insist my staff have childcare in place?

[willandgrace]

Several of the staff I manage have young kids, we've supported them all year to WFH with kids at home. We are still primarily working from home but as schools/childcare are now open I have said that people need to have appropriate childcare in place while working from home, the same as they would have if they were office based (as they all were previously) - some of the staff are not happy about this but AIBU?

Hi OP
I think you need a discussion with your staff to see what would be reasonable and feasible - both in a group and then follow up individually.

I think the pandemic has exposed the fact that there is a lack of high-quality affordable childcare and people have all sorts of arrangements in place that aren't necessarily possible at the moment e.g. reliance on grandparents.

There will be pinch points around holiday time as it isn't business as usual e.g. at the moment none of the holiday clubs are running near me. It was downright impossible to get a childminder before the pandemic - let alone now.

I think it is not unreasonable to say that come Sept you expect people to have childcare in place and have some degree of flexibility before then but it has to be discussed with you.

[quote Sansaplans]@FrangipaniBlue would you performance have been affected if you had a pre school age child home full time whilst trying to work?[/quote]
Absolutely because preschoolers more or less need constant attention.

But that's why the OP can't just put in a blanket rule; her employees will have different age children, with different temperaments and different needs!

Sorry I don't know how to quote posts but just to respond to the point made about 'it suited you to have them run ragged when it benefited you' - I don't think the situation has ever actually benefited employers has it? We have been incredibly flexible and have paid people in full throughout even when they openly admitted they couldn't work their full hours because of childcare issues, we supported them all completely but are getting to a point where we are thinking it can't go on much longer

YABU

You employ professional people doing a professional job. Let them get on with organising aspects of their home life which I don’t see as being any business of anyone but themselves.

Broadly speaking, YANBU but bear in mind that a lot of holiday childcare isn’t available and not all wraparound care may be fully operational just yet. So if this relates to people WFH while also supervising kids on Easter holidays who have no holiday childcare because it isn’t available, I would show some understanding - although I would perhaps ask about the viability of using annual leave. But childcare provision is not fully back to normal (paid or family childcare) so I think you may have to retain some flexibility for a while longer.

@TheKeatingFive

We'd have to take annual leave or unpaid parental leave in this situation. I thought that would be the same for everyone. If we're not able to fulfil our job requirements then we have to take leave.

There’s only so much AL to take though and large amounts of unpaid leave aren’t good options for employees OR the company.

I think some flexibility should be required in situations like these. We aren’t in normal times and working parents have been asked to do the virtually impossible when schools/childcare were shut.

This is of course totally separate from pisstakers who just want to get out of paying for childcare.

The thing is though, policies like my employers easily separate the piss takes from those who aren't. The piss takes will suddenly find childcare when their only other option is unpaid leave. Then that would leave only a very small amount of people on reduced hours or unpaid leave and obviously those would be genuine. I'm not saying the situation wouldn't be shit for those people but I don't think employers can be expected to pay people full pay for half the work done or whatever either.

I don't think the situation has ever actually benefited employers has it?

I expect it did benefit employers as an alternative to furloughing staff with childcare responsibilities, which was another option for them.

The thing is though, policies like my employers easily separate the piss takes from those who aren't. The piss takes will suddenly find childcare when their only other option is unpaid leave. Then that would leave only a very small amount of people on reduced hours or unpaid leave and obviously those would be genuine.

Very shit situation to put those people in, through no fault of their own. They’ll remember that kind of treatment in a national emergency.

"it can't go on much longer"

It'll have to go on for as long as it takes for social distancing and childcare bubbles exist.. the end is in sight, but you'd be unreasonable to do it right now this minute.

A few people have said about some childcare not being available as it was before, but people not WFH have to manage - no schoolteachers are teaching with their children playing in the corner.

@NoProblem123

YABU

You employ professional people doing a professional job. Let them get on with organising aspects of their home life which I don’t see as being any business of anyone but themselves.

How many children are you looking after when you're pretending to work?

It's ridiculous to say it's not the employer's business if workers don't have childcare in place during working hours. Of course it's her business!

@Jellycatspyjamas

It had zero impact on the quality of work I was delivering or my performance.

Would you have been able to have hour long conversations with people about very sensitive issues, eg child protection investigations, counselling for abuse or trauma, discussing finances etc and been confident your child wouldn’t overhear or disrupt?

I can easily do the “office” part of my job with no impact on productivity, I couldn’t do the “people” part of my job without childcare. You can’t compare sensitive people work with office based tasks.

My entire job was based around meetings with clients and once DS was over about 6 he wouldn't disturb me unless urgent.

In terms of sensitive conversations then absolutely the OPs employees should be able do these undisturbed.

If there are employees who are regularly being disturbed during these types of sensitive calls then this should be raised with them as part of the performance management process.

But chucking in a blanket rule just smacks of an employer who is shying away from having the proper, if on occasion difficult and uncomfortable, performance conversations with their employees.

@Excilente

"it can't go on much longer"

It'll have to go on for as long as it takes for social distancing and childcare bubbles exist.. the end is in sight, but you'd be unreasonable to do it right now this minute.

Totally agree.

Tell them they have to come back to the office. They’d have to sort childcare then.

No your employees childcare is not your responsibility. I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t work properly whilst looking after kids.

I despair, so many women doing the patriarchy’s work for it. 😞

Eh? Dh and I have split fairly the days of annual leave we've had to take to keep kids home when waiting for Covid test results. Everyone I know is doing the same.

@honeylulu

I manage a large team of staff and I'm seeing a lot of piss taking going on. Staff members who work part time reducing output, missing meetings and not taking calls because they are distracted by children. Yet still clocking off at 3pm on the dot "because I'm part time and don't work outside my contracted hours". None of these expect their husband's to share the child wrangling as he has a big important full time job.

I work full time and have two school age children and I've just had to manage by making up time early in the morning, evenings and weekends and insisting my husband does a fair share. If I was part time it would be a doddle.

Some of those team members have recently been put on performance review and are wailing about how unfair and stressful it is. My sympathy is limited.

This ^. On MN, every single person is far more productive working from home, though.

I think focusing on output and productivity is better than requiring proof of childcare. It's not discriminatory to focus on the former.

As for 'you'll lose staff', well, a lot of people are unemployed now, people can be replaced and who wants to retain staff who aren't measuring up to the job?

@TheKeatingFive

The thing is though, policies like my employers easily separate the piss takes from those who aren't. The piss takes will suddenly find childcare when their only other option is unpaid leave. Then that would leave only a very small amount of people on reduced hours or unpaid leave and obviously those would be genuine.

Very shit situation to put those people in, through no fault of their own. They’ll remember that kind of treatment in a national emergency.

Possibly, but then my company still had to make redundancies due to decreased revenues, so there were always hard decisions to make. At least people would have their job held open for them and be able to work some reduced hours that they could fit around the kids. Paying more people full time who weren't productive would have an effect on the ability of the company to operate and could have led to more redundancies for example or forcing us all to work reduced hours, both of which have happened in other organisations.

This isn't like ensuring that there is no unfair sex disparities in the work place. People who are whinging are asking the op to mitigate the sex based disparities in their own home.

The only way to resolve this, would be to ask them to come back to working in the office after the easter holiday.

@DietrichandDiMaggio

A few people have said about some childcare not being available as it was before, but people not WFH have to manage - no schoolteachers are teaching with their children playing in the corner.

Our friends in those situations, they either have a childcare bubble (which we can't have) and are placing elderly relatives at risk, are breaking the rules by having multiple childcare bubbles or one parent has given up work. We don't have anyone for a childcare bubble, and I could give up work, but for the sake of 2 hours a day, seems a little ridiculous and quite frankly the NHS can't really afford to lose another doctor.

Think about the industry you're in too. In my industry it's very hard to recruit and they didn't put anyone on furlough. People were encouraged to work flexibly so the hours were done, but in reality it did put more pressure on parents than on the company. These are not normal times and if you have good people who might have long careers with you, it might be sensible to be more lenient than you would be otherwise.

I’ve been WFH/flexibly for years, you need childcare . My DC are at holiday club right now, I’m lunching with Mumsnet

At least people would have their job held open for them and be able to work some reduced hours that they could fit around the kids.

And struggle to pay their bills as a result Shitty behaviour in an unprecedented situation when workarounds could be discussed. Takes all sorts though, huh?

@MindTheBumps

I think it's awful for employers to think like that. Most parents I know that have worked from home throughout the pandemic have been really putting themselves under stress and pressure to keep things going for their employer and also feeling so guilty for not being as good or available for home schooling as their furloughed peers.

It suited you to have them run ragged whilst it benefit you but not that they have the Easter holidays to get through with limited childcare available. How about a bit of recognition that your staff are dedicated and didn't go off sick with the stress of it all or all take parental leave and leave you up the creek.

No one would choose to have young children at home if they had any other option.

totally agree with this. our children have paid the price for us prioritising keeping our employers functioning over their home schooling.

we usually rely on a combination of before / after school clubs / childcare trades with friends and the odd afternoon with grandparents. none of these options are currently available to us.

YANBU. My manager has a young child and basically takes the piss every day leaving for an hour at the end of the day and the start of the day.
God knows how he would have managed to take the child and collect it if covid hadn’t happened and if he wasn’t WFH, the office is 40 miles away.