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?

Yes YABU. Typical British miserliness.

Neither me (local government) or DH (NHS) were permitted to wfh. But our boss sent round a memo stating that those staff who were allowed to wfh would not be considered to be working if they had school age children in the house and were the sole parent at home. We were told to take annual leave or unpaid leave!!!

If you do this you need to be careful that you do not get caught up in claims of indirect sex discrimination

I just want to say I would normally say YANBU, but, my situation is, if I was at work, my husband works from home with his own business, and would normally have the kids at home during holidays and after school. I’m currently WFH and I would think my work would be very unreasonable to ask me to pay for childcare I wouldn’t normally have.

Yeah YABU as a lot of holiday clubs, ASC, Breakfast clubs aren’t back yet. Presumably when those same staff have children home for isolation you don’t allow them to be off too so swings and roundabouts. Unless performance is affected you haven’t got a leg to stand on.

I work within a team that sounds like we have similar issues. Dealing with sensitive/confidential information on calls which can last up to three hours. We’ve found that having a planning meeting each Monday morning so we can match up who’s got childcare issues against certain responsibilities etc and put it in a central calendar. That said we’re all using the childcare we do have and plugging the gaps where we need to for example if a school bubble bursts or grandparents who are in a childcare bubble have to self isolate. It’s not clear from your replies what the issue with your to staff accessing childcare is. I think there’s a difference between being flexible because people have to make do with what childcare they can scrabble together and allowing people to get away with trying to parent and work at the same time if they have access to childcare within theory but are choosing to save money and leave.

Does your company offer special leave for parents? In the height of lockdown when we had childcare DH co-ordinated our work/childcare around special leave, partial furlough and some annual leave. We had to proved that we couldn’t get childcare elsewhere and that we’d exhausted all possibilities (our child has additional needs so wasn’t an option just to find a new nursery for them)

I am a childminder, several of my children use me and grandparents for childcare, 1 of my families use me, grandparents and a pre school.

*didn’t have childcare

@Cutesbabasmummy

Neither me (local government) or DH (NHS) were permitted to wfh. But our boss sent round a memo stating that those staff who were allowed to wfh would not be considered to be working if they had school age children in the house and were the sole parent at home. We were told to take annual leave or unpaid leave!!!

school age children

My son is 18 but still school age.

I'll tell him I can't work with him in the house

Ridiculous. Unless a child has special needs they are fine from 7/8 - maybe not all day, but certainly for an hour or so after school.

This is an interesting one. My DD returned to work at the end of March following a period of Maternity leave. She has childcare in place in an excellent nursery which LO loves. However LO has been there 3 weeks and has been sent home twice with instructions to self isolate and have a Covid test. Once because LO had a cough and once because another child had a temperature. So in a period of three weeks LO has missed 5 days out of 13 which my DD has still had to pay for, and then wrangle a 9 month old on Zoom calls. I can see both sides of this argument.

I think it's dangerous territory. Would you ask they had care in place for an elderly or disabled relative who lives with them? I suspect you may have issues regarding discrimination and possibly sex discrimination if your workforce is female.

You are on very shaky ground legally.

Much better to set ground rules as to what performance, privacy and hours are required. It’s up to the individual to support those, not implement your solution to their family arrangements.

Honestly, you tell me what my arrangements have to be, i tell you to go fly and find an employer who is supportive and isn’t draconian.

An employer who tells me that customer or colleague calls are private and shouldn’t be interrupted by kids, is fine. That’s normal. You might be right in some cases that childcare is required, but you are in fact discriminating against parents if you insist childcare is required for kids unde whatever age you feel is appropriate. You have no right to insist on this.

Sickens me that some employers can possibly think like this, in this day and age. Thankfully, i’ve never had to work for one.

With posts like this it’s no wonder there is so much inequality and mother give up work.

Yes childcare is opening up, but you hugely assuming that this means it’s reliable.
Here is a few factors to consider

For a start children can be sent home to isolate at any given point if someone in their school/nursery bubble test positive.

Wrap around care is not as available as numbers have had to reduce for formal places and informal you cannot mix households indoors.

You are only allowed one childcare bubble

Childcare is hugely expensive and the pandemic has affected finances meaning some may not be able to afford the costs

There has been a lot research to suggest that the pandemic is having an effect on gender equality due to the above.

However I do accept that they should not be having small children to look after whilst working but your approach to simple saying get childcare is not realistic to current situation or even in future if you want a diverse work force.

An option would be to maybe look at flexible working hours, or reduced hours.

Like a lot of people have said, childcare isn't as widely available as before. Social bubbles & restricted numbers are limiting spaces.

If a staff member can get a place, but is refusing due to the cost alone then YANBU (unless they've lost income due to furlough/job loss).

If they genuinely cannot get a childcare place, I'm not sure what they're expected to do. It's not their fault.

Ridiculous. Unless a child has special needs they are fine from 7/8 - maybe not all day, but certainly for an hour or so after school

Exactly. I almost started a thread on when did people get their first house key. I got mine at 10, OK I wasn't home alone all day but to suggest that people can't work with primary aged kids in the house is just nuts.

You need to take this up with your company and not Mumsnet.
My daughters school don’t have any wrap around care and due to her disabilities I couldn’t afford a childminder. Thankfully I have an amazing boss and employer. The kind that doesn’t go to mumsnet...

My work has the rule that if you work from home you must have childcare, those of us with small kids pay for nursery.

When the first lockdown happened the nursery's closed and we had to work in the evenings when kids were asleep. We lost hours there and the boss wrote those hours off, however this lockdown is totally different cause we have the option of nursery.

Sounds to me like your staff are trying to save money on nursery costs.

@pollymere

I think it's dangerous territory. Would you ask they had care in place for an elderly or disabled relative who lives with them? I suspect you may have issues regarding discrimination and possibly sex discrimination if your workforce is female.

When fil was taken into hospital last year, yes dh had to take leave as he had his elderly mother with dementia at our house and he couldn’t work whilst caring for her. She kept wandering into his live zoom sessions announcing she needed a wee or she’d start ranting or do something else that needed intervention.

It's not hard to find holiday childcare where I am - are you insanely rural or something? Breakfast club, after school club and holiday stuff running nearly as normal tbh.

I think leniency during the first lockdown was necessary but we are starting to come to a point where people need to be getting back to normal now. I wouldn't expect to be working with kids around. hey need to take annual /carers leave if they have childcare issues!

I agree with you but in our case dh is wfh full time and I am a teacher. Obviously we are not going to pay for holiday childcare while I am at home the whole time. I generally keep them out of his way, we have been going out as much as possible. However there are times when I have had to leave them with him e.g. for half an hour whilst going for my covid jab. I can't promise they won't interrupt him if I am in the loo or helping one of the little ones use the loo, get dressed etc. We would find it very unreasonable if DH's employer insisted we found and paid for childcare during the school hols when he can't go into the office.
He also had to have the 2 littlest ones home with him for over a week when they had to isolate because of a case at nursery. I didn't have to isolate so still had to go into school each day.
Fortunately his work have been fab throughout all of this. They have allowed very flexible working e.g. making up hours in the evening and special leave for situations like isolating dcs when they have been able to dip in and out of work or be contactable by email etc but not expected to attend 2 hour meetings and so on.

@Chocolateandamaretto it depends on the area. I can get afterschool but not holiday cover, summer is tbc. I don't know if they'll have the numbers to run or not.

For all the people saying they would look for a new job,I don’t think that would worry employers too much
We had a mat leave cover post and were overwhelmed by brilliant applications

@Sarahrellyboo1987You need to take this up with your company and not Mumsnet.
My daughters school don’t have any wrap around care and due to her disabilities I couldn’t afford a childminder. Thankfully I have an amazing boss and employer. The kind that doesn’t go to mumsnet...

I did for a moment wonder if this is actually my boss 😂 she’s been saying ‘just do what you need to do and negotiate it between you’ and I thought perhaps she’s been secretly seething about it and come to MN to moan about us all!

I don’t think it’s very empathetic to expect parents to send their young kids into nursery/ childcare and mix with other children right now. Especially if they’re not vaccinated which they probably aren’t. It’s still a very strange time and I think we all need to just do our best. And I’m saying this as someone who this doesn’t even apply to.

Unless performance is affected you haven’t got a leg to stand on

It's often worth reading at least the OP's own posts, even if not the whole thread - they made it very clear that performance has been affected

I also have to agree that (depending on the role) folk leaving to find "a more understanding employer" is unlikely to worry the current ones
Not with what Covid policies have done to unemployment ...