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?

@CandyflossKid Lots of nurseries remained closed throughout January/Feb/early March, others only allowed children of keyworkers to attend.

My friends nursery has been shut since mid December, others in the area have done the same, you cannot simply magic up additional childcare places. Others have closed down completely as they didn’t have the finances to survive.

The preschool attached to my sons primary school hasn’t re-opened.

DH is a teacher. I’d be pretty flummoxed if asked to prove I had holiday childcare in place. I don’t quite see how that can ever have been a requirement!

Echoing everyone else that holiday clubs for primary aged children are off around here - I know because it’s caused a nightmare for several colleagues.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all. The vast majority of childcare is open again so it really shouldn’t be a problem. If you chose to insist that everyone comes back into the office (which is not an unreasonable request) then they’d have to find childcare.

@CandyflossKid It has!! There was a great sigh of relief in January when the Government stated Early Years childcare in England would continue as usual and be open to all, without having to close like we had to during the first lockdown in March last year, unless we had children of keyworkers

No, you are wrong. It wasn’t forced to close but many could not stay open. For some, shielding or employees with their own caring responsibilities meant they did not have the staff available to open. It’s great it was open where you live, but my tiny village didn’t have either of the preschools open unless they were keyworkers’ children and the two nearby towns were very divided on whether their nurseries were open or closed.

You would not be at risk of discrimination claim for expecting staff to have childcare in place. But fighting these things is a PITA.

I think expecting people to have childcare when nursery aged is fine. Many schools aren't running after school clubs so you may need to offer people reduced hours.

Do you mind if people have school aged children around? Mine come in (aged 7 and 10) eat a snack, do music practice and homework then play outside or on the computer until tea at 6 ish. I work later to make up time missed on the school run. Would you expect me to have childcare in place?

It’s not enough that people are saving time and money on commuting by WFH

We’re working from home because the government mandated it during a global public health crisis, not to save the bus fare.

@needadvice54321 regardless of what the government allowed, some nurseries in my area have chosen not to return at full capacity or have folded entirely due to financial strain.

Obviously this is an aside from OPs original aibu and some areas will probably have better childcare options than others. As we don't know where OP is located then it's hard to generalise on what's available to the staff in her area.

@DelurkingAJ

DH is a teacher. I’d be pretty flummoxed if asked to prove I had holiday childcare in place. I don’t quite see how that can ever have been a requirement!

Echoing everyone else that holiday clubs for primary aged children are off around here - I know because it’s caused a nightmare for several colleagues.

It hasn’t. People are making incorrect assumptions. There has never been an onus on proving childcare is in place. However, there has previously been a responsibility and expectation that remote/wfh is done without interruption.

You are being unreasonable as everything is still totally up in the air and normal childcare is not available, it's completely too soon.

@ZenNudist

You would not be at risk of discrimination claim for expecting staff to have childcare in place. But fighting these things is a PITA.

I think expecting people to have childcare when nursery aged is fine. Many schools aren't running after school clubs so you may need to offer people reduced hours.

Do you mind if people have school aged children around? Mine come in (aged 7 and 10) eat a snack, do music practice and homework then play outside or on the computer until tea at 6 ish. I work later to make up time missed on the school run. Would you expect me to have childcare in place?

I disagree. I think there is a probability of it being indirect sex discrimination.

OP i think your approach that if kids are old enough to be left when going into office then its ok for them to be at home while WFH, however the rest need to either be in childcare or parents need to take leave. Its easter holidays now so i would expect all the people who normally take leave now to be off as usual.

I had my dd home during lockdown, nothing i can do, but she has been back in nursery since it opened. If parents used to use grandparents and choose not to now, they need to pay for nursery or childminder.

I think you could also tackle the performance outputs rather than the causes - so call out exactly how you expect work to be delivered, and to what standard, and if that isn't met, talk to each individual saying "X call wasn't up to scratch, why do you think that was ? How will you make sure this doesn't happen in the future?"

This focuses the conversation around specific things someone is or isn't doing, rather than getting into a whole, accross the board, policy change

[quote KurtWilde]@CandyflossKid not where we live. Many of our nurseries were unable to survive lockdown and have closed down entirely. I should know, I worked at one of them![/quote]
Sorry to hear that but it is different to being allowed to stay open though.
In my area - nurseries and childminders have fortunately been very busy. I suppose it depends on your area

I think it's frerquently the case of fitting-in work around childcare.

Expectations work both ways. If you are expecting them to have childcare in place then are you meeting any of their expectations? Have you provided laptops, desks, chairs or whatever is needed to help them work at home? They ensured that they had childcare when they were working in the office and you ensured they had a suitable place to work - are you still keeping to your part of the deal?

I’ve said you aren’t being unreasonable because I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect workers to have childcare in place or to do their job to an acceptable standard. I do think it’s trickier at the moment to separate out folk who are struggling because childcare isn’t available yet, those who see the opportunity to save money on chins are costs and those who are just too distracted at home for whatever reason.

My kids aftercare told us they were closing permanently the day the government here announced they could reopen, it took me two weeks to find an alternative place for them during which time I had no after school childcare. I discussed with my manager how I’d deal with it and we agreed a plan, I kept her up to date with how the search for childcare was going.

I think employers have had to be incredibly flexible this past year with some managing that more than others - my DHs employer has been very difficult but even so my DH has been able to pick up his share of childcare etc. It’s been tricky though and I think it will be for a while yet.

I wonder if having a conversation with staff who have children - maybe as part of a regular 1:1 - exploring how home working is going, any pinch points, your own expectations might be more reasonable than a blanket ban.

You’ve also been dealing with this for a year, so lots of time to properly look at your homeworking policy which could probably do with a review in the current circumstances.

In saying that I think if they would have childcare in place if they were in the office, they should have it in place while working from home, which means you don’t need to specify an age because parents will make their own decisions based on how comfortable they would feel having their kids home alone after school.

Hmm it's tricky. This school holiday for example, holiday clubs aren't running so I don't know what I'd do if my work wasn't fully flexible about this.

To be fair, I've probably increased my work load now I'm wfm as it's not a case of skipping out of the office when I'm done. The laptop is always here and I'm always available (contracted hours are 9-3) but my work have been happy with me working any convenient hours. They've also said I can continue to wfm, especially during the holiday so I don't have to source child care. This has worked out well for me. My parents are getting on a bit and I can't keep relying on then and I live rurally so there's not always an abundance of childcare locally.

I also agree that there would be a risk of a sex discrim claim (indirect discrim). And it's my job to run or defend such claims.
A blanket rule on childcare would run the risk of affecting women more. It would have to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Having productive workers is definitely a legitimate aim but I'd question a blanket childcare rule being proportionate when other options which are more relevant to the stated aim could be explored (ie actually managing the staff).

[quote KurtWilde]@CandyflossKid not where we live. Many of our nurseries were unable to survive lockdown and have closed down entirely. I should know, I worked at one of them![/quote]
And not in Scotland either

"Would I really be at risk of indirect discrimination claim by expecting staff to have to same childcare provision in place as they would if they were in the office?"

Not definitely, but some would have a pretty good case if they chose to make something of it, especially in the case of female employees, single parent employees:
workingfamilies.org.uk/articles/flexible-working-and-the-law-a-guide-for-employees/

What you wrote has glaring overtones of interview questions about intending to have children or not, other caring responsibilities or not, being associated with someone dependent or not - you cannot ask these if you were vetting a potential employee's fitness to do the job, and you should be very mindful of that angle now that your employees are already in the job but impacted by 12-18 months of circumstances that are outside their control.

@womanity

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

Sums up this thread perfectly

It has!! There was a great sigh of relief in January when the Government stated Early Years childcare in England would continue as usual and be open to all, without having to close like we had to during the first lockdown in March last year, unless we had children of keyworkers

And you think everyone lives in England, and only uses nurseries? Don't be so ridiculous

Generally Yanbu but bear in mind that currently for school aged kids in particular there is much less available than usual and it’s much harder to rely on other people due to officially only able to have one childcare bubble

Why would anyone want to wfh and look after young children at the same time??
They're two distinct jobs and often it's not possible to do both to a high standard.

It's really not great for the kids and is really stressful for the parents.

It's also typically the woman that takes on this responsibility which creates other issues with regards quality of work, career progression and mental load.

We have a home working policy that is clear, if you are working from home it is for flexibility, because you can concentrate more at home, a one off appointment etc but it is not contracted, the default is you are office based but can work from home flexibly when you choose. You should not make changes to your personal circumstances that mean you cannot come to work for meetings or when required.

So you don't cancel childcare, you don't decide your family only needs one car if there is no other means of transport etc. You do not have young children at home while working.

The company is currently being very flexible with supporting employees with childcare issues due to the pandemic.

You need a standard WFH policy and also pandemic guidance. If their normal childcare is available they should be using it.