Not a family friendly work environment

[Landladymews2]

Hi,

I currently work for a company which doesn’t really understand some of the issues that working parents face - most people don’t have kids and those that do seem to be hands off dads that don’t get it or have forgotten what it’s like when they’re young. It’s also a client facing role so that makes it fairly demanding. In the long run I plan to find another job but I have to stay here for another year otherwise I have to return my maternity leave pay and I’m wondering how best to get through this year.

I’ve thought about talking to my manager but honestly even though he’s a nice enough guy he’s just clueless. For example recently asked me to join a client meeting (whilst I’m still on maternity leave) with one days notice as a KIT day. I explained that it’s not easy for me to arrange childcare at such short notice but I managed to do it and I didn’t even get any thanks for it.

I’m worried about how I will manage things like when the nursery sends them home because they are sick. DH company is great in this respect because there are lots of parents and they understand these things but I can’t leave it all to him.

Has anyone had any similar experiences and how have you dealt with it? Did you try to change things in your workplace or just accept them for what they are? If you did change things how did you go about doing it?

It might not happen (much) - mine only had 3.5 days off sick from nursery in almost four years, which we split between us and used annual leave. What's the expectation at your work - take annual leave to cover child sickness or use the unpaid parental leave (which has to be in blocks of a week, I think?).
What do you want your employer to offer to be understanding? You may need to have a conversation on your return about your ability to work different days etc - eg I work set days part-time but also have to have some flexibility to swop one or two occasionally if an event is on a non-working day. But this was agreed in advance and I got at least six weeks' notice to arrange a swop day at nursery (3 allowed per year) or for DH to take day off to cover.

Franky? You'll have to leave the bulk of it to your DH. I'm not in the UK but aren't there regulations about taking time off for sick kids?

I think I need them to accept that one day a week I need to finish at 5.30 to pick up my kids from nursery. Although my contracted hours are 9-5 it’s the kind of place where everyone is available whenever the client wants (especially because we work accords different time zones) and everyone works late.

Would also like some understanding about the sickness thing especially with covid and needing to take precautions. I’d like them to understand that with very young children you can’t work work/have meetings if they aren’t being supervised by someone else. This was demonstrated by my manager expecting me to be available for a meeting whilst I’m still on maternity leave.

Do you work for a law firm op? Sounds like it. Can you have a meeting with HR and or manager. Make it clear that x day you will leave at 5.30. Could arrangements be put in place for some wfh. I know you can’t work with baby there but if baby sent home you could work evening when DH there. I wouldn’t dwell on Illness if it happens share load with DH. If you are looking to move on to somewhere more family friendly keep looking they may be willing to negotiate the repaying of maternity pay (especially if they want rid of you as you are no longer able to work as before and in line with workplace culture).

Ask for a meeting to spell it out.

How else will they know.

Start looking for another job asap, if they are that difficult.

As long as you take time off to look after a sick child, ie not say you are WFH when actually you are doing childcare/are not available for meetings, then you should be fine.

The leaving at 5:30 when you are supposed to do 9-5 is absolutely ok. Just communicate with your team, and maybe lark it as «out of office» in your calendar.

The meeting during maternity leave is not acceptable but now that you have done it at least you can use it as an example of your flexibility if they start being annoyed.

Do your research too. Your company may have policies in place for these things and even though the culture doesn't support them it will be useful for you to know what they are so you can refer to them.

My partners works is very much like yours so literally everything falls to me (I'm very lucky that my team and managers are accommodating to family life). If you're only planning on staying the year, I would have a brief discussion about your expectations to let them know what is reasonable for them to ask of you, but then just simply say no I can't make that meeting/I have to leave early today to pick dc up/I'll be working from home due to dc sickness today. I wouldn't ask for permission, but just let them know what's happening. Also, if you're dh company can be more accommodating, it might be worth seeing if he can pick up the slack two times and you do the third, so it's not all on you either - makes sense if he's not going to get an earful if he needs to tend to the kids.