Are your employers still being flexible re childcare breakdowns

[needabreak5]

I have DC2 (age 2) in private nursery 8-6 while, (DC1 (age 5) in school with wraparound care) we both work full time, mix of home and office as required.

Lockdown 1 last April/May - school and nursery both closed. Employers were fully understanding flexible and allowed us to work from home and we juggled working and childcare, making up a lot of the ours evenings and weekends and employer was fine with that.

Lockdown January - Nursery stayed open (thankfully), though we did have to move nursery as our original nursery didnt reopen. School aged child was at home, with us trying to home school and look after him and work at the same time. My employer wasn't as flexible but DH's still was. Didn't do as much home-schooling as we would have liked but we managed.

Now. DH has recently changed jobs following redundancy, new role expected to be on site full time (his new job comes under critical worker). I'm at home and office about 50/50. However nursery are very much struggling to accommodate the children, with DC being turned away as staff are isolating etc. They prioritize key workers but most parents seem to fall into that category. this has happened 3 days in the past 3 weeks. My employer is expecting me to be available working hours 9-5 and go to office when planned its really stressing me out as DC2 is full on so I cannot look after him and work at the same time. Should I still be asking for flexibility from my employer if nursery cannot take him? Or is it too much to ask?

I agree nursery need to pull their finger out.

There was a thread the other day about how shit evening working is for the worker- you must be exhausted!

I do also think, however, some employers have gone into “this is over now” mode, when that clearly isn’t the case.

You need words with the nursery, but yes, we’d be flexible- or at least most managers would. We work from home anyway, so not such as issue but we’re quite happy to see babies and children on internal Teams calls and tolerant of people needing to rush off to stop walls being crayoned or deal with childhood petulance.

Officially we’re very reasonable and in practice even more so. It pays dividends in the long run.

Mine have always been flexible - they kept a temp on longer when Covid hit so my work was covered as I had a 2yo at home.

Just last week my youngest had a random fever so the testing/isolating/waiting etc was all very unexpected. Manager completely unconcerned (except about our health).

My kids have both interrupted board level meetings on Zoom without comment.

Life is up and down - we all need some latitude.

Nursery is taking the piss unfortunately. Just not on to have a first come first served system leaving parents potentially in the lurch at the last minute.

They absolutely should have agency staff covering, ask them why not.

@SummerHouse

It's really hard. I think the nursery should have a back up really. They are not providing the service you are paying for. A one off, understandable but three times in three weeks! That's just really poor. Then your employer is expected to accommodate. I would look into alternative childcare.

I agree, they could book supply staff they are choosing not to to save money.

In answer to your question, mine are less flexible than they were in the first year of Covid. I have had to take annual leave to cover a period of self isolation (a contact at the nursery tested positive and they had to close) last month whereas when this happened in January they let me "work" from home - knowing I'd get very little done.

Unfortunately I think a lot of employers' patience has run out.

But re: employer, yes I line manage someone who has had childcare issues and have been flexible especially if self isolating.

I think if you were actively taking steps to move to a more reliable nursery then your employer would be more likely to agree some flexibility as a temporary measure while you wait out your notice period of the old nursery and organise the switch-over. It was perfectly reasonable for employers to bend over backwards to accommodate flexibility needs during lockdown 1 as we were all so totally unprepared for having our lives implode like that. However, we have been living with all this for long enough now that competent professionals should be able to find sensible work-arounds and put into place systems that can accommodate reasonably expected eventualities. Your nursery is utterly failing in this. Asking your current employer to bear the load created by your nursery's incompetence is unreasonable if you are expecting that to go on until the pandemic situation is completely over. It is marginally more reasonable as part of a plan to just survive for a few weeks while you get a more acceptable solution in place.

It's still work from home if you can- does not solve the issue for good, but at least for another four weeks. Does that help?

In answer to the thread title, yes ours are.

It sounds like that nursery are short staffed and are blaming covid. Have the given a reason why they aren't using bank staff? Do they still charge you?

I agree with pp that that problem is your nursery not your employer

Thanks for all the replies!

Just to answer the question the nursery do refund us for the days they cannot take DS and he is turned away at the door. We need to turn up and be turned away though to get a refund for the day.
They do use agencies to source staff but say it's difficult as apparently there needs to be a 48 hour gap between any bubble so can't use anyone that has worked with another group of children in past 2 days to keep risk to a minimum. Staff can't cross between rooms to cover either. So it's maintaining the bubbles that is such a nightmare for them and they would rather turn children away so I guess its important? Im enquiring around other nurseries to see how they are managing but none can offer full time so im failing at the first hurdle

You might find some get more spaces come September when their oldest children start school. Could be worth joining the waiting list