Staff absence due to childcare

[HelpIHaveNoStaff]

NC for this .

I'm a manager of a small business. I'm struggling because several employees are off a lot with poorly children. Covid related obviously - wasnt a problem before.

I understand this happens and I'm happy for them to be on paid sick leave. However, they all have spouses who do not do their share of the childcare when children have to be off.

I really, really don't want to be an arse, but I'm letting down clients due to staff shortages, we are hanging by a thread, and I feel it would be avoidable if these employees parental responsibilities were shared more evenly with spouses.

I dont even know how I can possibly raise this with staff. But if the business collapses we'll all lose our jobs.

AIBU to expect parents to go 50/50 on childcare duties where possible in these situations?

How can I communicate this?

Outside of Covid we get 10 paid days per year, otherwise it’s annual leave or unpaid.
I do split it with DH as he gets similar and he works shifts so we can often juggle it so we only need to take a few hours each.
For Covid related absence we have no limit but it’s a big organisation. I think you should cap the paid days @HelpIHaveNoStaff

I think you need

This may not work dependent on the business, but can you offer flexible weekend working so the partner can have the child at the weekend and they work then to make up?

So

• paid leave for ill childcare isn't working, it is getting unsustainable
• it will have to be unpaid or come out of your holiday allowance
• BUT you can make up paid hours at the weekends

You seem like a nice manager, honestly it's really nice that you let them take paid days off for childcare.

But, look at it this way.

Your business is struggling because of this, what happens to your staff if your business goes under because of this? They have no job. You need to be a lot more stricter to protect your business and their jobs.

TeenMinusTests

We work with clients who arent available outside business hours (8-6 or so) so that one doesn't really work but it's a nice idea.

Be honest with your staff about the affect on the business then formally communicate that you are going to apply the policy. I have someone (male) in my team who has taken the piss right to the limit of my company's (overly generous) policy whilst his partner does big-job things. It has caused increased load on others (me mainly), poor work, and now redundancies.

YANBU - and you need to be a bit firmer with your staff.

I'm realising on this thread that it's made me look like a poor business manager etc to not consider the bottom line. Pre Covid it was so different, we had lots of feedback that these little things were really valued by staff and it was clear that being locally regarded as a decent employer was a valuable plus in terms of recruitment and retention.

You need to stop paying them OP and I say this as a mum with 2 under 2 and a job myself. Limit the pay to X days a year and be upfront with your staff about why.

‘Unfortunately as of X date we will only pay absences due to parental sick leave for a maximum of X days every 12 months. Whilst I understand the current circumstances are not ideal, we are facing significant struggles as a business to meet the demand of our clients. We must also request that, wherever possible, employees attempt to share the responsibility of childcare equally with co parents. With this in mind I hope our business strains will soon be resolved and we can all continue safely in our roles’

I can literally hear the conversations In these women’s houses.

‘I keep calling in can’t you be off with the kids tomorrow?’
‘No, I won’t get paid you do you have to be off’

All the tips above.
Id also have an honest and frank conversation with your staff about it.

In a “I understand it’s hard, I understand these are difficult times, however as a result we are struggling to complete X Y and Z for our clients and letting them down, if you can find a better way to manage this it would be appreciated, otherwise we will lose the clients and the business”

@HelpIHaveNoStaff

I'm realising on this thread that it's made me look like a poor business manager etc to not consider the bottom line. Pre Covid it was so different, we had lots of feedback that these little things were really valued by staff and it was clear that being locally regarded as a decent employer was a valuable plus in terms of recruitment and retention.

There's no reason for that to change if you explain to staff why things are having to be changed a bit. If it makes you feel better I bet most of your staff (leaving aside covid stuff) would have stayed well within the amount of days in a period that you land on, you could even work that out to help reassure them. The ones that are fair with you will appreciate you encouraging the others to do the same too. As I say, do consider a special leave policy too for big things like operations and other hospital admissions, ours went down to whether you'd be paid or unpaid for a funeral depending on whose it was. You'll always upset someone but if it's applied fairly and consistently then everyone benefits in the end and it's not you being the bad guy, it's just what the policy says.

I guess you're in the UK? What does the law say?
In Germany you are entitled to take 10 days per parent per child if the child is sick, the company claims your salary back from the health insurance for this.

Can you do something similar? Make it 5 days per child per employee as paid, and then they have to take unpaid?

YANBU

I would guess you’re bearing the brunt of parent absences because you have a more generous policy than their spouses (or if the spouses earn more/feel their job is more important)

I work for a company which has good sick pay but time off for child illness or childcare issues is unpaid or they may allow it to be take as annual leave.

You can’t force their spouse to take a fair share of leave but you can implement a policy that’s more affordable for the business by making it be unpaid or annual leave.

Dh has up to 5 days paid dependent leave per year to be taken only a day at a time unless exceptional circumstances.

I wouldnt mention anything about asking them to consider sharing the care with a co-parent or anything like that. You may have single parents who do not have that option it could be seen as discrimination against them.

They'll be the ones who end up having the unpaid days off because they have no choice, and that's fine. Its life. But if you specifically say, "I'm paying 5 days and I expect you to all start splitting the care with the other parent because the rest is unpaid" then you're opening it up to response of "but I dont have another parent to share with."

Just dont open that door. Dont say anything about it.

Why are you letting them take it as paid sick leave? It’s not sick leave and they shouldn’t be getting paid for it. If they need time off for dependants then it’s unpaid.

I think you need to tackle this from the other end too. Be realistic with your customers about deadlines and adjust their expectations. Make it clear to them you are doing this because you are a great employer though, not because you're struggling. And try and adjust your employee's work environment so they can make up time at home. I know it's not ideal but we all need to pull together if the govt is not going to intervene to stop covid ripping through the schools.

I agree that paid sick leave for children is quite unusual, almost everyone I know either has a very small number of days for dependency leave, or it’s unpaid childcare day.

However, the main reason that most of my friends do the ‘sick days’, is cos they’re paid less than their husbands. Tomorrow I’m working 6 hours, my husband 13. If one of us has to be home with dc, it will be me. Not because dh isn’t a brilliant parent, but because we’d lose twice as much money if he stayed home. It’s about what’s best for the family pot.

If you were paying me to be off with my child, of course I wouldn't ask my husband to be off instead.. Unpaid. It doesn't make financial sense!

I agree with PPs. The parents aren't ill so why are they taking paid sick leave? Either take time from annual leave or time off unpaid.

I think reviewing your policies is sensible. Eg to have 2-3 dependents leave days (still generous and appreciated) but after that it is annual leave or unpaid.

I do think it is a bit trickier though given you can’t wfh and that will probably be the thing having an impact on clients. Eg if my eldest was off, I’d manage a full day of work wfh. If my youngest was sick, I’d need to take leave as she couldn’t be left reliably. For your staff, if they have to be on site, sickness will have more of an impact.

Have you considered that even if you didn't pay that they would still need to be off work because of the school isolation/testing policy. I know of a few couples where the woman has given up her work because it just hasn't been workable with kids during this pandemic. In both cases the male partner is the main earner and they couldn't risk him losing the main income. The man's employers simply wouldn't be flexible due to the nature of work and I think prejudice on the employer about men and child care duties. Not much the woman can do about her partners employers prejudice

I’d have no problem with not being paid, because I understand my employers position, but even if I wasn’t I’d still be the one taking the day off. Even more likely to be, because if we lose my wage for a week we are tight the next month, if we lose my partners we can’t pay the bills; he gets paid a lot more than me. Also tbh when my child is sick they want mummy!

From the other end of the spectrum.

My DP is the breadwinner, he brings home the money that keeps the roof over our head and food on the table and nappies on the toddler bottom - despite that, I do agree they should offer up more help when the kids are ill.

My little girl has been off a fair few times, my employers are really flexible and I can usually manage to work from home while she off, but occasionally I can’t. It’s usually not discussed between me and DP who will stay off work because we’ll, I work for almost half of what he does a day so it’s not as much of an impact for me to be off work on our finances.

But there was a day when I had meetings that were really important and we were short staffed. I didn’t want to ask for the day off to care for DD because I knew it would be an absolute nightmare for my workload and theirs. - so I asked DP to stay home.. he was really reluctant and thought that it’s ‘my job’ to take care of the kids. That’s when I realised that’s it’s not just about money for him, it’s sexism and inequality too. We sat down to discuss that he is her parent as much as I am and sometimes, albeit me not eating as much, my work is equally important and when I really can’t justify the time off work is the only time I’ll ask him to step in, is when it’s really needed. His job is just as flexible, he doesn’t work with the public as such so his jobs can wait until the following day if they need to. So it’s essentially easier for him to take time off.

So all in all, I agree.. it should be shared - but some people just can’t afford for t by e main earner to be off work.

I work for NHS Trust. We get 9 days carer leave per year. That doesn’t mean we can just take 9 days in 1 go. We get the first day and are expected to use that day to sort out alternative care.
You need to introduce a policy OP. Say from 1 December or January all carers leave will need to be unpaid or AL used instead. Or the same as mine where you’re expected to use the 1st day to source or make other arrangements.