Refuse to provide a reference

[ByMyName]

I own a small business and we provide employment to a small team.

Last year we took on a junior member of staff through a government backed scheme. The scheme reimbursed the business the cost of employing someone who was on UC and at risk of long term unemployment. In turn we provided training and work experience. Win-win.

This particular employee is on a fixed term contract. If it was not a government backed scheme, we would not have kept her for a week.

She was working from home as most of our staff do since covid. She had no childcare provision and her children would scream during staff meeting. She is constantly late and unavailable during working hours. She also had many sick days. Her work is poor and she has shown no improvement despite training and coaching.

Her line manager has had several informal conversations with her. I asked not to push to a formal warning as it was a fixed term contract anyway.

Can I inform the employee that we will not provide her with a reference?

I have used the kick start scheme. Discuss with your provider and then end her contract. There is no need to issue warnings, you have discussed the issues, she has not improved. She has no employment rights (the same as an employee in probation) so you can part ways if it is not working.

Hi @C8H10N4O2

We suggested that she makes up the hours after the children have gone to bed. Other team members who do school pick up will often do this. We allow for this flexibility. This employee said it would not work for her.

She had 2 children who are both in free 30 hours childcare. She would have to pay extra for additional hours and she is refusing to send them for additional hours.

Many of my staff are mothers. We understand and are fully supportive if their child needs to be picked up early on the odd day or that a child has been sick and needs to be home for a couple of days. We are aware that some parents have older children at home with them during school holidays. These are all exceptional circumstances. We are more flexible than most employers. However, our policy is that you need to have childcare arrangements in place for working hours.

We should have addressed it sooner but I guess this is something new for us too. I could not expect that anyone would think it’s appropriate to have 2 young children around while they are meant to be working. But as I said, we also learned from it as a business and we are better prepared if we come across this situation again.

She had 2 children who are both in free 30 hours childcare

So a 3 yr old and a 4yr old, both going to childcare for 30 hours a week? In your OP you said:
She had no childcare provision and her children would scream during staff meeting. She is constantly late and unavailable during working hours which suggested to me that the kids are running around all day.

But if both children are in childcare 30 hours a week then surely most of the working hours are covered?

She would have to pay extra for additional hours and she is refusing to send them for additional hours

You didn't answer my question about availability and affordability of those hours during the last two years, however if 30 of her working hours are covered with childcare provision then is it only the other hours that work quality dips or is this nothing to do with childcare and simply a performance issue which needed to be addressed earlier?

How many of her working hours are impacted by the children being around and do you see a notable difference?

Working in the evenings instead can work fine if its a couple of hours around a school pickup but not so easily if its more than half of each day.

Having done scattered hours around the clock with small children when starting a business the only way I was able to make it work was with the help of OH.

You seem completely focused on childcare as the problem but its not clear from your descriptions just how much that is the problem. Presumably you need to feedback to the scheme when you renew/don't renew and want to be clear where the problem was rooted in childcare and where it was general skills or ability to acquire skills remotely.

@C8H10N4O2

We interviewed her in September at the office and made an offer for her to start in October. We were not aware that she had DCs or any childcare issues during the interview. After we made her an offer to start in October, she casually mentioned that she has 2 young children. We asked if she would have childcare in place in October and she said she would and in any case, her mum lives nearby and would take care of the children.

She then starts in October and mentions in passing to her line manager that she has a partner at home who is taking care of the children. During staff meetings, we could hear the children and the partner in the background. During staff meeting, the children would interrupt. Her line manager spoke with her. She said she was waiting on a nursery place and it would get better.

Eventually the children start at nursery. We do not see/hear them in the morning meetings. Other staff mention that when they are having meetings with her in the afternoon, there are children around. Her line manager also points that she is making a lot of mistakes during those times. We then find out that for some days of the week, her children come back at 12.

We start at 9 and she is often late.

I don't know about the availability or affordability of childcare for all employees obviously. We all make our own arrangements and it's never been an issue before. We've been flexible and have been offering WFH from before Covid. The concept is not new to us. However, we've NEVER had anyone keeping young children at home while working.

The problem is that her performance is impacted on the afternoons when her children are at home. It also affects the team as whole and my other staff.

However, we've NEVER had anyone keeping young children at home while working.

OP do you have a company policy about caring for dependants including children while working? If not you need one.

I say dependants as I was on a work call once and someone's elderly mother interrupted the call. It was quickly explained the mother had dementia. (To be fair she only did it once.)

We start at 9 and she is often late.
Clearly come back from dropping her children off.

All the Kickstarter stuff is a red herring. She's not meeting the requirements of the job and refusing to find appropriate work arounds for her childcare situation.

I think you have been more than fair OP.

Assuming she is working a 40 hour week and nursery is within 20 mins of her home she needs to pay for approx 13.5 hours childcare for 2 children (I’m guessing 2). This may be rounded up as some nursery’s offer am or pm sessions.

The cheap nursery near us would round up to 15 hours and is £5 per hour per child. So £150 a week, £600 to find for a 4 week month. Plus meal costs. She would have to find this two times before UC reimbursed her. This may not be possible.

Her embarrassment at being poor may be why she doesn’t want to increase nursery.
Does she know about the flexible fund for childcare? Is she confident enough to ask for it and push for it.

It’s disgusting how single parents are treated whilst absent parents can Swan off and pay fuck all.

Sorry posted to soon. I am not saying you have treated her badly but the gov pushes people into schemes with the threat of sanctions. It must be terrifying.

My friend had to attend a UC meeting During her working day! So 2.5 hours of work missed (works over 30 hours a week). She has never not had a job, leaving an arsehole partner meant she needed childcare help until they start school. She was so scared in the job centre she threw up. She knew that if they didn’t give her the money for childcare she couldn’t work. Her wage (though decent) is not enough to cover almost £1000 a month in childcare costs). The system is ridiculous.

Maybe she couldn't afford childcare provision. UC isn't a big payer.

Regardless, just provide her with a dated reference like nearly every other company does now. For an activity that will take you less than 5 minutes there's a huge benefit to her. Poor woman is probably acutely aware of her unsuitability for the role hence the sickness absence, and it will be eating away at her confidence

If she's 'using her free 30 hours', does that mean you have 30 hours of her time no problem, because the kids are in free child care?

So how many hours is she struggling with the kids? 5? 7?

You do presumably realise that a single mum on UC can't possibly afford nursery?

You should work with her on those hours where she has the kids. You are an employer. Even though you'll let her go in two months' time, you should still treat her decently now.

Why wouldn't you give a basic reference? I'm glad you've accepted that.

Tbh it sounds as if you dislike her a lot.

If she's 'using her free 30 hours', does that mean you have 30 hours of her time no problem, because the kids are in free child care?

Well, no, RTF OP. Despite having 30 hours a week available, she's constantly late and unavailable during working hours, has taken many sick days, and such work as she does is poor despite training, coaching and informal talks to help her improve. So OP still has several problems.

Some of the responses on this thread are ridiculous. Most single parents in this employee's position would be working their socks off to prove themselves even if they can't find child care, but this one just isn't. But the hard-of-thinking around here have decided that 'single mother' must mean put-upon saint and OP must be a Victorian villain, and/or are simply indulging in the usual nasty unthinking MN pile-on.

@RedWingBoots thank you for this. We have a policy about distractions but not dependants. This is a really good term.

@Mogwig we offered her to work only the hours when her DCs are in nursery, effectively going part time. She refused. We also offered that she works evenings when DCs are in bed. Some of our staff do this to make up hours when doing school pickups. Again, she refused.

As an employer offering above market pay, it is not my role to budget for my employees’ expenses or to assess what childcare is available where they live. To everyone suggesting this - does your employer offer this???

@ByMyName

I own a small business and we provide employment to a small team.

Last year we took on a junior member of staff through a government backed scheme. The scheme reimbursed the business the cost of employing someone who was on UC and at risk of long term unemployment. In turn we provided training and work experience. Win-win.

This particular employee is on a fixed term contract. If it was not a government backed scheme, we would not have kept her for a week.

She was working from home as most of our staff do since covid. She had no childcare provision and her children would scream during staff meeting. She is constantly late and unavailable during working hours. She also had many sick days. Her work is poor and she has shown no improvement despite training and coaching.

Her line manager has had several informal conversations with her. I asked not to push to a formal warning as it was a fixed term contract anyway.

Can I inform the employee that we will not provide her with a reference?

So you took advantage of a free employee from the kickstarter scheme plus took £1500 of tax payers money and you are not even going to give her anything to help her get a job.

I notice you didnt say she didnt work just that she struggled with juggling it with kids and that unfortunately training etc didnt help her, did you not think before enrolling in the scheme that there are reasons why a lot of people are out of work and its no fault of their own and not for want of trying many claimants are parents, many have health/mental issues, are struggling with stress etc.

gift horse and mouth springs to mind you took advantage of having a staff mamber you didnt have to pay for 6 months, the least you can do is give her a reference.

Did you think about reading all of OPs posts @VelvetChairGirl? There's a little blue link See All at the bottom of any of them, handy to see what has been elucidated in the 130+ posts since the initial one.

In all honesty I haven't read tft.
However, gist of it is.
You do NOT have to provide a reference if you do not want to.

You are not legally allowed to provide a bad reference.
So your best bet is just to say
X worked here between x date and x date on a government scheme. Fixed term contract

[quote RitaJosephina]@ByMyName and let me guess, as it's a government scheme she only gets paid minimum wage and you expect her to be able to afford the childcare...[/quote]
The last time I was on a Job Centre Scheme (under Blair) all I got was was my standard JSA and and an extra £10 a week to cover bus fares and lunch (it didnt cover those things it only just covered the bus).

@notthemum

In all honesty I haven't read tft. However, gist of it is. You do NOT have to provide a reference if you do not want to. You are not legally allowed to provide a bad reference. So your best bet is just to say X worked here between x date and x date on a government scheme. Fixed term contract

You are legally allowed to provide a bad reference as long it is entirely factual and the facts are proveable.

@VelvetChairGirl there are a lot of posts and I don't expect you to have read everything. However, it is incredibly naive to think that we made a profit from employing someone who is unskilled.

The £1,500 grant did not ever cover the total cost of equipment and initial training when we onboard a new employee. Yes, her salary was subsidised but we topped up her salary and hours. She is no different than another staff member.

No, as an employer we do not discriminate against parents. We do not ask if someone has children as this would be discrimination. However, it is up to an employee to sort out their own childcare.

So, no the scheme was not a great success for this employee.

Well, to be honest- she's probably aware tht she is not being kept on after 6 months, and so far she has received 100% of a full time wage, with no deduction for hours she's not working productively following company rules, and not forced to make them up later, and only using her free hours of childcare. As much as it's bad for your business, in her position why would she bother now? Im not saying she's right by any stretch, just- why would she?

@N00tN00t

I don't understand why she would be forced into this by UC if her children are nursery age. Have they changed the rules? I'm sure it used to be that these rules kicked in once your youngest is in school.

Because its works from home, so the advisor would have been like "you can do that without having to worry about childcare"

@KnobJockey

Well, to be honest- she's probably aware tht she is not being kept on after 6 months, and so far she has received 100% of a full time wage, with no deduction for hours she's not working productively following company rules, and not forced to make them up later, and only using her free hours of childcare. As much as it's bad for your business, in her position why would she bother now? Im not saying she's right by any stretch, just- why would she?

100% - I agree. We also messed up as a business by not going down the disciplinary route earlier. And by the time it was properly picked up - there were only 2 months left on her contract.

However, we would 100% have kept her on if it was not for these issues.

We have another person who started on the same scheme. We have identified areas where he needs to be trained to get to the level that we need him to be. His line manager will be discussing this with him at his appraisal. Assuming he is happy to go for the training that the business is paying for anyway, we are keeping him on and putting him on a permanent contract.

I think you’ve bent over backwards to try and accommodate this woman, but she just doesn’t want to be helped!
She told you her mum and her partner would be available for childcare, and that doesn’t seem to be happening.
She’s refused to work just 30 hours, refused to work when the children are in bed….
Most people with young children would jump at those offers and the flexibility.
I think you are getting a hard time here, when the reality is you have been very accommodating.

I would talk to her formally as soon as possible. Make it very clear that her lack of childcare provision is not acceptable and you have offered flexibility. If she still refuses I would give her notice and let her go. She does need to know that her actions have consequences

[quote ByMyName]@VelvetChairGirl there are a lot of posts and I don't expect you to have read everything. However, it is incredibly naive to think that we made a profit from employing someone who is unskilled.

The £1,500 grant did not ever cover the total cost of equipment and initial training when we onboard a new employee. Yes, her salary was subsidised but we topped up her salary and hours. She is no different than another staff member.

No, as an employer we do not discriminate against parents. We do not ask if someone has children as this would be discrimination. However, it is up to an employee to sort out their own childcare.

So, no the scheme was not a great success for this employee.[/quote]
" 100% of the National Minimum Wage (or the National Living Wage depending on the age of the participant) for 25 hours per week for a total of 6 months
associated employer National Insurance contributions
minimum automatic enrolment pension contributions

you have a fully covered worker for 25 hours a week whom has presumably the full 30 hours a week of child care they can get altho how many hours you do get depends on area and how in demand those places are, it is your decission to treat her like every other employee and increase her hours and pay her extra, clearly that wasnt a good move because she is on a training scheme she is not like any other employee she is learning and her UC will be reduced for extra money she gets over a certain amount, as far as the JCP is concerned if they are giving her 30 hours of free childcare that covers her hours on the scheme which are25, the rest is your discussion and thus your problem.

@DePfeffoff

If she's 'using her free 30 hours', does that mean you have 30 hours of her time no problem, because the kids are in free child care?

Well, no, RTF OP. Despite having 30 hours a week available, she's constantly late and unavailable during working hours, has taken many sick days, and such work as she does is poor despite training, coaching and informal talks to help her improve. So OP still has several problems.

Some of the responses on this thread are ridiculous. Most single parents in this employee's position would be working their socks off to prove themselves even if they can't find child care, but this one just isn't. But the hard-of-thinking around here have decided that 'single mother' must mean put-upon saint and OP must be a Victorian villain, and/or are simply indulging in the usual nasty unthinking MN pile-on.

^This. Sounds like you have tried, and are willing to take on board some suggestions for the future. Good luck!

I could not expect that anyone would think it’s appropriate to have 2 young children around while they are meant to be working

but you said she uses the 30 free hours? So she can only be trying to work with kids around for an hour or so a day. I wouldn't have thought that was a huge issue if she works well the rest of the time. However, it doesn't sound like she does.

Sick leave she probably can't help.

Poor work she can.

What I would say OP is please don't write off the scheme. The next person you take could be really good.