WFH with children

[Annie232]

On many threads I hear women pop up and mention how they WFH x number of days and so don't need childcare on x number of days. Incidentally, within my NCT group on discussions on return to work a few of the women have said similar and that they plan to WFH 1/2 days a week and therefore save on childcare. Is this a thing now?

Because they would have no one otherwise? Better to have me for 2/3 hours a day than a hole (which is what they had for over a year before I was hired and they lost a shit load of money due to it)

I deliver on my goals, I have overdelivered on my strategic KPIs and for my role in particular there are other dependencies that means it’s not as simple as ‘doing more’

There are budgets in play, limitations as to our data sources, limitations as to the technology we have access to across markets. I even had a 6 month delay in a project the year before last due to a legal hiccup, I couldn’t fix it as it’s outside of my scope but it also meant nothing could move on the project in that time. There was nothing else during that time that needed active involvement from me either. So I did some internal training, coaching, went to a lot of events (any excuse to get work to pay for travel) but still not full time hours.

For someone convinced I’m lying you sure seem to be asking a lot of questions, maybe you can just accept you don’t get it and move on.

When I asked HR if I could change my 1/2 day to a full day, her first question was “What are you doing for childcare?”.

@Annie232 Yes its a thing, but it does depend on how flexible you can be in your role and what your employer is like, and how motivated you are.

For instance, I personally WFH with my 9 month old. My mum has her 1 day a week when I physically go into the office, but the other 4 days I work full time at home while looking after her. My employer are happy with the arrangement, and my job is flexible in the sense of I just work from a laptop so I can work around DD any hours I choose as long as the work is done. I also am managing to study for two courses at the same time as well. Plus, I get to spend an incredible length of time playing and looking after DD, as I tend to do most of my work in mornings/evenings and nap times.

Time management and motivation is key (& a great employer). But yes, it can definitely be done.

@CherylCrows is there a particular reason why you don't use childcare?

Don't get me wrong, my children are not here every day, only 2 out of 5 but those 2 are my most quiet days and when i mostly do admin stuff, so writing up notes and paperwork.

But yes, not everyone works the typical 9-5 office hours or needs to be accessible on the phone or deals with customers.

It does. I've had a few WFH roles since my DC were small so I've been through a fair amount of ages/stages with it, from infant through primary. Now DH is the WFH parent & I'm in the office on flexed hours.

I think I may actually be the only parent of young children in our company at the moment who does work from the office!

I nearly had a breakdown trying to do this with a then 4 and 7 year old during lockdown!
Now things are back to normal my employer officially doesn't allow it, though will turn a blind eye for the odd occasion if they're ill etc. the now 10 year old they probably wouldn't even know was there but my 7 year old still won't leave me alone unless she's too ill to move from the sofa.

I just didn’t want to. Really struggled with the idea of leaving DD when going back to work.

I had a promotion on mat leave and it was negotiated that I’d return at 10 months (was planning to take 14 months off) so this was the compromise for me, other people manage fine at work and look after their DC at home, including some of those who would be reporting into me, so thought I’d give it a try!

And it’s worked out great, don’t get me wrong if DD was an absolute pain in the bum I don’t think it would work as well, or if I had multiple children at different ages/stages. But for me it works, it works for DD and it meant I could progress in my career (win win imo)

Its also means I can spend more time with family in the day (mum was diagnosed with cancer last year so I really value this extra time with her and DD) and friends/keep up the connections I made on mat leave (as I know many struggle with this, when most of their ‘mum friends’ are SAHPs and they go back to work, friendships do fade)

Am going to try and keep going until she is 3-4 as the local prep school accepts from then, and it’s a lot more local for us compared to the nursery’s.

Managers in religious organisation can be worst. The fact they’re working for a religious organisation often means nothing to them.

If I was an employer I'd ban wfh if I knew this was happening

I know several who've done exactly this overall, and one or two who rescinded WFH for some with young children
The first was lousy for those who really were productive and you can imagine the reaction to the second, but they'd genuinely tried to be fair and in the end had no choice but to prrotect the business against the pisstakers

Sadly I'm also aware of some who now try to avoid hiring women of childbearing age wherever possible, which while wrong was probably inevitable in the current climate

apparently flexible employers don’t exist and everyone is lying about it

Nobody is saying that flexible employers don't exist. We're just saying that most employers expect more than 2-3 hours work a day for a full time contract

But surely you have contracted hours? The point of being you need to put the work in during those hours? And if you’ve finished one thing you move on to the next?

If not then you are absolutely stealing from the company. The same way I charge £60ph as a freelancer, if I charged a client £300 for 2 hours work I’d also be stealing even if the work was of a 5 hour standard.

Maybe the reason no one has asked is because they assume you are working when you’re supposed to? Have they actually said “You don’t need to work your contracted hours if you don’t want to?”.

I agree that the more people take the piss the more wfh will get cut for everyone (I am not saying all that wfh with kids are, but reading these posts there are quite a few on the cusp)

Its starting to be seen in my DP’s organisation. They have increased office days as people were taking the piss and already shouts of “I can’t do that as I don’t have childcare”. It’s those people that have made it worse for everyone

I hope these people that are flexible and work later to make up are not delaying colleagues because they haven’t replied or been in a call. I also hope they don’t expect others to dial into calls after core office hours because that’s the only time they are free. Fine if you are flexible and work totally on your own but if you do have dependencies on others or them with you then there is definitely an impact

Flexible employers exist however to me that means ‘work your contracted hours when it suits you’ not ‘you have contracted hours but you can work much less if you feel like it’

Sorry but you’re either ignoring your 9mo to do work for a large chunk of the day or you’re not doing the work you should.

This would massively piss me off if I was your colleague. It’s totally impossible to do a full time job and look after a baby. Wait until she starts walking - there will be many situations where taking your eyes off her for even a few minutes is too dangerous.

And it’s worked out great

Its worked out great because you only work for a fraction of the day 😂

Tell me about it… she’s been bullied there so much by a few people that she’s lost a lot of confidence and can’t leave though she’d like to.

Add to that they’re Catholics which is fine if you are a practising Catholic but she likes and has practised reiki etc and doesn’t agree with all the Catholicism dogma. It’s almost like a cult she’s tied into there. They have such a hold over her and expect her to be grateful for them keeping her on there after her stroke!

They seem to forget she raised far more money by herself when in charge of fundraising than the current person doing this job etc!

Say working hours are contracted as 9-3.30 and school has an after school activity club until 4. You are fine for childcare if WFH (assuming a short school run) but would not have childcare to work those hours in the office unless it was VERY close to the school and not subject to the vagaries of public transport time tables. So it would be very easy to have valid childcare for your contracted WFH hours but be struggling with office time. Especially if the school you got landed with has limited after school options, is the wrong direction for work or the after school club is only 3 days a week.

Time management and motivation is key (& a great employer)

Ah crap, I have a great employer, but I guess my time management and motivation must be lacking.

I just don't buy it. You're working 4 days a week with a 9 month to look after as well as studying.

I don’t think anyone is lying about the fact they work 2 hours a day when contracted for 8. I just think they are taking the piss and have convinced themselves it fine. I don’t think ANY workplace would be OK with this either.

Yep, as most do it’s a standard contract

And again, it’s fine if you just don’t get it but it’s tiring having to explain how different people have different jobs to the perpetually ignorant on hereS

I don’t ‘move onto the next thing’ as there are dependencies outside of my control.

Its a bit odd how grown adults seem to struggle to accept different workplaces and different jobs have different set ups. I go months without speak in to my immediate line manager, as long as deliverables (that I have set) are completed he doesn’t care, the business doesn’t care.

I haven’t worked in a job where my time was so closely managed since I was a teenager: must be so demeaning as an adult being told you need to do this by x date.

I think it depends on the job. I have 2 toddlers and couldn't work properly from home. Could do the bare minimum and blah it but not anything meaningful or using my brain.

I’ve seen mumblings on SM that it’s discriminatory to ban WFH for those with kids but I think it’s fine to say “If you don’t have children you may WFH”. Even teenagers can be distracting, and few children actually respect boundaries of ‘mums busy so maybe I can wait to ask her where the biscuits belong’.

Well yes

its worked out great for everyone

My employer, me, DD and DH

Yanbu that it does seem to be a thing now but I do think it is unreasonable of parents of young children to do this. If you're working you're working. Unless self employed, in which case its your choice to run the risk of being less productive, you should give your full attention during work hours and thats impossible I think unless your kids are older and can sit in the room with you doing an activity/watching films quietly. Even then, there are tasks you'll need to do for them which will take you away from work.