People looking after children while wfh

[paws732]

My company operates mainly remotely, so we mostly work from home with occasional office days. We have a lot of Teams meetings for connectivity.

With the summer holidays, I have had meeting with a lot of colleagues who have their children sitting on their laps during the meetings. These children range from 5-8, and they are not behaving themselves either. One child kept putting things on their mum's head, and another was having a tantrum about being bored.

AIBU to think they shouldn't be looking after children while wfh, even if it's the school holidays? I feel it will eventually spoil wfh arrangements for everyone, as employers will not tolerate this is many companies.

They mean kids who are old enough to go to school, not preschoolers or babies.

Mine are late Primary school age and I do wfh 2 days a week. They are mainly watching TV or gaming the whole of those days which isn't great. I feel guilty for that. I saw a PP talk about a parent setting up a 30 min schedule. Mine would need me chasing them around to stick to that. I'm in the office 2 days while they are at childcare, friends or grandparents. I've booked one day off each week to go on a big trip with them, when I spend my way out the guilt of abandoning them to the ipads earlier in the week.

I couldn't have wfh when they were under 8. They wouldn't understand and I wouldn't be able to concentrate on my work. I think it would have been taking the piss.

This. Pet owners tend to massively overestimate non pet owners interest in their animals in my experience.

Agree, have no interest in seeing your cat on your desk, or hearing your dog barking.

But if her child's needs are such that childcare professionals feel they can't cope with him, then clearly he requires a lot of attention. So it's hard to see how your friend could possibly be doing her job effectively while also 'juggling' childcare for a high needs child.

We've just had to update our policy on wfh to ban this. This is after a member of my team seriously pissed off one of our clients to the point where we lost a major contract. Her child was constantly heard screaming in the background in meetings and she messed them around with not turning up on time due to child issues, not getting the work done on time due to child issues and generally making us look like a bunch of amateurs rather than a professional company delivering healthcare provision.

On what planet does the OP's colleague think it's OK to attend an online meeting with a child on their lap (of an age that ought to know better) mucking around putting stuff on their head whilst they're trying to work?
Where is her professional pride.
I'd be pissed off as a colleague attending that meeting as it would seriously distract me from the matter in hand.

B) for the same reason if a company is serious about promoting women thriving in their workplace they need to understand and respect that there will be a juggle between workload and caring load and make allowance for that.

Why? Do they have to do that for men? If not, why not?

If the father is WFH I bet he's shut in his 'office' with Do Not Disturb explicitly understood or his management would have something to say

Wasn't it possible to just deal with the member of staff? Or were others taking the piss?

I think the problem is that pre-Covid WFH with kids was seen as a very last resort and w as acknowledged as a "one off" situation ... Then COVID rolled round and we all went into survival mode, which included people balancing WFH and childcare because there was no other choice and everyone was understanding of the occasional interruption due to the situation. Post COVID and some people have decided that because they managed to balance WFH/childcare during COVID they can manage now without taking into account that people are a lot less understanding of interrupted work as there are now childcare options available.

I am currently helping family members by babysitting through the summer holidays and there's no way that you can get anything productive done with under 5s in the house and over 5s can be left but not all day every day. When I'm watching the 5+s I can get some respite to sit and read a book for half an hour or watch some TV with a cup of coffee whilst they are entertained with independent play, but even then that's only for an hour or so and there's no way I could get anything productive done without leaving the children to their own devices for long periods of time, which isn't really fair if it's done every day. Every child will need some downtime during the holidays of they're booked on lots of activities so if it's just for a day or two then it's fair enough but if it's the default then it's not fair on anyone - child, parent or employer.

I work in a supermarket pharmacy, I can't WFH at all so I had no choice but to get childcare for DD when she was in primary. She's secondary now so we organised a language camp and a couple of other summer programmes for things she is interested in but it's purely for her enjoyment rather than because I need childcare. Some years when she was in primary I pretty much worked all summer just to pay for her activities but it meant I didn't lose my job.

Yes employers need to be more flexible now but I do think that a lot of parents have come to have the expectation that their work will accommodate their childcare issues and are not happy when their employer is not as flexible as they want them to be because of the business needs.

Why do children that age need to be on laps, can't they go and play or watch tv.

It's one thing to say the working world has changed since covid, but there are companies that cannot have WFH employees and some business that can but absolutely cannot have children around.

So are all their employees with children just going to walk or are they going to have to suck up paying for childcare?

I don't believe for one second that if WFH was banned that there would be a mass walkout of staff

A child that age will never sit on your lap... except when your attention absolutely needs to be on something else. This is why DS goes to summer camp even when I am WFH.

@transparentday "And so there will be the occasional interruption or background noise, and that can't be helped because I want the children to be able to treat their home like a home, and not a workplace."

It CAN be helped! It's because you WANT your kids to have that attitude. Why should your employers/clients suffer the consequences of that choice? Nothing stopping your kids from treating their home like home but they need to learn, due to your choice to wfh, that there are times when they can't make a noise and interrupt (age-dependent, of course, but any child too young for that should have proper childcare arrangements).

Yeah, it’s rife in my public sector role and does my head in.

I have a cat that sits on the windowsill where he can be seen. He’s looking out the window and not interested in me, so he doesn’t try to climb onto the desk. If he did I’d put my arm up and stop him. I know that nobody is interested in my pets so I don’t allow that to be an issue.

Unfortunately it’s not the same for the parents in my team and the work quality goes down the pan every summer. I wish someone would tackle it but, y’know, public sector - even my boss does it!

I have 3 dc ages 11-15 and wfh some days - they bring me coffee and leave me alone. They started age 9 but that’s because of Covid and definitely not ideal. They were too young but it trained them quickly. I think from 10 up it’s possible to wfh but under that they need childcare.

It’s ok in an emergency/ if a child is sick. I don’t think it’s ok normally though. Not fair on workers who are child free or who do pay for clubs.

Well, some of them will be looked after by the other parent who does wfh and can have DC there, for starters.

But for those where that isn't the case, in some cases yes that is going to involve them working less. There are permutations of that stopping well short of mass walkout- part time work and parental leave, for example.

None of which is to say that some parents wouldn't be able to suck it up, source and pay for suitable childcare. But they wouldn't all, and some of those who could would still choose not to. The reality is that a need for childcare doesn't mean it exists.

Wasn't it possible to just deal with the member of staff? Or were others taking the piss?

We have dealt with her through a disciplinary, but we cannot afford to lose another contract or else everyone's jobs will be on the line, so we (as in the Directors) made the decision to insist on anyone with young children (say up to 13) must have childcare in place. There are a lot of parents of small children in our company and if they all leave in a huff, then we can replace them in a second. There are no recruitment issues in this business, in fact we have NHS staff contacting us for jobs every day.

Dogs, cats, iguanas, whatever pet is absolutely fine for internal meetings, but again, not on screen for client facing calls.

there will be the occasional interruption or background noise, and that can't be helped because I want the children to be able to treat their home like a home, and not a workplace

I am self-employed, and I work for myself from home. I have always worked in this way, from way before the pandemic. I have occasional online meetings with prospective clients all over the world, discussing the work they want me to do for them or talking through work which is half-way complete. Clients want my undivided attention, that's what they are paying for and there are lots of other people offering similar services who can offer that to them.

There is NO WAY I would get any work if I shrugged my shoulders to kids screaming round the house, dogs barking, kids fighting about whose turn it was to be on the Xbox etc etc. It's totally different from the landline ringing or a knock at the door which cannot be predicted.

Employers are in the same situation with trying to win/keep clients happy. If clients don't feel they are getting the right level of service with constant interruptions by pets and small children, or members of staff they will go elsewhere. Employees are being very very shortsighted in thinking this sort of behaviour is OK.

Yeah, depends on the ages of the kids. I've done it since DS was 12, not ideal but he's perfectly happy entertaining himself.

I don't think primary school age kids under 10/11 should be present while parents are WFH. It's not fair on the kids either.

I don't believe for one second that if WFH was banned that there would be a mass walkout of staff

To be brutally honest, it doesn't matter if there is in a lot of industries. I know that when we have young children it feels like everyone in the world are in the same position. However the proportion of the workforce in the thick of the early years is actually smaller than that where the children are older, adult or the employee has no children.

In my industry if all the parents of young children left out company we could replace them in a heartbeat with women and men my age who are leaving the NHS (generally because they've been around long enough that they don't want ti deal with another restructure, but that's another thread for another day).

Another headache round here is that many holiday clubs don’t take children until they are 5. A complete nightmare for summer born reception children. They also run 9-3.

Don’t get me wrong, I think working from home with children is far from ideal and should be a last resort but I think the bigger issue in many areas is
lack of affordable, accessible children that covers working hours in the holiday.

I don't believe for one second that if WFH was banned that there would be a mass walkout of staff

There would at my workplace - large, public sector. In fact we struggled to recruit new staff until our hybrid policy was finalised and published. And there are some roles where we’ve had no choice but to offer fully-WFH contracts.

Our trade unions are really hot on keeping things hybrid and have successfully obtained written assurances from the employer that hybrid is here to stay.

Do you think it can work the same for commercial companies that have to find their own income?