Asking employer to cover childcare costs

[Totupthenumberspls]

I’ve been asked to go on a business trip for a week, is it unreasonable to ask the company to pay the incremental childcare costs?

To add, it is in the expenses policy, rather than my contract, but very clearly on a case by case basis.

Fantastic!

That's a good result.
I was in your corner from the beginning.

Good work and enjoy your trip ❤️

Does your husband get paid dependents leave? Could he take 2 days spread over the 2 weeks to pick up?

If you're in the UK, expenses /business expenses is an official hmrc category that dictates what businesses can pay back to employees tax free and what is "reasonable". It does not include childcare. It also doesn't cover dog walking/kennels, a refund on a hobby, missing something youve already paid for etc. It covers 45p a mile for mileage, any accomodation costs, flight or train tickets and food within specific parameters. Your company will have an expenses policy which will explain all of this. If they paid your childcare it would be classed by hmrc as a bonus/pay so it would need to be taxed, presumably you would also expect your company to cover the tax payment at 20 or 40% plus ni? Have a chat to your manager, explain your husband can't look after the children for whatever reason (which is insane as presumably he is their dad) and could you zoom into meetings, cut the travel down etc. Come up with solutions proactively that work for you and the business. They won't force you to go I expect but they will clock you as not really trying to manage the situation especially as your contract says there may be travel. The only thing I can see them going for is employees who stay away overnight while travelling on business are entitled to tax and NIC-free reimbursement of up to £5 per night in recognition of their personal incidental expenses (normally phone calls, a snack etc) but that won't really help your £300 much over 10 nights. If they do pay your childcare costs plus any tax incurred then they'd have to offer it to every employee, I'd never sign that off as a precedent personally, unless they're rolling in it!

Okay so it may not be down as 'childcare' on the OPs payslip etc. This is semantics as this extra payment was only issued after the OP put her personal situation forward. Her employer knows its going on childcare so that OP can go on the business trip.

Hopefully this means in future the boss will ask their employee first if they are going to incur additional costs for any work trip they are being sent on.

@EarthaKittsVoice

No that's not my point at all.

I'm glad for OP it's worked out well.

The point is - she didn't go in demanding money for her childcare, as her posts suggested.

She had a reasonable conversation with her employer around incurred expenses and if they could offer an option - and they increased her per diem

It's a really different approach to what she put forward here.

Not sure where I started off this post demanding they pay my childcare. The root cause was the childcare and this led me to question why I should be out of pocket in this situation. Many people straight up suggested I was being unreasonable to consider this.

Pleased it worked out well for you OP. You are obviously thought highly of.

Ideally, employers would ask if the employee will incur extra expenses through being away when asking them to go on trips beyond a certain defined length. It should be standard. Then no-one needs to go and have these seemingly awkward conversations or be unclear if they should ask or not.

It seems some firms do this. In others, employees know to ask for a range of additional expenses.

But clearly this is an area where there isn’t a common approach. Some people wouldn’t dream of asking and assume the answer would be no…when it might not be. Others have asked and been told yes or told no. Even within the same firm there probably isn’t always consistency.

The problem is when somehow the idea gets tied up with being a ‘woman’ thing. It really isn’t. It’s one of the reasons why it should be offered as a matter of course in an effort to support diversity and flexible working. It can then become the norm and not a ‘woman worker’ thing. The fact lots of women themselves see it as a woman thing, or giving women workers a bad name, indicates how deeply rooted these cultural expectations are especially in some firms and how strongly the cultures still reflect something from the past when most o their workers were men and these men had a full time wife doing all the domestic heavy lifting, leaving them totally free to focus on work when required. But life has moved on. Women and men shouldn’t be allowing or colluding in perpetuating these practices which hit all families but usually hit women workers hardest.

Well done OP for asking and getting it covered. Think the hate against this is unfair. Enjoy the trip!

Well done OP and happy outcome. Good example of ' if you don't ask, you don't get'.

I think that the fact issue was cost of child care has obscured the basic point.

If your employer asked you do anything for 10 days that would cause you additional, unexpected cost as a result, it's not that unreasonable to ask if they would assist with that cost. All they can say is no - in which case you could say, I can't do the 10 day thing.

I have actually covered childcare costs for someone who I needed to come into work when he was off and his wife was working. It was a one off and done as a gesture because he was doing me a favour.

For people just doing what is expected of them in their jobs? Fuck no. as I work for the nhs there's no ducking money anyway.

Your child, your problem. Whether you are male or female.
Same for dogs, cats, turtles and aged parents (I say this as a devoted slave to my dog).

A couple of things....
To the poster who said that they now think their employer was correct to make them redundant when they were single? Your first response to be pissed off was correct. Single people are often jn a worse situation financially if they lose their job than a couple is, even if they don't have children. It was discrimination pure and simple and I'm sad you can't see that.

Seeing into the future - well no, none of us can but surely if you are someone who wants children then you maybe, account for their presence when thinking about careers and employers? So if you knkw you don't want to be stung for extra childcare, you don't get a job with unpredictable hours or lots of business trips.

The above - this is giving employers a loud message that women are responsible for childcare and, thus, a woman's employer will be impacted by her decisions regarding childcare, illness, school events etc. eventually said employer will get pissed off and women will find themselves not getting the jobs or the promotions or the opportunities.
That's also part of the reason why I always used to make a point of mentioning that I have no kids and no plans for one, even though they aren't allowed to ask. I'm not paying the price for your life choices.
queue lots of whining about how these future children will wipe my arse and pay my pension blah blah blah 🤣

Maybe read every post in future...

You're away for 10 days and going to earn an extra £2.5k - your employer without any debate whatsoever offered up an extra £250 per day? If that's the extra earned on top of your usual amount it makes your moaning about £300 even worse.

My company would pay for childcare costs in this instance, I personally think it's worth an ask. They also give paid time off for anyone with caring responsibility (including people looking after parents, family members etc not just children) so I guess they walk the walk about supporting their employees rather than just putting out soundbites about how supportive they are.

What you're doing is of benefit for the company and sounds like it's outside of your 'normal' role and travel expectations. If they were to contract someone to deliver the same no doubt their childcare would be wrapped up in their rates which would probably be much higher than yours as an employee.

This is a made up post 😅 who is going to pay you an extra £2.5k for 10 days just for doing your job. They wouldn’t even pay that in expenses let alone as extra income. Someone is pulling a fast one.

Honestly people baffle me sometimes. I agree with you OP. If businesses want to retain good employees and want them to go above and beyond what they are contracted to do sacrificing their personal lives then they should be willing to compensate the employees. When we sign a contract with a company to work for them we do not agree to sell them our soul or do everything they ask us to do. If it is reasonable and necessary then yes, but like you said, it is not necessary for you to go on this trip abroad. If it can be done without you going there then they should compensate you. And honestly it's women like this who keep saying no you should not ask for it are also a problem and have set a bad precedent. Equality is not always fair for women.

Here is 1 of the posts.

and I am so glad it has worked out for you. Seems like your employer actually agreed that you weren't unreasonable, which makes all the posts saying that you were kind of look even more ridiculous. You nevre know what you can get unless you ask for it.

It's not that wild of a day rate, I don't think it's out of the sphere of possibility.

But @Spiderzed at first they were offering nothing extra. Then in a very brief meeting they decided that £250 a day was appropriate?

I mean...what does the OP get paid daily to make £250 day just a nice to have? I call bullshit. If they are making such large sums then £300 in childcare wouldn't even have come up.

Excellent result OP! Proof it was worth asking the question and clearly your employer felt it was a reasonable request. Well done! 🙌

This is in addition to her day job. If it was just as a day rate I would get it but this is just a top up. Unless she’s doing something that no one else can do and the client is paying extra for it it seems almost too good to be true.

Im being asked to go abroad to run a training session. If I asked my boss to pay me an extra £250 a day he would laugh at me. But I am getting paying a decent salary and bonus to do the extra hours as and when required.

Also her wrap around care doesn’t make much sense as when your kid is in nursery unless it’s a school nursery you pay one flat daily rate. If it is a school nursery then how does she sort out childcare during school holidays?

Good post.

Our lives are not fully at the disposal of our employers. Normal expectations for specific jobs need to be pinned down so that cover-all contractual terms cannot be taken to mean you will be available 24/7 to do whatever or go wherever and without recompense for costs.

Given automatically asking employees if they will incur costs isn’t the norm, employees need to have these discussions on a case-by-case basis. And if a firm won’t cover additional costs you will incur through going abroad for an extended period, then it would be right to say you couldn’t go.

No doubt this might not be popular. But all of us need to support people having these conversations. We mustn’t be the line managers and bosses who want workers (often not exceptionally paid) to take on task not in their standard working patterns, without recognising we might need to pay them more for that time. And then we need to not hold it against them in future.

Is it only the worker who is available 24/7 and will go wherever and whenever and ignore any other aspect of their life and not be bothered about the private and financial costs to themselves and their family, who employers can value and who can have career prospects? This expects too much. We are all responsible for standing up against cultures like this rather than colluding in hem and perpetuating them and telling people that this is ‘normal’ and all anyone can expect.

Some companies will and I think mine will, I personally don’t see why not, why should you be out of pocket