To have been told off by HR for this?

[Mhassy]

I asked a member of the HR team if they had children, in the context of discussing a flexible working request. This was in the small talk/intro part of the conversation, it wasn’t said to make a point or anything, or to bolster my request for flexible working. It was literally a polite back and forth before the actual meeting began, she asked how things were going with DD, I mentioned some new teething and it was all very chatty and I just asked - I thought politely! - if she had children. She told me she didn’t and the time had passed for her to now. We then moved onto the meeting itself.

Anyway, a day later I have a called from someone high up in HR to say I shouldn’t ask people if they have children and this is not an appropriate question in the workplace.

I do get that pregnancy etc can be a sensitive topic. I lost a baby a few years ago and it was and incredibly painful time at work and I felt triggered by any small talk about babies. However I would never have made an issue and I didn’t make an issue when the topic was raised.

AIBU to think this is a step too far to be policing this sort of conversation? I am recently a single parent and wouldn’t launch into being offended if I was asked if I had a partner? Where does it end? I was only making conversation!

Have you read the OP?

Op having a child is completely irrelevant to the flexible working process. Which this person should have known.

Exactly. It's inappropriate and unprofessional the very thing they accused OP of.

I've been out of the workplace for about 3 years now. I was starting to realise back then that to avoid offending anyone, however unintentionally is to keep your mouth firmly shut. That way you can't get into any trouble

Personally I wait until people tell me. If they don’t, I don’t ask.

I wouldn’t worry too much- no-one has come on the thread and said that they work in HR and agreed with the approach taken here.

We don't know that the HR person in the meeting made a complaint. We also don't know that the conversation was a stern as we're being told.

I say this having been called into my HR office this last week because 'my boss' ran to them crying that I'd told them off (rolls eyes). They say it's because they were the nearest office to vent into... I call bullsh*t but the HR lady said she had to do something because my boss was in tears. The email summoning me (and my colleague) and the long walk upstairs was like being called to the headteachers office. So already I was expecting something bad and felt told off... That said the HR lady was actually very reasonable and sympathetic once I put our version of events.

Bloody hell. How ridiculous. She ought to get a grip

Very OTT. If it was a sensitive subject for her then why did she ask about your dd? Britain is just such a mad place, I’m amazed anyone can open their mouths in the workplace.

Sorry, were you there? We haven't been told whether it is or wasn't. You have assumed it's not. In my case it was which is why I assumed it was. Either one of us could be wrong here.

I think it's OTT given that she asked you about your child first. Granted it sounds like she knew you had a child, but still, she asked non work related questions about your personal family life.

I totally get that but I really don’t think life shouldn’t be like this now… constantly afraid of offending people. No one would talk to anyone!

@MoreDollies obviously we can only go by the OP which said the HR person complained and she was responded to sternly. So yeah I'm basing my replies on what the OP Said.

Thank goodness your HR department sounds more reasonable than the OP's though.

Ridiculous from HR OP- bet they’ll want you doing team building/ being collaborative in the next breathe but no friendly chit chat ay. Must be like walking on egg shells!

Why can’t people take things in context anymore? You know when someone says something in malice and when not.

Have you when you started at the company been provided by HR with a list of topics you are not allowed to talk about?? I personally would be more worried about the mental health of the HR person who needed to flag this as an issue…in my workplace that would be an indication you perhaps weren’t well enough to be at work if you were upset at such a commonplace question .

It doesn't say the HR person complained in the OP... Unless that's been clarified since. Or I've misread that completely

You don’t have to be there.

The reason for your flexible working request holds no weight.

The reason given should not form part of the flexible working request. It’s entirely irrelevant In every flexible working request.

A person with children has no more right to have their flexible working request accepted, than a person who doesn’t have kids.

The decision should always be based on whether the business can accommodate. Not the reason for the request.

Ok fair enough. She mentioned it to her manager to the extent that the manager felt she needed to talk sternly to OP. Depends how you define a complaint. But as I've said before either way the senior HR person should not have taken it further ( but it may be more on them than the person that 'complained.')

I remember a friend telling me years ago that upon hearing the HR woman’s Australian accent she asked her where she was from (my friends father was Australiian and she’d spent a lot of time there and she was intending on discussing Oz) and the woman told her you shouldn’t ask people this question as it could be perceived as discriminatory

Not when it comes to applying the law fairly, true, but what we don't have is context. I know I applied for flexible working just before I returned to work having had DD, being asked about my child in that context would be relevant/reasonable IMHO whether it affects their decision or not.

Again, we don't know she told her manager in a complaint kind of way. And OP won't know that either. The other person might have crumpled once they got back to the office and was asked why they were crying by her boss.

Which was why I raised my experience... Allegedly my boss just happened to go into the HR office to cry (rather than that of the business manager or CEO) rather than specifically crying to HR. Apparently. I don't personally believe that of my boss, but I do believe my HR lady wasn't telling me off.

I'm getting fed up of this kind of nonsense in the workplace. By all means deal with overt behaviors such as racism etc., but this was small talk which was completely in the range of normal.

What seems like small talk to you may be triggering and painful to others

Sometimes I think childless women can't win
They get criticized of they don't show enough interest in other people's children, and criticized if they are upset by questions about their own parental status.

FFS. A friend has training at work where they were told NOT to ask colleagues if they had anything nice planned for the weekend, or ask if they’d had a nice weekend/holiday/christmas. Just in case someone got upset.

when did people become such babies?

@MoreDollies I think I'm missing the relevance over why it matters, assuming the hr person told her manager truthfully why she was upset the result and my point is the same - it's not reasonable for the manager to go back to to OP and say she was in the wrong.

@KimberleyClark - then she shouldn’t be asking other people about their children!