To think work can’t reject flexible working for childcare if they have agreed it for medical reasons?

[usernamediff]

Hi, from my understanding a flexible working request can be rejected on 8 reasons that are to do with problems to the business if they agreed it. I start work at 6am and it’s impossible to get childcare at that time of day. My mum was helping out but isn’t as well as she used be. I know someone else who felt similar about childcare but was able to work it around her husband’s shifts. However, she has just had a normal day shift agree due to medical reasons. This is a long term issue they have agreed forever, not just a temporary thing. She has said to me multiple times how much easier it is to now juggle family life as baby can just go to nursery if needed. I can’t begin to imagine how much easier it is to start at 9 vs 6 with a small child. She does say how it was agreed due to medical reasons though but surely when it comes to the flexible working it can also be rejected even for medical reasons if it doesn’t work for the business? So surely the outcome would be the same regardless of reason?

FWRs have been around in this form for a long time. We haven’t lost all the women from the workforce.

If society stopped making childcare a female responsibility, it would help more.

I wasn't giving an opinion, merely explaining to OP how her fwr for childcare could get turned down but then someone with a medical issue be granted it.

"She does say how it was agreed due to medical reasons though but surely when it comes to the flexible working it can also be rejected even for medical reasons if it doesn’t work for the business? So surely the outcome would be the same regardless of reason?"

You have a shower
Your friend drinks tea

Did you have a shower and your friend drink tea for the same reason?
Did your shower and your friend's tea drinking mean that you and your friend experience the same thing?
Did YOU experience anything as a result of your friend's tea drinking?

It's the same in your scenario

• you asked for one thing for one reason
• your colleague asked for something totally different for a totally different, unrelated reason
• the outcomes are different because two different unrelated actions that are taken by two different people separately normally have different, unrelated outcomes.

Women aren’t having as many children, though, and as a society we need to address why. I had to fight tooth and nail to get my FWR approved by my employer - another woman may have simply thrown in the towel.

Personally I don’t think treating parents, especially the parents of younger children, as the same is helpful. That’s not recognising or valuing the role of mothers at all.

We also need to look at how many men step up for elder care. Not as many as women, I’ll bet.

Like I said, as long as we simply tweak and twiddle with the workplace, which was set up by and for men, instead of pulling it down and starting afresh, and understanding that men and women aren’t the same but that doesn’t mean they don’t both make good employees (depending on how you grade good - presenteeism isn’t ideal, for example) - equal but different.

I’m probably being quite muddled in explaining this!

Hers is as a reasonable adjustment on health grounds, which they really have to accommodate if at all possible to avoid hitting disability discrimination issues, she can’t help her health and needs the adjustment to do her job.

Yours is a simple flexible working request because you chose to have a child, yours can be declined far more easily.

Personally I don’t think treating parents, especially the parents of younger children, as the same is helpful. That’s not recognising or valuing the role of mothers at all.

Beyond breastfeeding, what’s stopping men being equal parents?

(Hint: my dad did more than 50% and my husband does more than 50%. So it’s not biological.)

This is interesting. So as HR do you HAVE to approve the adjustments on medical grounds? How easy it is to push back? As far as I know almost all the people I work with get adjustments granted for medical conditions, but I often see standard flexible working requests rejected as it doesn't suit the business.

Your family is an outlier, in that despite shared parental leave being around for a while now, virtually no women transfer their maternity leave to dad. Most women I know went back to work between 6 months and a year (this was pre shared parental leave) and I don’t recall any saying they wished they could have had less time with their babies.

I just don’t believe that the parents of babies are equal, at that stage of development. Mum is more important. Society doesn’t value that, and shared parental leave devalues it even more.

I do understand hers was a medical issue but my point was just the fact I know businesses can reject adjustments for medical reasons if it doesn’t work for the company either so I was just confused at the fact it wouldn’t work for the company if I started later but it works for the company to agree hers. That was all

Adjustments for medical reason are covered by different legislation to flexible working and they are not comparable nor connected.

your reason for wanting flexible working isn’t relevant to the decision. You could want it for childcare or flower arranging. It’s not relevant. The decision is on business reasons.

you need to demonstrate how you can make it work for the business.

It's because they are expected to take a reasonable detriment to the business to support someone with a disability to work. They are expected to allow fwr if they can for others but they aren't expected to be negatively impacted in that situation

What’s unfair about the fact that she has a medical issue and you haven’t?

It’s a balance, to be honest.

Only way to test if someone is legally covered by the disability provisions in the Act is at Tribunal. Few employers want to do that, so they will err on the side of caution. Lots of things wouldn’t be reasonable in lots of circumstances, but I have seen requests for:

someone wanting us to modify ambulances so that they could bring their assistance dog (not sight related!) in the cab (refused)
a receptionist who wanted to wfh permanently (we agreed a move to a role that could be undertaken from home)
Someone who wanted to dictate who they would and wouldn’t work with, including managers (refused)

Generally speaking, changing hours, extra breaks, standing desks, allocated parking, fixed desks, changes to how managers interact (eg providing written notes and agendas up front), specific software for text to speech or speech to text are fairly easy to allow most of the time.

A close relative was non-public facing for an emergency service. They have a chronic condition that, amongst other things, means they can’t regulate their body temperature. Their employer refused to let them wear a heated body warmer under their uniform (so nobody would be any the wiser) until we threatened a disability discrimination claim. That was pretty ridiculous.

Employers don’t HAVE to agree them, but if a Tribunal ruled that something was refused that would be considered reasonable by a reasonable person, there are hefty financial risks.

You’re not understanding that your two requests have totally different standings OP.

Hers is medical, the company has to be seen to make reasonable adjustment to help her with that even if it’s not perfect for the business.

Yours is just a flexible working request due to a choice you made to have a child, so yours can far more easily be rejected.

I wasn’t talking about shared parental leave. I had 18 months with DD, because DH worked away (I was self employed). Now I work away and he’s the default parent. We shared the time off when she was sick etc between those points.

My mum went back to work in the evenings when I was 2 weeks old, leaving my dad with a load of expressed milk, did all the school runs when we were in primary (up to about year 5), all the brownies and other activities, food shopping, cooking, ironing etc whilst also working full time. It could be done in the 70s and it could be done in the 00s. It isn’t being done because women take it all on whilst on mat leave and then are expected to continue doing it all while at work. It’s a trap and too many women fall into it.

DH has never worked part time and neither have I. We’ve never prioritised his career over mine (we earn the same). Nobody asked me how I felt about him working away but lots of people asked him when I did. He quite rightly asked why he’d be anything but happy that I was doing what I loved.

Well, that’s very interesting but I would still posit that in various ways you’re an outlier and I still don’t think anything you’ve said particularly disproves my point.

We don’t value mothers or motherhood in our society and modern workplace concepts of “equality” don’t, in my opinion, help.

Can you expand on that? I’m not seeing why motherhood should be valued more than fatherhood (obviously outside of the fact that mothers are the ones that give birth).

Women are still held back either by reducing focus on work to care for children, or by assumptions made about their priorities. So how do we address that (so that women have true choices) if we don’t question why mothers and not fathers?

Surely we shouldn't value, or encourage women doing all the parenting? We should have policies which respect and encourage equal parenting, rather than policies that make women bear the load.

My point is that I personally think that in the first year, at the very least, parents aren’t equal. Mum is the key player.

My point is also that parental equality in the workplace often simply looks like women behaving like men with caring responsibilities, and abdicating those responsibilities to an unpaid or low paid woman. That’s what work wants.

I know I’m not articulating this very well, but I’ve read a few articles and discussions here on MN that make me sceptical of the motivations behind this kind of thing. Equality doesn’t always acknowledge or value difference. An equality that just wants women to be the same as men doesn’t seem to me a good thing.

I’ll try but I know I’m not making a good job of this! I also don’t want to imply I’m any kind of a tradwife or agree with that.

I think that while both motherhood and fatherhood are important, they aren’t always equally important at the same time. And I think trying to stamp out the difference isn’t helpful.

Why should women be “held back” by motherhood or caring responsibilities? Only a workplace that see “man” as the default, that ultimately values presenteeism most of all, would think that - which shows that despite women being part of the workforce for 100 years, it still isn’t a workforce that works for women as distinct and different from men.

I don’t know how to create it or what that workplace would look like. But I don’t think that the endless tinkerings are radical enough to make real change happen. But I guess that’s all we’ve got!

Thats’s probably not very helpful
or clear, sorry! It’s something that I sporadically ponder when I’m out and about, chatting to myself and putting the world to rights.

My take is that we need to force men to take their domestic and parenting responsibilities seriously. My employer gives 6 months full paternity to try and do this (but it’s still mainly women taking time off when kids are ill). It does require women at work and at home to push this though.

if a male colleague is getting married, I ask if he will be changing his name.
if he announces he’s having a baby, I ask if he will be going part time.
if people ask me how DH copes with me being away, I deliberately look at them as though they have 3 heads and explain that he is a fully functioning adult who can do everything I can do (except grow and birth a child).

little steps

You're being a little obtuse here OP

Your friends was accepted on medical reasons - to have not done may have resulted in a very costly and negative impact on disability discrimination grounds - they may not have wanted to accept your friends request, but were required by law to do so

Yours was rejected as it was based on what is easier for you, not your employer.

Ultimately it sounds like your job doesn't work with your caring responsibilities, time to think about looking for something with more family friendly hours.
I can't believe you had your mum getting up at 5am to care for your kids, what an angel she must be. I switched jobs when my ds was little because I thought 7.30am was too early to ask my mum to get up in her retirement! Managed to negotiate a later start in a new job.

Whatever the reason they accept one person's request, it doesn't mean they need to accept subsequent similar requests. Business needs may have been able to accomodate one person, but not two.

Did you choose to have a child knowing that you'd have to find early morning childcare and your employers agreement to flexible working wasn't guaranteed?
Does your child have 2 parents, why can't the other one look after the child until childcare opens?
Did your co worker choose to have a disability?