Is this reasonable while WFH?

[Theultracheese]

The situation is that there’s 10 of us in a team, we log in to a phone system but dont get many calls at all. Probably take about 5 calls each on average per day.

If you usually have childcare during half term but your child minder had to cancel on Friday, meaning you were working from home with a child running around and shouting etc, would it be reasonable to not log in to the phones that day so that you don’t have to take calls with screaming kids in the background?

You would be unreasonable to be working with no childcare. You need to find an alternative or take a day off work

Well, kids don’t scream all day!
So I’d say do what you can, as long as the rest of the team understand.

How old are the dc? Surely you can ask but if they're young children then you'd be being unreasonable trying to work with them there anyway

It will be age dependent

Could yo not ask your manager/team? Could you do the rest of your job with your child at home?

could you take the day off & do something fun together?

could you ask one of his friends mums & you have them another day? (Weekend day if you work FT)

My gut says no but in reality shit happens sometimes so I would say only if agreed with other members of staff working - perhaps offer to do something for each of them instead.

if you can’t find any other childcare, talk to your manager, that’s the only reasonable solution, you can’t just not do calls without having that chat

What sort of calls are they - external clients or internal colleagues? Unless they're toddlers or really badly behaved, you should be able to take a call that's not too long.

We have a hard rule about childcare and if you have none you take unpaid parental leave until you do

That person isn’t doing any work if the children are that young.

they need to take the day off

You probably should have taken the day off. How did you get any work done with a child running around shouting?

If, after explaining the situation to management and they said you needed to work, then you could negotiate not logging into the phone. But only after asking?

Did you just not log in without telling anyone?

If your kids are young enough to be 'running around and shouting' all day then you need proper childcare.

I honestly can't image how wonderful it must be if you can do your job whilst also looking after children! It must be so great, I've never had a job that you could just pause work to wipe a bum or sort a snack or stop a fight between kids. I'm jealous and also can't believe folk are being paid for a job that they can do half arsed!

Imagine a nurse taking their kids round the ward with them, a check out person with a baby bouncing on their knee, a scientist with kids running around the lab.

No. That's fraud, OP. You need to take the day off as annual leave.

Only with agreement with a manager. Many workplaces are bringing in mandatory office days and mandatory proof of child care when wfh for these reasons. The manager would be able to say if you need to take leave or if you could be put on other duties instead of phones for the day or just not take calls.

How much notice did the CM give for Friday's cancellation? If a day or 2 you have time to speak to manager or sort some kind of childcare or take leave. If on the morning then it is really is speak to manager and take leave if needed.

Depends. But a childcare emergency can’t always just be fixed so the children may have to be around. So I guess then it depends on the manager to decide whether that person needs to take a day off (dependant leave etc) or whether they’d prefer them doing bits of work but just not doing the calls. Where I work, it would be fine for me to miss a meeting but do the rest of my work around DC (probably pushing some work to after bedtime), in a one off last minute childcare issue.

If you're not logging in, you take it as unpaid or annual leave.

Or log in and put your kids in front of a screen when you're on a call.

It depends on whether your colleagues are happy with covering your work or not. If I had an otherwise reliable hard working colleague and it was a one off I wouldn't mind. If it happened a lot or I thought they were just dodging work I wouldn't be happy.

You’re getting paid to work, not take care of your kids.

@Theultracheese tbh why are you asking MN? How would anyone other than your direct manager know what’s reasonable and what their expectations are? What if the phone systems are monitored and not logging in for whatever reason could be a disciplinary offence? Please contact your employer and professionally assess your options!

No you shouldn't be looking after kids while working

It would only be reasonable if you had explicit written permission from your line manager to a) have your kid at home while you worked and b) to not take calls.

My work would be really relaxed about this and I would just explain the situation to them and say I can take the day off or I can do my other usual tasks without the calls. My work would have no issues with this as long as it wasn't a regular occurrence.

If someone can’t work they need to be on emergency leave and watch their child. Either the child is old enough not to run around shouting or young enough to need supervision.

our phone log on links to our timesheet which links to us being paid. So no you can't get away with not logging on. Also part of our contract is you cannot wfh unless you have childcare for any children.