“Most employers won’t let you WFH and look after children”

[choochoowah]

Is this actually the case? I know some must have this policy but my husbands certainly doesn’t: they don’t know or care what he does in the day as long as the work gets done (he works from home twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.)

WFH isn’t an option in my job so I don’t know. I’m just wondering how common this is as an actual policy.

We're allowed to. Actually, thinking about it I was actively encouraged by way of apology for us having not paid maternity leave (ie the childcare saving would help mitigate the loss of pay). I genuinely think it didn't affect my work although it did affect my mental health - often, I wouldn't make my hours up until 9pm if naps didn't go as planned.

Yes, you cannot look after a kid and work from home! However, your husband is not working from home and looking after a child. Your husband is on a work output contract rather than an hours one, therefore he is just working at different times

Pretty standard, I think. I WFH full time with no option to go into the office. My eldest is 6, my youngest 16 months. I can't WFH with the youngest at all as he needs constant attention. I do WFH with the eldest a couple of days a week in between school home time and the time my husband gets in from work. My manager is aware of that and it's fine. I would never WFH the full day with him though (in the holidays etc) as apart from anything it's boring for him. Different as they get older though, I wouldn't bat an eyelid at someone working with an older primary child or secondary age child at home.

Just to add (as PPs have asked how it worked without impacting work), I do a software engineering role. I'd schedule meetings for naptime, my partner's lunch hour (they popped back to tag in) or after my partner got home at 5.10. I'd also save really hard problems for those times (added up to about 3 hours a day plus the time after 5.10 when I was finishing my hours, so at least half the working day). The other 2/3 hours a day, I'd reply to emails, engage with chats, work on documentation/house keeping tasks. And code up small, easy tweaks with the baby/toddler next to me in a high-chair or playpen. If I had deadlines that required more sustainable hours of deep thought or high-risk decisions, I'd just take the awake time with DD and work later in the day. So I suppose I wasn't actually 'WFH whilst looking after DC", I was engineering my working day around the child and this works in my role. It was rare I had to have an important meeting with an awake child (although there was one that stands out where I was in a meeting with a director and several heads of department where I had to defend myself, put the camera off and breastfeed to keep DD quite). But I maintain that I was the one that suffered - not my work

@ThisPithyJoker

Sounds like a really really tough way to live

Out of interest - why did you want to?

Depends doesnt it. Standard 9am to 5pm with small kids under 10. No

A job where hours are flexible and not contracted to stipulate times. So must do 6 hours every 24 hours, then yes.

Either way and kids are over 10, they look after themselves and use your lunch break to take to activities or school run if your employer is flexible with when you take your lunch.

It’s definitely a policy ! At my work you can’t have a child under the age of 11 in your care. I mean how could anyone do a proper job at work and look after a child . You wouldn’t do either properly . I don’t see how that’s difficult to understand ?

That sounds hard and stressful, wouldn’t it have been far easier to use childcare?

Ive been wfh since lockdown my kids were 10 and 5 i taught them you do not bother me dont talk to me when im on the phone ever. They did well. Now 15 and 10 and they reapect it cant say family do whej they turn up. My kids kick of at them for bothering me when they do this.

Yeah at my work there is a policy that clearly states you are not to wfh without appropriate childcare in place.

However, it does state that temporary childcare arrangements for emergencies poorly children/school closures etc is ok.

If every Friday you're wfh and you have your toddler with you - not ok and a disciplinary could be launched.

Wfh because your child has chickenpox - it's a - do the best you can approach.

A friend of mine tried to do the Friday at home with a toddler approach, she got caught. Too many Fridays had occurred where they could hear the toddler in the background on calls. Then one Friday, her line manager just directly asked why her child was at home. She said 'illness', line manager reminded of the company policy (same policy we have) and then loosely said they might want to see proof of her childcare arrangements (nursery contract or something). She quickly had to up her nursery days from 4 to 5.

Her line manager didn't pursue it but I think it was just enough of a warning to say - we're onto you and this isn't ok, if it happens again we'll be asking for the contract.

Which is what I said would happen when she told me she was going to try and get away with it. I was like - you cannot work with an 18mt to 2yr old running around. It's impossible to start and you will get found out when you're on video calls.

I manage about 17 people who all WFH, and I know the family situation of most of them. Those who have small children (under 7) all have wraparound care in place, OR flexible hours at work (formally agreed) OR - most often - a combination of both. I have three or four people (myself included) who use their lunch breaks at 3pm to do the school run for older primary aged children, who I’m aware are going to be in the house but I literally never see or hear anything from in our - frequent - meetings. And I also have a few team members who have older, secondary aged children, who are in and out of an afternoon but don’t impact their ability to do their jobs. Our role involves going externally to meetings and sites, and although the team manage their own diaries they do absolutely have to do it at least twice a week and be able to react to emergencies, so it doesn’t work if you’ve got kids at home a lot of the time.

I hold two relatively strong views on it - firstly, you cannot work full time and look after young children full time. Both of those roles need at least 80% of your attention and there isn’t enough to go around. Childcare needs to be in place if you’re trying to work. I am of course flexible if the children are off sick - you can’t account for it and there are often no other alternatives but we work in a client led role, so if my team members can primarily look after their child but keep an eye on their emails to ensure that nothing urgent is being missed, I’m happy enough with that.

But the other side of it is - companies are saving THOUSANDS in not having to provide office space for all their staff all the time. The move to WFH for my company instantly knocked over half a million off their balance sheet. They are now in our homes, but expecting us to work as if we’re in an office and actually that doesn’t always work and that expectation is unreasonable given this is an employee’s private space. You don’t get to say, as an employer, that teenage children can’t be around in their own homes.

Ours too. Rare exceptions are made if a child older than 8 is unwell/school closed etc. In fact all parents have to show proof that they have childcare arranged for very young children (nursery contact etc) as sadly too many people were chancing it.

My dh workplace didn’t care. Often babies sitting on laps in meetings, often the director had his twins with him. Dh now is the director and can do as he pleases. In reality though, it’s hard to care for a child while working. We only ever did it when it was necessary, they either went to childcare or I was a sahm.

At my place, I’ve always done it and none of my line manager’s have had an issue with it.

But my colleague’s line manager did, so, i don’t know if there’s an official party line.

Do you think your youngest child got enough attention on those days?

i am sceptical about the people who just nip out for the school run and whose children can help themselves to snacks.
If school is 10 mins away, that isn’t just 20 mins out. It’s getting off the computer in enough time to put shoes/coat on so actually 15 mins, get to school 10 mins later and child dawdles out or you need to speak to the teacher, add on another 5-10 mins. Walk back 10 mins. How many children come straight in, get a snack and turn the TV on whilst you get straight back to work? On the days when they’re upset after an argument with a friend, or not being able to do the maths problem or overjoyed at getting a certificate, surely you spend some time with them?!

That’s probably about an hour.

I’m currently WFH with my 8 year old son… my company are absolutely fine with it.. as long as there is no background noise on the calls. My son is happy doing his own thing at home. It works good for us. I don’t fancy palming him off to family members during the school holidays. I suppose every company is different

Presumably though if you were going out to do the school run you’d clock out to do so.

I’ve got a colleague who goes out to do the school run but she takes it out of her own time.

There are plenty of people in the office who go outside to smoke, go and make drinks and stop for a chat on the way, disappear to the toilet for ages. They do it in works time.

Do you work full time? It feels like quite a dull summer holidays for him if he’s just at home ‘doing his own thing’ all day every day while you’re working.

Yes I work full time. I do three days WFH and two long days in the office at the weekend. Then when his dad is off work at the weekend he takes our Son out on day trips. Maybe you shouldn’t judge or assume. Also we go on a two week holiday at the end of July. So don’t worry my son is absolutely fine. We certainly are not having a dull summer 😊

It wasn’t a judgement or assumption, just an observation.

Absolutely, but also a lot more expensive. We were in a flat and saving for a house. Once the 30 free hours kicked in, she went to nursery during school hours. It was nice to spend all the time with her, too - there was still guilt about the situation but less than if I was paying someone else to look after her.

Yeah, that's another good point. Not only do I not think my work suffered, but I think I did more (and better) hours. Less catching up with Bob from accounts about his holiday or getting distracted by Mavis' cat pictures. No workplace yoga on work's time, no getting up for a coffee every hour because the kettle is right there, less getting dragged into unnecessary meetings. Of course the relationship with colleagues has suffered into the post-COVID world, but purely in terms of how productive I am, it's higher, even with childcare in the mix.

Same! I actually sat in the back of a few lessons and went to at least one assembly (I can still very vividly remember them!) Mum taught in (independent) secondary schools and it seemed to be accepted that it was better for her to be in and teaching and have me there than her having to stay home when I was 'ill' - I think I was a bit of a school avoider in primary school as I had a lot of 'tummy aches'. I am a teacher now and there is no way it would be allowed due to health & safety risks (actually, I think we'd also be encouraged not to for work-life balance!)

It depends on the role and the company how flexible they are, how much they value presenteeism, how much they value all the additional hours people work, how much autonomy someone has, how much they trust people to use their judgement (e.g. not duck out of an important meeting to do childcare) etc. Many firms accept it (childcare and elderly care too).