“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.

This is us too.
As no one stuck to it, we are now back in the office 5 days a week. A shame for those like me who did follow the rules.

Standard at my workplace as well, you are expected to have childcare in place. They are flexible and will allow staff to wfh to facilitate drop-offs, pick-ups etc provided staff flex their hours and make up the time. If staff have a sick child they need to care for they are trusted to decide whether they can wfh still or to take a dependents leave day - we have a limited number of paid leave days for this. But if they are working they are expected to work and not be actively caring for a child.

I don't know why anyone would
want to work whilst looking after a dc!

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.

Agree

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

Also agree

It's beneficial to both parties so there does need to be some give & take and flexibility.

Can you point to the bit where I said that?

Various posters had stated their work rules you can’t be at home with children of x age.

My employer is trying to save money by condensing the estate. If they suddenly decided that hundreds of us couldn’t WFH with our children in the house there would be a kickback, the union would intervene, and they would lose the argument.

Absolutely.
My job role was very easy to manage workload into chunks. I’d deliberately leave the more complicated ones for DD’s nap time. A colleague in the same job role also had a DD the same age as mine and only lived 5 mins away from me. So on lots of WFH days, I drop my older ones at school and go straight round to her house. We’d set our laptops up together and have the DCs playing together while we worked. Was quite a nice set-up really.

Not in my experience. I haven’t seen much evidence of anyone finishing work late after doing the schoolrun. It’s all “Popping out for a few mins”.

This thread has made me very grateful for my workplace and how relaxed and flexible they are for working parents. Some of you seem to be treated like children not adults who ought to able to manage their workloads and responsibilities in the way that works for them. I think I love my boss!

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

most people I know take it off their lunch break.

Not really, because life evolves.

When I started work, overwhelmingly men were 'bosses' and they called their secretary in to 'take a letter' which he dictated and she wrote in shorthand, in pencil, on a notepad. She then typed it up on her manual typewriter and then at the end of the day all the letters were put into envelopes and franked, then went into the post, and the letter got delivered to your house or to the other business the next day or a few days later. That person then also replied by letter.

Later, we were able to send things (office to office) by fax machine. It was quite the development.

However, we no longer have to do that, because the internet came into common use. We can e-mail. We can 'meet' virtually, with people all over the World if need be. We can talk to them in real time. We can hold meetings without anyone having to catch a train or drive 4 hours across country to get to that meeting. Life has evolved to a place where a lot of people have no need at all to be working on a laptop in an office, when they can do exactly the same work, working on a laptop at home.

@CarpetKnees i get that, thankfully things have evolved.

However how can, mainly women, being expected to do a 40 hour week and provide full time care for babies and toddlers be a good thing for anyone?

Agree. It doesn’t feel like a particularly positive development to me.

I agree completely.

It is often touted as a big advancement for women in the workplace but in reality it sends the message that you can not only have it all but literally do it all at the same time.

This is not against any poster on this thread...

But year on year there are more stories of children being less prepared for school (in nappies for example). Is there any correlation between parents trying to work and look after toddlers simultaneously and things like this?

But no-one on this thread is suggesting that.
It is pretty unanimous that no-one can be looking after babies, toddlers, or small children when they are supposed to be working.

The way I read @OnTheBoardwalk 's post, it was suggesting that all jobs ought to be in a communal office in 2025, simply because, the majority of (office type) jobs needed to be in a communal office before covid. That is what I was replying to.

The point is, we now have the technology widely available to most, so that those with 'office type jobs' no longer need to be in the same building as each other.

The lack of commute, and the lack of 'trapped time' in the middle of the day are such a plus point for many people, that they are happy to make space in their homes, and heat that space enough to work in it, in exchange for that. It's not for everyone, but "because that's what we used to do" is not a valid reason to make people do things today when the need is no longer there.

ah no @CarpetKnees absolutely not, that’s not what I was saying, I agree completely with you on that one

absolutely agree WFH is a great way forward from the 'shirking from home' view one of my old managers had

i responded to the thread in terms of most employers wont let you work from home with children and what did the people who used to have to arrange baby and toddler care do before they worked full time from home

Of course. Unless child is teenager and doesn't interrupt you working. Work pays you to work not care for your child

Sorry, not proved your point.

Employers pay for work you do for them, not your housework or childcare or walking your dog.

Why not accept a cut in hours? Subtract time you spend doing your parenting & life admin etc

It’s less of an issue now as the numbers have gone up, but for a while after Covid wraparound care at school was limited because there were so many people WFH with EYFS/KS1 kids around it wasn’t viable to run. Breakfast club was removed and after school club only ran three days a week.

That made it very difficult for the parents who did have jobs that couldn’t be done WFH. So not only the impact on work and your own child, but the ability of other people to do their jobs.

Covid was 5 years ago it’s no longer an excuse.

It does still cause problems though. Before Covid many of the parents would be working in the office and use breakfast club for almost all the week. Now many are hybrid and WFH is particularly common on Mondays and Fridays which makes breakfast club numbers close to not being viable to run.

My work is never ending in theory.. I cant just be "done for the week" or day. My employer certainly would be asking questions if I were a sole carer in my work hours, that said my work hours can be flexible so if I were to do an hour or two here or there where I'm both working and looking after my son, that's probably fine, I'm trusted to make up any time out.. any longer or a regular basis, I'm obliged to negotiate..

The idea of just getting paid for 37.5 hours a week and also looking after kids - wow, I hope I'm never unfortunate enough to work with these part timers! That said, there are plenty of people who seem to do, say and deliver feck all in my experience, they're probably the ones running this scam!

THIS is why every year mumsnet is inundated with people asking about wfh jobs! We'd all love a little 9-5 that meant we could still do school run walk dog, peg out washing, pick kids up, get dinner cooking etc etc