“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.

No formal policy in my current role, prior role or my husband's role. We both work internal facing and in roles where we might be regularly expected to start early or work late for specific deliverables so flexibility goes both ways. But our kids are older (10 and 13), and we just need to be around, make snacks and maybe drop to activities. As we're both generally around it's not always on one person to do all the kid stuff, so not so noticeable to the employers. After covid we didn't move back to after school care and have made it work between us.

My workplace is quite flexible about this, but I have had a colleague who took advantage of our trust and would go shopping with her kids during work time. She got caught and still felt that she did nothing wrong. Didn't last very long with us after that.

As a one-off if a little kid is off sick from school / nursery for a few days that would be fine. Older kids who can be trusted by themselves for a bit, no problem. But not as a standard week in, week out arrangement for little kids who need proper supervision.

My company just sacked someone partly because her child kept appearing on work calls/calls with clients and there were complaints she didn’t heed. It’s written into our home working contract that we must not be supervising children while at work.

I am not surprised.
I had a phone appointment (for mental health) with someone and for a while, I could hear their child in the background. Later on in the call, the child was bothering their mum when she should have been concentrating on me.

Same for me.
My boss knows I have my kids home 3-5pm three days a week and she’s fine with it.

Where I worked this was policy. A Director was dismissed for doing it because she was supposed to enforce the policy, which made it gross misconduct.

Small children, no, absolutely not.

Children that can reasonably be left to their own devices without interrupting us working absolutely fine.

Emergencies, fine, work knows stuff happens. But even so, if we're talking toddlers/babies then you'd be expected to take the day off.

My work will allow us to do school runs, attend sports day, Christmas shows etc as well without needing to use leave/lunch breaks as well..

It's fine at my work as long as you do your hours and don't take the piss. I have a colleague who has her child with her before/after school and I have my pre schooler with me a few hours a week before preschool opens. It's not a big deal.

It’s part of my contract that WFH can’t be used in place of childcare. My line manager however turns a blind eye on the odd occasion I don’t have a choice but he knows I put a lot of unpaid overtime in at evenings and weekends. It’s give and take. I don’t take the piss and in return he treats my like an adult and trusts that my work is done and doesn’t impact client meetings (which are nationwide)

I work / look after kids and no one minds. They are older 10+ so don’t need a lot of “looking after”. Just an add filtbhhere for emergencies, snacks, regular meals and sunscreen reminders.

It’s not an issue for my employer, my children are also older primary. I work from home if I don’t need to be in a meeting or running something. Other people work from home with babies . Admittedly they are part time and will spread out their hours. So might work two days spread over 5 days - leaving time to tend to their child but also get work done around naps or family help.

Surely there shouldn't need to be anything explicit in the policy though, just like no employee needs to be told that they are expected to not bring their child to work with them if they are working in an office, shop, hospital, school etc. Whilst you are being paid by an employer to work, you shouldn't be doing something else e.g. caring for a child.

So you don't think that employers should be able to expect their employee to be concentrating on the work they are being paid to do ?

Our official hybrid working policy is that WFH shouldn’t be used as a substitute for childcare arrangements, particularly for younger children. However there’s no official age. Unofficially my manager is happy for me to WFH if my children are sick but I’m expected to use childcare the rest of the time. That being said my 10 year old now comes home from school by himself once a week and they know he is around occupying himself for an hour or so until I finish work.

The WFH policy in my old organisation was v prescriptive and H&S had to be the same as in the office: ergonomically ok chair and desk, etc.

One colleague had a young child who needed oxygen and had tanks stored at home. This had to be approved and signed off. (There was childcare in place).

It can’t apply in lots of places though, judging by the amount of remote working going on at my nearest Lido.

Standard practice from my most recent experience.
The only time dh has been able to work from home while looking after our eldest dc was when school was unexpectedly closed due to a power cut. He'd just got to work and mil (who does some of the drop offs) called and let him know, he met her at her place of work and took ds home and worked with him there. Ds watched tv and read all day. He was 5 at the time.

I used to work in an office (pre covid) where one of the team worked from home during the school holidays to keep an eye on her children. It was a nightmare trying to get hold of her, she'd cut calls short because the children were fighting... thanks to covid it became standard and the team would also bring their children to the office, not just wfh with them. I couldnt deal with working while having children (my own and my collegues) around so found a new job.

I work for a small company so it may be different but o started working for them when my kids were pre school. I’ve always worked from home and fitted my hours in around school runs, housework, and the kids. As they’ve grown older, I have upped my hours and now I work 30, mainly 9-3 or 4 if the school runs take longer. I’m really glad I can do this but the pay isn’t great (I’m in social media and i know I could get more money but I wouldn’t have the flexibility)

Why, out of interest? I take my lunch at 2.45pm instead of 1pm one day a week and nobody has ever appeared to mind. If there was a meeting that had to take place at that time I'd arrange an alternative or dial in on the mobile but I appreciate the flexibility.

I'm not aware of a formal policy in my work. We've been WFH since before covid. It's very normal to see diaries blocked off for school runs even in senior management but I've never noticed anyone abuse the flexibility. My own boss took a phone call from her adult son while on a video call with me today. A lot of our customers are home based too and while it's not common for a child to interrupt a meeting, it's not remarkably unusual either. I'd be more cautious myself as we're the supplier so held to a different standard but if it happened I'd not lose sleep over it. On the other hand, if it's necessary to complete a piece of work at 6am or join a call at 8pm I do that too, so the customer benefits from me being at home and able to work around childcare. We have bonus targets that encourage us to deliver results.

I’m not planning any formal childcare for my kids who are 8 and 10 for summer holidays. They don’t really like holiday clubs and muddle along. Work don’t really care but I wouldn’t take the piss when they were little and needed more entertainment / care.

For most of my wfh jobs, it’s been a strict you must have childcare apart from rare sickness or snow type days, but I have worked at ones that don’t mind (my current role being one, there’s sometimes kids coming into view on zooms asking for a snack etc ) as long as you get your work done

Totally normal to need childcare until they are self sufficient

Tbh I kind of resent people who expect to wfh with a small child when I went years paying full nursery fees to keep my job and not making money for a few years. You cant work with children under 12 properly if you are there to supervise them, something will get neglected the work or the child. We all went through covid which was hell home schooling or working with little ones and it was not ideal for anyone. I do think some flex for sick days or unexpected events if you are able to do some work but I have a friend actively seeking a wfh job so she doesn’t have to pay for childcare and it makes me a bit frustrated as I am still paying for childcare and commuting costs

It's in my contract that I can't. I mean, it feels like stating the obvious really.

I think a lot of companies wised up to this being necessary after the pandemic.

2 hours a week? Honestly no big deal. My employer gets a lot more of unpaid overtime than that from me, so a couple of quiet hours wouldn’t bother me at all. The requirement for flexibility needs to go both ways, and that’s not taking the piss at all.