to resent covering constantly for a colleague's childcare absences?

[catchingup1]

One of my colleagues is constantly off or leaving early because of childcare. Pick ups, drop offs, kids off sick, last minute issues. I do understand that children come first, that is not the issue.

The problem is that it is not shared at all in her household. From what she has said, her husband does not step up, so everything falls on her. Which in reality means it falls on the rest of us at work.

We are the ones covering her workload, staying late, reshuffling deadlines and picking up the slack. It is not occasional, it is constant and it is starting to feel like it is just expected.

What makes it worse is that our manager is fully aware but does nothing. She avoids conflict and just tells the rest of us to get on with it. There is no attempt to address the imbalance or put any proper structure in place, it is just quietly absorbed by the team.

It also makes it harder because she is HR and we are a small organisation, so it feels like there is nowhere to raise this without it becoming awkward or going nowhere.

I do not blame my colleague for needing time off when her kids are ill. But it does not feel fair that her home situation, particularly a partner who is not pulling his weight, ends up creating extra work and pressure for everyone else.

Your colleague isn't the issue. Your manager is the issue. They should find cover. This is exactly what temp agencies are for.

Ever heard of compassion fatigue? Where you are expected to show compassion constantly (often to your own detriment) over a very long period of time with no resolution or end in sight. I've been there, done that, and ended up resenting that I was paid the same, treated the same, just expected to arrange my life around someone else's personal life and work unpaid extra hours to facilitate this. Never have Christmas, Easter or half terms off, get an extra 2 hours urgent work dropped on my desk at 4pm that HAD to be done that day. Eventually yes you feel resentful towards that other person.

@Zerosleep Believe it or not, you aren't the only person here who's had plenty of management experience, or worked with others who have difficult home lives. There are some parents (and I do emphasise some) who seem to think that the entire world should revolve around their child care responsibilities.

If the manager has an agreement with the staff member that they can drop everything at a moment's notice on a regular basis, and not have to make up the work, then yes that's between the manager and staff member. But to then expect the other staff to cover, for no extra reward or consideration, time and again ad infinitum, is definitely a matter for the other staff.

If management do have an arrangement for the staff member to work fewer hours, but their notional workload is full time so needs to be done, then the team is understaffed. If the arrangement is for flexible working, then why doesn't the staff member pick up other's work to make up for the absences?

I no longer work full time so don’t have this issue. I did work in a team with family responsibilities so do understand. If it is reciprocal then OK. If not then you are justified in your resentment.

I like the response by this poster - to isolate the issue and not make it personal. I hope that your team are all in agreement.

Good luck with the outcome

Myself and the team have been covering her additional work for several months now. Yes we all pitch in if things happen but it is every week, sometimes several times a week that we have to keep covering for her.

We all have DC and our own issues too.

Is it hard nosed and lacking in compassion to not want to keep covering for her anymore?

When we talk to her, she just says how useless her DH is so she has to step up.

It’s sounds like your limit for covering has been reached especially as it seems an excess number of times. Management won’t do anything without you complaining as at the moment as far as they’re concerned it’s all working fine her ducking out and her colleagues covering.

The law of the land is thatshe has the right to take time off to deal with emergencies for dependants. Lots of employers have found themselves in employment tribunals for not respecting this right

Management either need to address this and hope it gets resolved or they hire another worker.

I used to be a PA/receptionist/legal sec in a very small company. Only one other Legal Sec who would often book last minute holidays, get hers in before mine, go to the pub with our boss three times a week after lunch and return when I was leaving. Plus she didn’t work Fridays. I stayed there for 5 years and did all the extra work on time but left at normal times, didn’t come in earlier and took sick leave rarely. They didn’t want to hire temps (tricky to train legal secs in a day) but hired a friend as a temp who bullied me and also criticised the other lawyers and moaned a lot. I suggested we got temps for holiday cover but to do reception and admin work. One temp was so good she reorganised the filing system upstairs too. My legal PA colleague was thrilled with the arrangement as it meant she didn’t need to cover overflow phones and could type audio tapes so make up for me not being there. My main boss was equally thrilled with this even though he didn’t like paying temps or using agencies unless he had to. He saw the value though compared to the comparison (his friend). When I left (they tried to get me to stay) they actually outsourced reception and overflow typing to an external company rather than hire another legal sec/receptionist.

This is correct but coupling with her coming in late and leaving early, this makes her unreliable and puts pressure on her colleagues to pick up the slack.

A lot of what OP describes are not "emergencies"

Nobody thinks it’s fine that you are having to do so much extra work. However, your anger has been directed at the wrong person.

Your workload is not your colleagues responsibility. It’s your manager you should be blaming. And yourself for continuing to martyr yourself.

If you have discussions with manager about it, don’t make it remotely personal about the specific colleague. Just state that the team is continually short staffed and you are unable to pick up the slack. If they wring their hands then you can suggest they take it up with their own boss.

It isn’t your problem or colleagues problem that you have shit management.

You say "we aren't going to cover anymore" etc - so are the rest of the team with you in this?

I hope so, or you could be standing alone and be singled out as a trouble maker if people don't back you up

It's none of your business. I expect the manager knows more than you and hasn't shared her personal information with you. Stop huffing and gossiping with the rest of the team about her, work your normal hours and ask your manager how to prioritise the work.

Have you ever actually been asked to stay late to cover her work? If you have then you should be discussing with your manager whether you can, overtime or toil. If you haven't been asked to then you're just choosing it so either stop doing it or stop blaming your colleague for your choices.

We are going to deal with as a team - so it doesn't fall on one person to protect ourselves.

Not huffing and gossiping. Just going to stop doing her work so management have to deal with it.

Absolutely this.

I mean, you could all start pulling the same stunt. ‘Here’s the extra work’. Oh no sorry you suddenly have to rush off because your child is ill. All of you.

I would tend to agree.
The OPs manager and the employee with childcare issues aren't facing up to hard facts here. The fact being that the employee with the childcare issue is unable to fulfil the full time role which then has to be covered by others with their own full time roles, which is totally unfair and unsustainable in the long term. The manager should be seeking independent HR advice on how to deal with this situation and dealing with it.

No. People have to be pragmatic. If others collapse because of work overload, the whole team goes down.

When I was in a similar situation - of covering for the married woman who happened to have 4 (healthy by her account) children - I was working full time plus caring for my disabled husband. I knew that I had to do my job.

What I didn't have time for was constantly picking up the slack for someone else. Yes, our department did all rub together and we did help one another out, but you cannot sustain holding up that one person who always expects others to do their job for them.

Spending time 'supporting' the other person meant that I was constantly being held up at work because of the need to catch up with my own electronic paperwork and I found myself spending more and more time trying to catch up with my own work because senior management tried to make the other person my problem. That was why I had to put my foot down.

Looking back, whenever we had staff who were unreliable, it would turn out that there was some kind of an addiction at the root of it and that turned out to be the case for that particular person. (I know because knowledge of her problem entered the public domain in the end.)

You can feel sympathy for someone but you cannot keep propping up others to your own detriment.

That's terrible advice. Works offering flexibility for these situations is great, if people start taking the piss like that the flexibility will be removed for everyone.

Op has never been asked to stay late to cover this work, they're just doing it and blaming their colleague for that choice. They should work their contracted hours and ask their manager to prioritise the work for the team if there isn't time to complete it all.

Op has never been asked to stay late to cover this work, they're just doing it and blaming their colleague for that choice.

Yes I have been asked to stay late to cover the work.

Ok, then you just need to say "sorry, i can't, i need to go home"?
I don't understand why you've made it your problem.

I have already said I am not going to do it anymore.

Although it’s easy to resent your colleague, really the responsibility lies on your management to sort this out and it’s 100% poor managing. Your manager avoids conflict so doesn’t say anything to colleague who is always off - first issue. Expecting others to cover - second issue.

Third issue is you keep allowing the cycle by covering despite resentment, if you have your own life and DC then start saying no…

Already said this:

We are going to deal with as a team - so it doesn't fall on one person to protect ourselves.

@catchingup1
Well done for this.
I would also just say that you also have to leave for your own childcare reasons. Your children are not going to benefit from you working late for no extra cash.