AIBU to think parents should not “work from home” on Sports Day

[OxfordMum2020]

Some parents are going to WFH from the athletics stands on sports day? Is this normal?

Surely you either take the day off as annual leave/unpaid leave or you don’t attend Sports Day?

I think your vote would have been different if it had been clear you were their manager in the OP. I’ve genuinely WFH on sports day. Sports day is a couple of hours and I’ve done all my working hours around it (and more probably). I think there’s no issue with that but what you describe is different.

Sounds like you’re jealous you haven’t been able to wangle it to me. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Oh bore off - most jobs that can wfh (and I include myself in this) are made up and largely inconsequential. Did the deliverables not get delivered on quite on time? Did you not get to circle back with the colleague you wanted to circle back with? Stop feeding into the capitalist machine - the world doesn’t stop turning because someone working in marketing approves a proof at 6pm instead of 2pm.

This.

If it's an employee saying this the answer can quite reasonably be as their boss 'You can take AL or unpaid leave but I do not believe you can do your job from the stand at sports day'

You can't work properly for the whole day from sports day. Taking a couple of hours and making up elsewhere is totally different.

I wouldn't be allowed to do that as there is sensitive personal data I need to use in my job and I'm not allowed to use my work laptop in a public space for that reason.

I'd be checking employee T&Cs.

If you are their line manager then it is not on that they told you they won't be available basically for the whole day...that is not working. But as you are their manager, you can tell them that's not on and that they need to take annual leave if they are not available for the whole day? Another thing would be not being available for 1 or 2 hours and making up for that time later or another day

You have a choice then, either you go down the disciplinary route, which I personally think is completely reasonable if this is not normal working practice, or you let it slide but have a word to give more notice next time.

Not only are they basically taking a day off from core duties expecting to be paid, they also haven't discussed it with you in advance. Unless the employee contract allows for this (most jobs don't) this is incredibly unprofessional and lacking in respect for you as their manager. I'd be wondering what else they're doing when they're 'working from home'.

I earn a lot less than I could to work in a job that is extremely flexible (I have core hours and then I can make up the rest of my hours at any time of day or night) but even my job is not so flexible that I could be 'unavailable' from 8.30am to 4 without clearing in advance with my manager.

Come on OP, this isn’t working from home, this is sneakily taking a day off but not using up annual leave. If the job entails client and team meetings and they cannot fulfill this function then they are not working.

On every thread like this, someone always has to pipe up with, “But what about doctors, nurses and teachers??? 😱😱😱😱”

Different jobs have different benefits.

I doubt the person the OP is moaning about is a brain surgeon! Just because an A&E nurse can’t work from home doesn’t mean nobody else should be able to either!!

Yes, it’s a bit cheeky, but it’s also only one day. It can be hard juggling your annual leave allowance when you have kids, so if you can make your employees’ lives a little easier, why not just be nice and do it?

It might be ok if they'd discussed with their manager in advance.

It's not ok to 'drop' this on their manager on the day it's happening. It's disrespectful and unprofessional. It means the manager, the OP, can't make any other arrangements if needed.

There are plenty of people who wouldn't behave like this looking for jobs right now. It's taking the piss.

if I felt my job was just pretend and it would make no difference if I was doing it or not, I would find something else to do.

Sounds like you need to take a priorities check, as do many of the people on this thread. Just let people live - as long as their work gets done it doesn’t actually matter? The oh so important client meeting can wait until tomorrow, they’ll survive.

The issue isn't so much the day off at sports day, if that's reasonable for the job, it's not being honest and respectful to their manager.

this. There's flexibility and there's taking the piss.

Ok then yes as their manager then you absolutely can require them to have the day as either annual or unpaid leave. Apologies I wrote a reply yesterday without having read all your updates and thought it was a complaint about felow parents in a situation that doesn't affect you.

As their line manager you have to judge whether they can actually achieve the requirements of their job in this scenario. Do the meetings actually need to be on that day and will they be less effective if the parent isn't there, and woukd rescheduling mean someone wlse needed couldn't be there? Does the parent have enough solo admin/laptop tasks to keep them busy for the day which can be effectively achieved within such a distracting environment? It's ok to be kind and agree to the WFH if actually you will get a full day's work out of them by the end of the day but it's ok to say so if you aren't convinced this is the case. It would be reasonable to ask them to supply you with a brief log of what they achieve during the day (including any catchup work they do in the evening) and say that if that seems to be a full day's work then all well and good, but if it seems to fall short it might be retrospectively categorised as a half day of annual leave.

the OP's staff member has said, not asked, that they will be unable to do part of their job for the whole day. That's not an hour or two max.

If I'm the client and my planned meeting is cancelled with no notice (pretty sure the employee in question didn't do any handover or ask other colleagues to step in), I may need to find another service provider. Of course it's possible OP works in an industry where it doesn't matter if you lose clients and the company is happy to pay for extra holidays recorded as woring days.Kind of sounds like that's not the case though..

It really isn't outrageous to expect an employee who does no work the entire working day to take that day off.

Is it impacting your ability to do your job? If so, ask your manager if there is some kind of extra support you can have during this period.

Where ours is all day and have in a year almost what you have in whole school 😂

3 class entry so 90 in a year

As their Manager surely you say no?

If they aren’t available for meetings they need to be available for then it needs to be taken as annual leave or unpaid.

Are you the annual leave police?

Depends on the job and what work you have to do. Answering emails, paperwork, writing a report, case records, admin type stuff, maybe. Online meetings and long phone calls, no.

So, not ‘some’. Just one CF who you have the misfortune (in this instance atleast) of line managing. Just say that instead of making it sound like a different situation.

It’s absolutely fine in many jobs - I have done this myself. It won’t be practical to have the laptop out and frankly too hot - but you can keep things moving from Teams and email on your phone if you need to. Depends on your job and seniority.

I think it would depend if going to sports day was a break during my working day eg I went during a long lunch break. Trying to actually work whilst at a sports day - nope. My job needs concentration and if I was going to sports day I’d want to be concentrating on watching that or personally wouldn’t see the point in being there.

I couldn't give a single iota of a fuck about where my colleagues work from.

I'd also see it as a positive to work for a company who allows flexibility so you can go to sports day without having to take a day's holiday.