What are your employers paying for you to look stay home with kids?

[Quickquestion2020]

Thought this would be a handy place to get advice on this.

We run a very very small company, employing one person on a very good salary (work fluctuates but his pay doesn't).

He has a 10yr old and a wife that works for a big company that is unlikely to be cutting staff any time soon.

Obviously he has some holiday days left, although he only has 7 days unbooked but can cancel those holidays if he wants and use those day or can take those later holidays as unpaid. And hes entitled to unpaid parental leave.

We cannot afford to pay him to not work. And our business is going to struggle, at least they work at different places, were screwed if our business tanks. We rely on other business having surplus money- we provide something that isn't necessary for most companies but seen as a luxury.

What is your employer offering you?

We thought he could cash all his holidays in and have three (out of 6- the rest covered by his wife. they both have sunday off) days a week off paid for the first 7 weeks then move to unpaid for the same days? Giving them time to sort their finances out. Is that fair?

Does he want the time off?

Ate you offering him a solution to a problem he has or are you putting him onto a 3 day week because your business needs that rather than him?

If you're putting him onto a compulsory 3 day week be honest and ask him whether he wants to use all his holiday or go onto part time pay, and check the legalities of changing his contract due to business needs.

Most employers I'm aware of are expecting employees to work from home on full pay or go into work as normal or a mix. I've heard of people being made redundant obviously.

I personally still have to go to work due to the nature of my job and DH has to go to the office twice per week and work from home the rest of the time. No change to pay.

Mine is paying me full pay to work flexibly - mine are young teens so I’ll prob work mornings and take a couple afternoons off a week

I'm waiting to hear what our company is intending to do.

Both DH and I are WFH and have an 8 and 10yr old who can entertain themselves so this won't affect how much we can work. If necessary I'll work in the evenings too.

We both need our full time salaries but I suspect if this crisis goes on longer than 12 weeks we'll have to take holiday or unpaid leave.

We both work for big well known companies and I am terrified of us both losing our jobs so if we have to take a pay cut then so be it. It's shit though and we will struggle.

What does he want? If their child is 10 and not in school, the child should be able to entertain herself with the wife working from home (most large companies offer that), could you offer more flexible hours aka he logs on at 6 in the morning, works for a 3-4 hours, then has a longer break and works the rest later or in the evening?

We're not imposing it. Theres plenty of work that can be done that usually doesn't get done when were busy. If he wants to come to work were happy to continue for now. It will be something that will re-evaluated if our work load goes down and we're losing money on him.

They haven't made any kind of plan, just said they'll need to do "something". He cant work from home, his job is out and about- we've provided gloves and a full filtered gas mask for this. I'm against flexible work because we have last minute jobs that get called in randomly and it hasn't worked in the past. If we were to give him a day "on-call" then needed him, he'd have to sort out last minute childcare.

Grandparents are out of the equation.

I don't want them to not be able to pay their bills but I also dont want them to think they can just take time off and continue getting paid normally at our expense. We dont have unlimited funds unfortunately. We cant rely on all this money the government says they're handing out because they always seem to say things like this and we never see a penny.

Are he and/or his wife on the government's list of key workers?
Could one or both of them work from home?

Given that their child is 10, I would expect them to be able to work from home while also supervising - it's not like having a younger child who needs more supervision and attention.

I would also expect them share responsibility for this, so each could WFH 3 days a week for a example (you say they both work Mon-Sat and off on Sunday).

I would expect them both to continue working on full pay, under these flexible conditions, if at all possible.

Wife also cant work from home, it's a customer facing role that will be needed but not enough to class as the key worker we dont think. And obviously we still dont know whether it's one part or two. Absolutely not expecting them to get school childcare, would be a miracle.

Oh sorry, cross post. Well if he can't work from home then I would expect him to continue working 3 days a week and take either annual leave or unpaid leave for the other days.

Same for wife if she can't work from home.

As ypu have enough work for him just ask him whether he wants to take holiday, unpaid parebtal leave or keep working full time. Tell him you're not offering flexible working if that's the case. Offer him a choice. Don't decide for him if business needs don't mean there's only one option - that's horribly paternalistic.

Haha nothing. I work for a large national charity & we got told that if we have to shut certain parts of business & staff can't work in other areas ( both work wise & location) we will be considered as on unpaid leave as the company cannot afford to pay staff that aren't working.
So much for supporting workers in this time of crisis... If your on unpaid leave you can't even claim for benefit support I am genuinely terrified. But can't work out what of more the virus or how the hell i can put electric on my meter & food in the kids tummies

Thank you guys. We're happy to give options, we're usually very relaxed. Up to a couple of times a week hes got time during working hours booked off for personal stuff and we still pay. It's just that this is ALOT of time at a very dangerous time I want to make sure we dont end up running our company into the ground trying to support them without even some compromise.

Sorry to hear that allthingsred I do think the Gov will be able to correct the benefits system to help employed but not earning people. Fingers crossed for you

@allthingsred
You might be considered a key worker as you work for a charity - depends if you deliver "key front line services".
And you should be able to claim benefits while on unpaid leave, don't know why you think you can't?

Large national company:

Self isolating (because you, or family member have possible symptoms) - full pay

Working from home (if able to) - full pay

Time off to care for dependants in the event of school closure - a day or two paid at managers discretion to make any possible arrangements, then Unpaid Leave

Work for a large employer. Employees expected to take annual leave or unpaid leave if they are covering childcare. Other option is to vary working pattern if possible to do hours around childcare responsibilities.

We can't afford to pay dozens of staff not to work either. Not being unsympathetic but everyone is going to have to be as flexible and proactive as possible.

Nothing. We're a small business so I don't expect them to. It should be the government's responsibility to implement a Universal Basic Income in a time of crisis like this.

So... she is a key worker as per Gov guidelines. But school are saying they have capacity for 10% of students and 30% qualify so they dont make the cut unfortunately. They are prioritising at risk students and disabled students. They're also delivering free school meals to students who qualify.

We will hopefully get an answer by tomorrow what they're planning to do re childcare. I think from what's been said here, annual leave for half the week then moving to unpaid is fair. So they can share childcare and plan. Don't know what we'll do in a lockdown situation, perhaps maintain the same? We will have some subscription type income but not if companies go down. Already lost a couple in recent months to administration.

If his wife is a key worker then they shouldn't share childcare, he should do the bulk of it.
The only exception would be if he is the significantly higher earner, and if his loss of income on unpaid leave would put them in financial difficulty.