What will your work do if work places are open but schools aren’t?

[gingajewel]

Just wondering if work places re-open and schools don’t what you’re work place will suggest? Do you work somewhere where you will be able to continue to wfh for a few weeks? Will you have to take parental leave or annual leave?
I have no clue about my employers, currently wfh but I don’t think they are too keen on it!

Surely for.most working parents who rely on paid childcare, they will need more than schools to be back. They need after school care and holiday care to be available as well. Most jobs can't be done from 9.30 to 2.30pm.

My employer say that we have to try and work as best we can, if it's not possible to get our work done they will be flexible for 'a while' I suppose to allow us to try to put something in place, then they will be encouraging annual or unpaid leave. I do admin work, it turns out possible to do all of the work effectively from home and from what they say it's unlikely that we will go back into the office for a few months.

I’m really concerned about this. I’m currently on leave but due to go back soon. If they close schools again when we get the next outbreak I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t work from home with my children there.

I've seen our companies' plan for getting back into the office and it specifically flags that those with caring responsibilities and health vulnerabilities will come back to the office later.

Still, there are so many companies out there that are inflexible and won't continue to support parents for a longer period. Cue many woman retuning from the workplace, plus the economic consequences of this. It makes me so angry.

For everyone saying schools will open at the same time as workplaces, Ireland hasn’t done that so it could be a real possibility.

I’m worried about the longer-term implications for those in the shielding group, parents with vulnerable children etc.

If a September start, the next few months will still be a pain for so many people, employers would have to be accommodating. After that, I don’t know. I wonder if the government could come up with something akin to mat leave for those shielding.

The other thing is that parents are going to be unreliable. If there are temp checks and exclusions from schools/nurseries and fewer option in terms of family care, parents may not be around that much!

I can’t believe so many people work at such awful companies tbh - and how many people have the attitude of you come into work or you should get the sack?

I wouldn’t want to work for a place that was like that - didn’t care about me or wasn’t understanding - sounds like hell!

My employer is very understand of the whole situation - people with children or who are at high risk or live with people who are high risk are known about and each persons situation will be looked at case by case and we will do all we can to help!

We are a nursery and therefore closed at the minute - except for key workers kids but that means we only open a few days a week and only 2 staff members are in (they are being paid extra for being taken out of furlough and taking the risk)

When we do open again fully - we will be allowed take our nursery aged children in with us to attend free of charge I’d we have no other childcare available!

People with older children who can’t get childcare will be able to have unpaid leave or can use annual leave no problem and their job will be there for them when things are sorted!

Same goes for people who are in the at risk category or live with high risk people !

I would be looking for a new job if I worked somewhere that didn’t care a just their staff and were not understanding - because seriously life is too short to work for such awful companies

If you can’t work from home I would assume most employers would give you a limited amount of unpaid leave, if you continue to be unable to work they would need to move to termination as you can’t physically do the job. It is only discrimatory if they only terminate women and not men, or only terminate parents but don’t terminate others who can’t do the job that are not protected by the government Ie shielded.

So many parents should be screaming for schools and child care to open

I think there could be issues of discrimination though. Presumably lots of people shielding will have conditions covered by disability discrimination. I don’t think the government can leave it to chance that people will have jobs to return to and that employers will act responsibly. One of my friends Had a kidney transplant so is very high risk. She won’t be out of lockdown for a long-time but can hopefully work from home but that will get increasingly hard as everyone else returns to normal.

I suspect the shielded group will continue to be shielded.

Katpen, I think employers just differ. Most people in the Uk are employed by employers with under 10 staff for a start so some businesses will go bust if workers are not in so it not just a big bad boss being nasty and nor could the work place suddenly take children into it as many are not safe eg my son delivers groceries for a living and has worked throughout (he has no children). I suppose his big employer could set up some kind of work creche for under 5s and older children not at school and very rich big companies wanting to keep people earning £50k+ who generate massive profits in work might well have already a concierge service where they provide an emergency daily nanny for anyone whose childcare needs fall down on a particular day as not having that worker in loses the company £2k etc etc. I suppose it all comes down to money.

My clients plan to let everyone stay remote until they each feel comfortable going back, same as on the way into lockdown. No difference for me and I'll work less hours if there isn't enough remote work.

If most children have 2 parents still alive then a max 50% would have to stay home, or have part-time hours. No children / children over 12 - there's realistically a maximum of 20 years someone has little kids at home, say working for 40 years. So that's 25% of the workforce having young kids, many of whom can potentially work part-time or from home anyway, some of whom are key workers with children already being cared for or a few on maternity, long term sick, already unemployed or choosing not to work. It's a lot, but it's certainly not as many as some might envisage. I expect furlough will morph into some sort of extended parental leave only where they were previously furloughed and only payable for one parent in the home. Something like that.

If you have a read of Britannia Unchained, Boris' chums strategy, whilst I'm not saying he caused a pandemic by shaking hands with the infected - this situation has played right into the hands of the extreme right.

Things will carry on like now. Nearly everyone is working at home and no pressure to change that. I can see that continuing for quite a while. We are short of space at work anyway for social distancing.

Things will carry on like now. Nearly everyone is working at home and no pressure to change that. I can see that continuing for quite a while. We are short of space at work anyway for social distancing.

Lots of people certainly cannot work from home - not everyone works in offices/on line. Think about it.

There certainly IS pressure to change things, at least from people who understand how an economy works. See my previous post re letter to industry.

Things will carry on like now. Nearly everyone is working at home and no pressure to change that. I can see that continuing for quite a while. We are short of space at work anyway for social distancing.

i can work from home. there is no need for me to be in the office at all. yet my employer made it clear that I am expected back at my desk once the lockdown is over (and they know I am a lone parent and that one of my children is severely disabled). I have friends with similarly inflexible employers.

When I said things will continue like now, i was reporting about my own workplace, sorry for not being clear.

I'm having a major panic about this too. I'm frontline NHS so can't work from home at all.

good to hear though that you have a sensible employer majestic.

Everyone saying employers will have “empathy” and let people stay at home “for a while” and will just have to suffer toddlers in the background of zoom calls clearly don’t understand that businesses- every single one of them - are going to be under HUGE financial pressure right now and going forward this is only going to get drastically worse.

If your employer even makes it past lockdown or beyond they simply will not be able to afford to keep paying people who are not productive or 100% present (whether physically or WFH) in their roles. Only the people who can get the business back on its feet will be essential and if you are the one expecting special treatment because you have kids to look after you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

I say that as someone with two DC under 3. I’m under no illusions that my job is hanging in the balance and I’m planning for the worst.

There’s a major lack of realistic expectations from the general public throughout this crisis.

My DS is a teacher in a big London secondary. The vast majority of the staff are like my sister females with young dc. How do the teachers without childcare go back to teach?

Also how is public transport going to cope with getting workers to their work whilst practising social distancing? The tube can be nightmare, where will all the extra capacity come from?

Dh is a solicitor and they already have plans in place for most people to work from home. They have had to furlough about 1/4-1/3 of their support staff so they'd be then 'back at work.'
They have plans in place so that, to allow social distancing, they'd only have offices open for a set number of staff at a time, and offer people flexibility of hours too. Where possible, those with younger children will be given the option to work from home or alter hours to try and balance this with their partner if they have one to be able to come into the offices. They've had lengthy contingency planning meetings to discuss options based in the one side of the conversations I've heard dh having by phone.

I've already read in the media about 2/3 staff not needing childcare. I can kind of imagine that to be the case - it's only really parents with primary age children (possibly young year 7s) who need childcare, or parents of children with disabilities or special needs, etc.

How do the teachers without childcare go back to teach?

I thought teachers, as key workers, will have access to school anyways if they have to work? Is that not the case anymore?

Hopefully employers will be sympathetic for a time,but at the end of the day their main concern is to keep the business going
If the business goes bust no one will have a job to go back to

I can't work from home (well I could but they won't enable me to) and I've been furloughed for as long as the scheme continues. On one hand I'm grateful for that because we can still pay the bills but on the other hand I'm going out of my mind and desperate to go back to work.

I know my workplace are discussing redundancies when furlough ends and I know I'll be at the top of the list only because I've got a dependant child.

People who can reliably be in will be kept over me. Even if they've had worse performance than me. Even if their job is less desirable than mine. Because they will be more reliable than me.

But that is not my fault and there is legitimately sweet fuck all I can do to change it until childcare re opens.