NOW CLOSED: Do you do paid work at home: either for yourself or for an employer? If so please take a few minutes to complete a short survey: you could win a £250 voucher

[AnnMumsnet]

We have been asked to find Mumsnetters to complete a survey - we are looking for mums (or mums to be) who undertake any kind of paid work at home.

This would include full or part time work at home, being self employed and working from home, running a business from home, working some of your working week at home, being a freelancer etc..

The survey is about your views and experiences of working at home as well as energy use at home.

If this is you, please take a few minutes to complete this survey - everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £250 voucher for Capital Bonds - this can be spent at over 160 retailers (including John Lewis, Boots, B&Q, Homebase and many more!).

Here's the survey link

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

I go the impression that the questions were focused around the assumption that women working from home were doing a "mum job" for pin money, which I found rather insulting to be honest. As though it were impossible to earn a living wage while working from home. The questionnaire rings as though it were devised by a childless 23 year old with assumptions about what working from home means.

Done.

I also echo the assumption of the survey was that working from home = no childcare or working around the demands of children. Of course it doesn't! I use childcare because I have a small child. If I had an older child they could entertain themselves. When considering flexible working requests in the past with an element of homeworking every organisation I have worked with/for has insisted childcare be in place for the majority of the day before agreeing the request.

In fact one of my clients asked me the other day about how best to manage a situation with an employee (with a flexible working request in place) who is supposed to be homeworking one day a week but has no childcare for her 2 year old. But you'll have to cough up if you want to know what I advised

Also (this is a teeny tiny point) can you not set up your Survey Monkey account to do question logic so it jumps automatically excludes questions that are not applicable? It's quite annoying finding a question in the middle of the survey that just applies to some respondents but not all. It's really easy to do.

Oh, and it's a shame dh can't complete the survey what with being a male and all. He often works from home and has all the same benefits and issues as I do.

Hi - thanks for completing the survey - always interesting to find how how many folks would qualify for surveys where it's not everyone and it seems many of you are doing paid work at home (says I sitting here in my pjs, not in MNHQ!).

As we said in the survey intro we know there are so many different circumstances for working from home - from type of job, hours worked, age of your children, childcare arrangements and so not all questions/ responses would be applicable to everyone. Apologies if some annoyed you. The working round the children aspect was really about many women who will work from home whilst children are at school and then resume again when they child-free time later, we totally get that childcare is used.

Good point re Dads who are MNers and who do paid work at home - we'd welcome their views as well.

Agree with all the comments of assuming child care is not in place - I very rarely never work with my DC actually at home, apart from the odd hour after school when they will amuse themselves - and as pre-schoolers if I was working, they were in nursery. OTOH I may have included avoiding childcare costs in my answers, because if I were not working from home I would probably be 2+ hours away, so I would need 4 more hours of childcare per day, IYSWIM...

and yes, DH could have completed the survey too as if he didn't work from home sometimes then I couldn't work elsewhere, as we juggle school runs etc between us and a full working day in the office for either of us means being gone before the DC get up and home after they are in bed.

Working from home with 2yo with no childcare is completely not on IMHO.

No, but my youngest is 10. I have my "lunch break" at 3 to go and fetch her, then she is perfectly capable of entertaining herself while I get back to work. I wouldn't be comfortable with her walking hom on her own, letting herself in to a house that has been empty all day, and being on her own until I got home at 5.30ish. So, in those circumstances, it can save you childcare. I am lucky enough in my job / with my manger, that, if she is in a match after school or something, I can actually knock off at 3 and start again at 7 for a couple of hours if I wish. I realise not everyone can do that - it depends on the nature of your work.

Done

As often happens, I am allowed to choose "None" in number of children but then the "Ages of children" question is mandatory.

Done.