Employee wfh without childcare

[goteam]

I manage a small team of 6 and one of the staff members joined the company 2 years ago and moved into my team during the first lockdown.

The job is home based and this person has had lots of training but doesn't do the amount of work required. The manager from the other team which the employee moved from said that she suspected she was wfh with her young kids present but she didnt feel she could touch the issue.

Is it not ok to suggest that a full time employee has full time childcare and that this does not breach employment law?! This employee is rarely at their desk as far as I can tell. Never answers the phone but will call back half an hour later, wont reply to urgent emails, ignores requests for work which I have to then pick up.

I know things were difficult over lockdown with childcare (same here) but my own managers are worried about me raising this and say things like 'I would be careful about it'. Other staff are getting a bit tired of picking up the slack and most of my team are parents too and paying for childcare.

Is it feasible to ask her to go into the office or is a permanent working from home position?

I've been in the office due to my role and underperforming staff have been brought back into the office for a period of time to have their performance monitored where necessary.

Others have categorically been told that they will need to be available to be back in the office as of x date to give them time to sort appropriate childcare.

It’s totally unreasonable to WFH with no childcare.
If the child needs to self-isolate then I would be lenient with that assuming it wasn’t too often.
The only other thing is that if the company insisted that you WFH when you used to work from an office. I get a bit pissed off from time to time having to be quiet for DH’s meetings when it is a family home first and foremost and then plan was that the children would be at home for certain days in the week.

She may just be a slacker. It’s possible that childcare is not the issue. One of the biggest slackers in my workplace is childfree.

I ageee that you need to address the poor performance, see what she says, then take it from there. Talk to your HR dept if necessary.

Thanks all, some really good advice here.

Hi, do you have an HR dept that can support you with this, as your managers are being so wet.

I work in HR in an extremely supportive third sector org, and during lock down we gave people paid leave for childcare, allwewd them to work reduced hours on full pay for childcare, and accepted a reduction in productivity for those trying to work with children at home.

Now schools/nurseries etc are open, we do Not accept absenteeism or low productivity due to this, our employees are expected to make proper childcare arrangements exactly as if they were working in an office.

You need to collect evidence (can you see when she's logged on) and start formal performance management. Alternatively, if it's clear she is basically absent from work, this could be misconduct.

”I don’t see how you can accuse her of having no childcare.”

It’s not an “accusation”. It’s a simple question.

I think you need to deal with this as a performance issue and leave the childcare aside.

She will have reviews the same as anyone else. You need to raise these points with her at her next review and start there.

I wfh both kids in house aged 6 and 11. I feed them talk every now and again. But other than that they are left to it all day. I've had to break a few sisterly fights up today. I can't send my youngest to inlaws either at mo as both kids have covid it's hard

It's not the lack of childcare that's the problem, it's the job not being done. Can you bring her back into an office or can she be overseen more proactively from home?

Time to implement a PIP and be very clear what she needs to do to improve.

”It's not the lack of childcare that's the problem, it's the job not being done.”

But the lack of childcare is probably a significant factor in why the job is not being done, and will also severely impede any improvement plan from being successful.

No point raising concerns about job performance without getting to the bottom of what’s causing or contributing to it.

FYI, I have been unable to find holiday club provision for my 8 year old during the summer holidays, so she has had to stay home with me whilst WFH. My managers have been really supportive. It might be an issue for your employee too. I'd have an open conversation with her that comes from a place of wanting to help her rather than punishing her. You cant possibly understand what's going on for her without talking to her....but unfortunately it sounds like you've already made your mind up. I'm so glad I'm not her. You sound like you've got it in for her OP. Perhaps go get some more people management training? It might help you do your job and should subsequently help her do hers.

During lockdaown there were lots of threads on this.
A lot of companies said that if you had pre-school children, you couldn't wfh, you had to be furloughed.

Obviously it depends on the job, but if it is a job which requires you to be at the computer at certain times, that is incompatible with having small children around.
Very different to the sort of job where it says - this report has to be completed by Friday, and you could do it in the evening.

I wouldn't mention the childcare. Where I am poor performance would lead to less WFH days and take it from there to see what happens with performance.

@steppemum yeah, we were really supportive as an employer making allowances through all the lockdowns, with burst school bubbles, self isolating children etc and most staff made up.work when they could. The issues with the particular employee pre-dates lockdown though and because I began managing them during one of the lockdowns I think what is acceptable re caring for children while working has become a bit blurred.

Our work policy says 'no childcare responsibilitys during working hours' during covid it was relaxed.

One of the biggest slackers in my workplace is childfree.

Same here. And nobody ever thinks the reason blokes are slackers WFH is childcare, and yet it is always the go-to for female WFH slackers.

I find it really difficult to understand how you can WFH full time with children under say 12 ,unless it's a job that it doesn't matter when the work is done
Apart from anything else it's not fair on the children

I'd ask if she has enough support & a suitable area where she's not disturbed & comfortable to work from home. See how she responds & hopefully she will use it as an excuse from which you can reasonably respond that it isn't working. Could she go into the office? I'd suggest that if possible as a start

This. To a certain extent it doesn't matter whether she's away looking after her children or lying in bed bingeing netflix. You can focus on the outcomes when you outline the gap between expectation and actual performance.

You may uncover a childcare issue when you explore reasons for underperformance but I'd expect you to be asking her what the solution should be.

My old manager was always crystal clear on the issue of childcare: if you're trying to look after young children then you can't work from home. Including if they're off sick for one day or whatever. Frustrating yes, especially as a single parent with no other parent able to pick up the slack (my colleague was allowed to carry on wfh with her toddler at home because the dad was there. Still didn't stop her from attending to him and being quite blatant about it to us as to why she was going to be out of contact for the next hour or so).

It wouldn't have occurred to me to raise a grievance. I was frustrated by the lack of consistency between me as a single parent and my colleague who had a husband but not the rule about children in general. You can start a conversation without mentioning children and see what happens, either they're going to start improving or they're not in which case next steps of whatever procedures you have apply?

Agree during lockdown WFH rules were rightly relaxed but they can’t continue forever

Don’t mention childcare just make sure she has measurable actions in place (answering calls, being available etc) and judge and measure her by these standards

Our working from home policy basically says "Employees should not have significant caring responsibilities when working from home" - can you at least introduce that going forward? Deliberately worded so not just children - could equally be parent with care needs, disabled partner or a dog that needs constant attention. During the lockdown / school closures, we were obviously more understanding (essentially by allowing very flexible hours so people could work evenings/weekends if weren't able to work much during the day) but in long-term it's not acceptable. Clearly performance is the key issue but it's perfectly OK to suggest that it might be due to distractions and leading that into checking re childcare - it's one thing eg having a SAHP with the child and they occasionally come in to see you, another having full responsibility during working day.

if you have a sick child you CANNOT be working
Interesting. My workplace and DP’s are both still tolerating the sick child/WFH balance as it’s still difficult to get emergency childcare when they’re off nursery sick or can’t return for the 48-hour rule, etc. And we’re both FT WFH, so even if one parent took a day’s leave to do the caring, the presence of a kid at home impacts the other. So both workplaces (and my previous one) are pretty much operating a “sick kids = ignore core hours, get the work done any way you can” policy.

One other angle to add - has she had issues with children self isolating? I could weep at the amount I spent on childcare last half term (have a nanny) which I could not use - our nanny could not come to the house when children were self-isolating as it was not deemed safe.

Having said that, I WFH years ago pre-covid, and before I have children, and the contract made it clear that childcare was required for any employee WFH. As so many of us have learned in the past twelve months, it is not possible to work with children present. Not that I doubted it before.

@Yellow85

I frequently find myself without childcare these either isolating for test results of the fact that breakfast clubs/after school clubs are restricted. Even though we are out of lockdown, where I am is def not back to normal.

However I make the time up elsewhere or my kids are on iPads/in front of a movie if I need to take a call/be in a meeting, they’ve gotten quite used to it. My work would rather I got some work done than just didn’t work at all tbh.

I work absolutely fine and meet my deadlines though. I suspect childcare is not the primary issue here, more of a red herring covering poor performance in general.

This. I think it depends on where you live and your personal circumstances as to whether childcare is back to normal or not