Awkward conversation coming up and dreading it. Any tips?

[cricketmum84]

I'm new to the organisation and inherited quite a large team.

We all WFH as the organisation closed the offices and moved everyone to WFH permanently.

It's come to my attention that one of my team doesn't have childcare for their baby and cares for baby whilst working. They regularly have to break off from team meetings because baby needs attention. They also work the contracted hours without a break so they can manage school runs which is illegal.

Neither me or my manager were aware of this and it seems to be something that was agreed with my predecessor.

It can't continue, WFH with a small baby is just not feasible and nobody else in the organisation would be allowed to do this.

I need to tackle this with them on Monday and tell them they need to arrange childcare as they are being paid to be fully focused on their work. But I already know this really isn't going to go down well.

Any tips or advice on the best way to broach this without causing upset?

Do you have a company policy you can refer to? Our policy (from pre-covid) states that you cannot have any caring responsibilities while working. Obvs this was relaxed during the worst of covid, and well aware people are taking the piss with it now.

Are you willing to be flexible with the timeline? It may take a while to find childcare, what are your options if they have found no childcare in one month? Two? I'd probably set a 2 week 'deadline' for the next discussion for them to tell you what their plan is/when childcare will start..if they haven't told you before.

Even appearing reasonable is going to help you here. If someone thinks they can just work with a baby at the detriment of work then they may not take well to being called out on it.

If they are working 8-3 with a baby at home they'll be having plenty of breaks!

I would be passing the buck to my manager and/or HR on this one, I wouldn't want to do it myself without official guidance.

HR Director here. If this is a baby the arrangement can’t have been in place for long enough to constitute custom and practice. And employee contracts usually include clauses about being able to change working arrangements. So whatever the previous manager agreed isn’t really a major concern here.

Time for a straight conversation about this. It’s surely not common thought that WFH allows
people to not have appropriate childcare in place?

We had a member of staff who wanted to work 7 until 3
The husband was out the house at 7 am
3 kids under 7
How much work was going to get done between 7 and 9 ?
we said no

The OP is a manager.

you don’t need official guidance for something that is common sense!

You’ll just have to be as blunt, straightforward and “legal” as possible. I hope it goes well

As your company has an HR team, I’d be asking them for a script to follow for this call rather than trying to wing it solo! I do this all the time when I have a difficult issue to address particularly if there are potential legal ramifications if it’s not handled completely correctly.

I have had the exact same problem with a member of staff. Your "go to" needs to be clear policy. Working from home is no different from working in the office - what would be your approach if someone was bringing their baby to work? It is a breach of health and safety because nobody can care for and supervise a child whilst working unless childcare is their job. They are not giving their full time to the work, so the baby is irrelevant - if they were slacking for any other reason, what approach would you take?

In my case, and I think this is wise, whatever you do needs to be discussed wth HR and you should have someone from HR (or another manager) with you as a witness. Stick to work based facts - this is about work, performance, health and safety, policy etc, and don't get dragged into personal stuff. It doesn't matter whether she can afford childcare. The facts are no different whether she can afford it or not. You couldn't make exceptions for poorer people, so stick to the facts.

Understanding your own employers policies and expectations are important - hence speak to HR before you say anything. In our case, for example, managers have complete discretion about the availability of home working and flexible working / hours of work. We routinely enforce deducting breaks whether you take them or not. That is not negotiable. Take the proverbial and your flexibility around hours is removed, as is the privilege of working from home. To be fair, the employer has been very upfront even during the pandemic about what is and is not acceptable during working hours, and leniency around the "no childcare and working at the same time" was spelled out in terms of how it could work, performance expectations, sprecified periods during which the rules might not be enforced / enforced as rigourously. That may sound very regimented, but it wasn't. It sets the base line and the "immoveables" that then give managers the right foundations to be flexible at times, or to manage people taking the piss.

Finally, whilst I completely understand the idea of being kind enough to allow her some time to make arrangements, I think you have to be relatively ruthless. A deadline, in the not too distant future, and not negotiable. It is not your problem how she meets it. It is not her collegaues problems to work around her warped priorities - if she wants paying then she works.

I have to be honest and say that having HR with me was a good call because ten minutes after the conversation I had a grievance against me for bullying - which was not upheld. She went off sick for six months with the stress of it all. She thought that would buy her time and work to her advantage. What it actually got was her redeployed to another team that have no home working and fixed hours, and she was told in no uncertain terms that it was accept that or she would be deemed to have resigned. So she's now working 9 - 5 in an office that is actually further away from her home than ours.

I would think having both you had HR head involved would be the best solution - and also having the written policies and laws (especially re breaks) available. Keep it factual, etc as above and ask when she is going to have childcare sorted.

Is it affecting this persons work quality? Is she contributing well enough for the team? I think a lot of people who wfh do it around thier school run and child care. The only thing our manager has asked us was not to take a meeting during the school run. I know I am going against the normal flow of the tread but just wondering if you could word it better and hopefully come to a better solution with this person. Cost of living has made it really difficult for most of us.

PS - do not "ask" when she will have childcare sorted. "You have two weeks to arrange childcare, in the meantime, would you prefer to take that two weeks as paid or unpaid leave because you cannot work and do childcare simultaneously"

I had this. I made it clear to the employee that this is not appropriate and that childcare is a requirement. I gave examples for when the meetings were disrupted. I also put forward the option of flexible working/ reducing working hours so it wasn't just giving them a problem but showed that I was ready to work with them to find a solution that works for everyone. But the bottom line is that they cannot work with a baby, cannot work for x amount of hours without a break, but they can reduce their hours or change their working hours slightly eg do an hour after kids are in bed or similar.

Re having hr included we were asked to deal with it ourselves in the first instance so that they could get involved if it gets more or an issue.

@Quveas so many peoples’ first response to unpleasant situations is to “go off sick with stress”. It’s understandable it’s stressful but months off??

OP good luck with what will be a difficult conversation. Are the interruptions to the meetings more than a couple of minutes? If someone really needed the loo, for example, they wouldn’t be pulled up on that. I imagine it’s more than “the baby is crying, let me put him on the boob”.

Prepare yourself for tears and tantrums

You could have made your (correct) point without the misogyny.

To be clear - I have been assured that this isn't an affordability issue. They are a very wealthy family and can afford childcare.

Who's assured you of this? The person in question? Because otherwise that's hearsay and you have no idea what their 'actual' situation is and it's irrelevant to how you approach this.

It's not acceptable but as others have said stick to facts and the point. Agreeing to discuss again in a couple of days once they've had chance to think about it is a good idea or maybe give it a week - after the weekend, so they have chance to discuss with partner etc.

@cricketmum84 aim to address this from a performance and legal perspective.

Breaks state legally she must have at least 20 minutes under Working Time Regs if she works more than 6 hours. Then state policy is 30 mins and she is contractually required to take this. Add in that it is also a health and safety issue as it is not healthy to go for so long without a proper break. Explain you and employer have a duty of care and you would be failing in that duty if she wasn’t taking breaks. Email afterwards to ensure it is in writing.

Performance - she should have objectives and also there are usually organisational standards of behaviour. Start with the meetings explain business standards mean although remote the expectation is of behaviour as though in a F2F meeting. It is inappropriate and unprofessional that she is constantly being interrupted and distracted in meetings (don’t mention baby just interruptions). The expectation is she has a suitable place to enable her to WFH and this includes being able to give her full attention to meetings. She will say caring for baby and you respond but you shouldn’t be, you would not bring your baby to the office and they shouldn’t be in your home office whilst you are working. Expect a but everyone did during COVID - push back that was an exceptional circumstance and was required by gmt. Go back to your performance/behaviours in team meetings etc. are not meeting standards expected and need to improve. Push back on childcare I.e. her responsibility to arrange childcare so she is able to work.

Do the same for other aspects of performance e.g. not meeting/struggling to meet deadlines/deliver etc. why is this? She says child taking time, respond but you are supposed to be working not caring for your child. Focus on impacting her performance and childcare is her responsibility.

HTH

If it was that much common sense, the OP wouldn't have posted asking for advice, would they?

Like I said, in an instance like this one, it does need someone in HR to check things over before the employee is contacted, to make sure that things are done legally and within their contracted terms of employment.

Like I also said, I would want to pass the buck to someone else, because I wouldn't want to have to do it.