Creating the perfect job for parents with young school kids

[LetChecking]

Hello, I am new to Mumsnet.

I would really appreciate your feedback on what you think are the most important characteristics are, of a job built around working mums/dads with kids at school.

A mum started working for us in London who is brilliant and loves the job because we work around her school drop off and pick up and she chooses the day she works, so she can fit in other commitments.

So I want to create a role specifically around the needs of people in her position who need to earn, but are restricted due to childcare commitments.

So some questions; in addition to the above, we can either pay a day rate or hourly- which do you think would be most appealing?

We are looking at starting to offer self employed positions; or do you think you have to offer employment contracts to start?

We also want to offer a 'tag-team' recruitment strategy so people apply for the role in two's. That way if two people that cover the same area (we carry out residential property inspections) work together, if something happens like the kids are ill, for example, your tag team partner can cover.

Are we missing any other features/benefits you would you would need to know in this scenario? I know there is so much untapped talent out there, so we are trying to create the perfect job for parents in this scenario.

All feedback and thoughts appreciated.

Best wishes,
Adrian

We recently developed two roles for people, one sandwich course students and the other part time flexible that works suit a working parent and we got very few applications that fitted what we expected.

Thank you for your message, sorry and a little surprised to hear that.

Would you do anything different if you were advertising it again?

I would not like the tag team concept, you'd feel you were permanently on call on your days off and invariably one person would have more child sick days etc than the other.

I think unless this is the sort of job where people can go and do it for multiple employers at the same time, you need (ie are supposed to) to be offering it on an employee basis from the outset. This also gives them the benefit of paid holiday entitlement, sick pay, parental benefits, pension, redundancy etc.

The self employed aspect would trigger alarm bells. As in Ireland it would greatly impact access to social welfare support.

Tag team wise, not a runner. It puts a responsibility on an employee for roles which I am assuming are not carrying a rate to reflect experience of a defacto employer.

Actually the original recruiting for food delivery jobs were approached similar here do that might be an issue also.

People want secure employment with employee protection.

Interesting there has been little interest i wonder if it because potential employees just don't expect suitably flexible roles to be out there. I'm my case, if a job like that came up I would have started looking earlier.

I have recently turned down a 'real' job working fixed hours in an office because I was forced by circumstances to start working freelance and found that I cannot sacrifice the flexibility for the security.

The best part of my job is that I can make up time whenever I want or need. The advantage of being paid hourly is that I'm motivated to do that extra time too.

While I think the tag teaming idea could work you would need to be careful about resentment between partners if they have different degrees of flexibility and one keeps having to find time to cover the other. Perhaps something you could offer after a certain period or always have a full time person available to step in. That way pressure to cover each other is reduced.

In terms of pay I would say hourly as it is more motivating.

I think its great you are targeting this specific under untilised demographic. There is so much talent being wasted!

I'm job hunting and need flexibility due to hospital appointments. I see a doctor or nurse at least once a week due a nasty seizure. I also do some school pick ups (DH does the others)

Anyhoo, I've turned down quite a few (maybe 4) roles that were absolutely perfect and flexible but they were self employed.

Self employed: you don't feel like part of a team (not in the same way as permanent colleagues anyway). I struggled to have my self employed income accepted by some letting agents. And the mortgage company had huge issues with it so DH be the only applicant.

I decided to stop with the self employed work and find a permanent role.

I'll only apply for permanent roles and I think "self employed" roles like this are red flags. 😳

What are you paying? I work in education and we can't fill our part time term time vacancies that would suit a working parent- the reason being they can earn more in supermarkets. We are losing staff to supermarkets and delivery driving so I'd say in the current climate the wage is more important to people that the flexibility

I don't think you can just offer this to 'parents of school aged children'.
You either offer flexibility in a role, or you don't.
As a pp said - someone might have their own appts to attend, or might be only able to work PT, or certain hours in the day due to their own disability or illness. Or it might be someone is caring for elderly parents (or other relatives). Or working round another job. Or indeed a vulnerable adult (maybe an adult child with significant learning difficulties).

It's great that you are asking, but it needs to be open to all.

On paper my job is not family friendly, I could be away from work for upto a week visiting clients or overnights here or there anywhere in the country, this makes up maybe 25% of my working time

However the other 75% is exactly what a working parent would need. If I'm not travelling I'm working at home not an office,
I have a job to do not hours to work, so if I need time off for sick child or school assembly it's fine
I always take my child to school every morning
If I need to collect her I can
Although I travel often take that element away and I think I have a job that offers great flexibility and security in that I am employed

I agree the two-person tag team would make each person be effectively on-call full-time, which is not an attractive proposition, plus the potential guilt/resentment on both sides. Instead, create a team-wide tag team where if someone is unable to work last-minute (childcare emergency), the shout goes out to the whole team, and you (as the employer) pay a small premium to make that assignment attractive/worthwhile, e.g. a £2 ph enchancement (if this were a minimum wage-level job; proportionally more if not).

Also offer full flexibility to take booked leave providing the employee can arrange cover from other team members. In my set-up, only two people from the team (of 12-ish) can be on leave at any one time. No exceptions. Which is a nightmare for school holidays. Even though other team member(s) not working those days might be happy to work, the payroll/holiday leave system is not set up to facilitate this flexibility, so computer says no.

I'm sure this is already a given, but also not to expect your employees to provide YOU with too much flexibility - in school holidays for example, some parents will have to book and pay in advance for childcare schemes several months in advance, so won't be able to increase/decrease their days due to the demands of the business.

Thank you all for your feedback, very interesting thoughts.

The self-employed tag seems to be a trigger, so that is duly noted. Main reason we historically started off with this, is because the people who work with us now usually have other jobs/interests too.

Happy to consider an employment contract, we just have to be sure we are investing in the the right people- interviews are all well and good but in my experience, it's not until people start carrying out the role unsupervised, do you know if you have the right person.

On the rates question, it works out at £15 per hour.

The tag team approach is borne out of a need to have a back-up, on the rare occasion that person has a child fall ill. I wouldn't want this to be overly burdensome on the person not on the rota but we hand over keys to people moving in and out of properties, so being let down last minute by someone, has a huge ripple effect. Clients have moving vans ready to unload etc. So this is a business risk mitigation idea more than anything. If the person in question has a good support network around them, then this wouldn't be an issue.

In answer to the point we should open this up to all- we will be. I have tried the Indeed approach and got many applicants, but not much quality. So this time I am trying to be more targeted. We will be aiming at other markets, such as the early retired market etc in due course. Anywhere where there is untapped potential.

Flexibility is a massive advantage we have over other employers., though it is a 2 way street, so if people can work extra days (if someone else falls ill) then this is really appreciated- it is not expected but a bonus the more flexible someone can be.

Does anyone know how much traffic adverts placed on Mumsnet get? There are certain areas in particular where we need people (listed below) so not sure how active the Mumsnet community is in these areas:

• Brent
• Camden
• Chelmsford
• Croydon
• Farnham
• Lambeth
• Salford
• Southwark
• Wandsworth

Thank you again and if you have any further thoughts or ideas on how to appeal to this market, it is gratefully received.

Best wishes,
Adrian