Mums forced into office by big UK company?

[MM90]

I work for a big, well-known company. The bosses are considering plans to force all colleagues to come to the office 3 days a week. They are thinking about checking our turnstile data individually and disciplining anyone who doesn’t come in for 3 days every week, whether they need to be there or not. I thought this was the 21st century where working women have the chance to create a sensible work / life balance so long as they perform in their job. My line manager gave me a great performance rating during Covid. I have two children under 5 and no family nearby. Any thoughts on this?

How on earth do you manage to work from home with two children that age anyway?! I can't see how you would be getting any work done :-/

I think they are being unfair not allowing you to work from home at all, and quite stern policing it so much (although maybe they have picked up on some issues and thats why they are doing it)
but i think YABU not to have childcare in place on your working days like the rest of us have to....it's not fair on your employer or your children if you don't, as you can't possibly be giving your all to either them or your work on those days with the current arrangement

All depends on what your contract states. If it states you're based at home then no, they can't do that. If it's office based then meh, you knew it was a possibility when you signed the contract so you either go into the office or find a wfh position.

well nobody is forcing you - you can go and get another job.

If you have under 5s then you should be paying for childcare whether you are in the office or not.

It's not discriminatory to mums, but it does make things more difficult for parents (that said, not that long ago, we all coped).

The main benefit of WFH is less commuting time which benefits everyone not just parents. Admittedly it's particularly attractive to parents juggling parenting, work and everything else.In your shoes I'd feel grateful that you only have to be in 3 days not 5.

My thoughts as a mother of 2 young children are:

• My company already has this policy in place
• It doesnt make much difference where i work as we didnt move to the middle of no where during covid and have proper childcare provision in place
• If i dont like it, i can take my business elsewhere
• company wide policies affect everyone not just mothers
• Your post is disingenuous and goady.

The tide is changing. I've noticed this announcement from many big firms recently. Didn't Man utd boss recently basically said he wanted staff back in the office.

nope, she was a nurse and worked in the hospital, it was him doing the childcare

So they are only forcing the poor mums to go to the office?

Threads like these don’t do women or mums any favours. “Forced” is rather silly

If you don’t like it get a new job. Your kids aren’t the problem of your employer. Never have been and never will be.

You think you should be given preferential treatment because you are the mother of young children?

What about fathers, mother of children of school age, people with caring responsibilities, people who aren't parents, people with mobility issues who might be reliant on transport availability?

So I have good flexibility but still.need ti be in the office 2 to 3 days a week. I thi k thus is reasonable. My employer like most, also does bot allow staff to not have child care in place when wfh. I also thi k this is reasonable. Tbc that is not the odd day when dc is off sick, but consistently not having care would lead to a disciplinary process.

DH's office did this about six months ago - an absolute ban on WFH, no exceptions. DH not overly concerned as he travelled in most days anyway. But it was interesting when he got COVID recently. He advised his LM, and asked whether he should come in or not. He felt okay to work, but was concerned about infecting others, esp a staff member who is undergoing chemo and therefore susceptible. LM thought about it for a while, and then said, "I think it's best if you work from home."
"I can't" said DH, "I don't bring my laptop home anymore as we have a full time office policy. My laptop is locked in my desk."

It's not 'forcing' is it because an employer is entitled to set conditions of work and an employee is free to quit and get another job if they don't like it.

or his mum 🤔

Lots of arguments here about how people shouldn't be looking after children during working hours which I kind of agree with (different if your 15 year old is at home all day when you're working, and might pop in a couple of times with a question but is mostly self sufficient)

BUT our local school, I can see from my window. Parents who work from home near me can walk their child to school for 8:45, and be at their desk upstairs working from 9. They can use after school club that closes at 6, work until 5:30 and be at the school at 5:40 picking up their DC. My nearest office, if my job wasn't fully remote, is an hour commute on a good day, more like an hour and a half if there's traffic. That means people in my team would, if dropping children off at 7:30am for breakfast club, struggle to be ready at 9am, and would have to finish at 4 to pick up the children from after school club.

My job is fully remote, I do not have an office. I'm allowed to work from any of the UK offices if I choose to, some of my team do once in a while. I never do. I also often work until 5:45 if I'm not quite finished on a task at 5:30, and I can be this flexible because I don't have a commute. My job also understands that you might need to leave your desk to answer the door to the postman, or you might need to let someone in to service your boiler, or you might need to nip to a doctors appointment. You just let your team know and they work around it.

It's about time employers realised that presenteeism is just going to mean they lose good staff IMO

My laptop is locked in my desk crikey!! Is that normal?

Me too!

Every time I see “but what about working mums” I feel it just reinforces the message that childcare is a woman’s problem and men don’t need to worry about it.

I'm self-employed, so no skin in the game, but I don't think it's unfair for employers to do this. How can junior employees/recent graduates learn or train if all the more experienced staff are always working from home. I think back to my early career and all those professional relationships I nurtured, friendships made, and experiences learnt on the job that just wouldn't have happened if everyone worked from home all the time.

So in summary, you are one of the ones for the last 3 years couldn’t be bothered to go the office for 1 or 2 days which has now resulted in this new process…the rest of us are royally annoyed with you!

oh and it isn’t considering it’s happening!

I managed 4 days in the office pre-Covid with a child in primary school and a husband who travelled often abroad and family in a different country.

They invented nurseries, childminders and after-school clubs for this.

When DH moved to wfh permanently eons ago DD stayed in childcare.

My workplace has the policy of no wfh with a child under 10 in the house years before Covid and hybrid working.

Your company is not doing anything plenty of others are doing for years.

I have a couple of childless colleagues or colleagues with older children and several had commitments at 5.30pm they had to change around when our boss decided to change the mandatory days in the office. Well, as we don't have a full wfh contract, they can actually do this.

It might be that the 'big bosses' have some serious concerns about productivity and collaboration. Productivity in the UK is around 16% below the US and Germany. They may be wanting to try an approach where they have data about whether people are in the office (hence the turnstile data) and then see if this makes a difference.

Is your main worry about the commute and being able to be back in time for pick ups?

OP has not come back. She's probably caring for her preschoolers and WFH.

I agree that WFH is really useful even with childcare. Mainly for the commute, but also things like putting a wash on, being in for deliveries or people working on the house.

Presumably with two under 5 OP has childcare in place, but will struggle with pick ups and drop offs. I wouldn't be astounded if there's a husband who thinks all of that is for mums to do, because he's too busy with his Important Man Job.

I am a huge WFH advocate and work an 100% WFH job.

I also pay for childcare for my two under-5s, and always have.

I can’t work at all with my young kids present, not in any quality way, and you shouldn’t be doing this.

The flexibility of WFH is so important for working mums - I can stick the laundry on, attend school assemblies, sports day, and do the morning drop-off. But I also sit and work a full 8hr day without distractions.

People taking the piss while “working” while their young kids are at home because they don’t want to pay for childcare are going to ruin it for everyone else.

Hard to say much as you've not given a lot of info OP. Do be aware, these threads often get a bit bunfighty.

First point is, do you/other workers have remote contracts? A lot of the time this is framed as back to the office, but in an increasing number of cases people will be in jobs they started after March 2020.

If you don't, depending on how long you've been doing this you may need advice on whether the implied terms or custom and practice have changed. It's not always as simple as contract says this. Are you in a union?

And then possibly the major point is, basically, how valuable and replaceable are you and the other staff? People loooooove to generalise about remote working, but it really depends. The balance of power isn't the same everywhere. Some people can basically enforce remote working because they and the employer know it has to be done in order to get the staff they need at the rate they can pay. In other cases the balance of power rests with the employer. You'll know more about this in your situation than anyone posting on here.

That's unfair.

I've work and worked with men who have children including babies and toddlers. One was clearly doing at least two nappy changes a day while his wife slept. I would be working with him and he would suddenly have to run. While another couple randomly had their toddlers come into their workspace.