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?

I can well believe it!

Several grandparents doing pickup at our nursery. Nursery closing at 6pm is not compatible with many FT jobs plus commute.

You must be reading a different thread to the one I am. No one on here has said they’re using WFH in lieu of childcare - not even the OP. What people have said is that wfh makes taking and picking up children from childcare much easier and that their children don’t have to spend as long in a childcare setting as they would otherwise.

Yes, I agree.

It does seem like a silly policy there for the sake of rather than with employees in mind

If work isn't being done the employer needs to address the undone work. Not shift the underperforming employee and all their performing colleagues to a big bin of people where they can swap COVID and despair for 8 hours a day plus an hour each way on the bus.

What if the employees are spending their time 'working' from home looking after the kids and otherwise not focussing on what they're being paid to do?

Somehow woman are being made to believe that they can/ should work a full time job at home and do all the childcare and housework etc. I bet there isn't one man wondering how childcare is going to work when he goes back onto the office.

Oh fuck off with your sarky comments.

I am simply stating what our experience has been. Since we brought people back on a hybrid basis, productivity has gone up significantly and staff retention has improved. That is just objective fact. Staff surveys also reflect that morale is higher within the team.

And yes, organisational culture is extremely important in the type of work that we do, and we don't want employees who don't fit with that because we have learned from experience that we can give people the knowledge and skills that they might lack but we can't do anything about core values and attitudes. We work as a team and peer to peer support is a very important aspect of how we operate. Consequently, staff who have no interest in interacting with their colleagues aren't of much use to us.

It's simply not true that some people working and looking after DC undermines everyone's remote working arrangements. It's had no impact whatsoever on mine, for example.

The op states she has two children under two and no family nearby. If she was using a nursery, there wouldn’t be an issue, as she could just extend the time the children are there. However, the nature of her post implies that this isn’t the case (why would she be posting if so) and hence the assumption she’s combining childcare and work.

Who is looking after the kids while you are wfh? Use same child care to go in office

Why wouldn’t it be an issue if she had childcare? Like a poster upthread has said some people need to use family to pick up from childcare as their commute doesn’t allow them to get there in time.

My thoughts? Women have fought long and hard for equality in the workplace, and this demand from the company is no different. We can't expect employers to display favouritism towards one sex or the other, so the fact that many women have young children should be irrelevant. Plenty of men are parents too, and presumably would love to be able to WFH too.

That’s not what I get from this. My husband and I work full time and share nursery drop offs. Our nursery is only open 0800-1800. It’s so much easier when one of you can work from home. I wfh most days, but often have to travel to site offices which can be 2hrs away. It makes it even more difficult than usual, especially if there are delays on transport. If you have nobody local for emergency pick ups it is tough. I don’t know anyone who wfh whilst doing childcare.

I assume you missed out "I find" at the start of your last sentence. You aren't in charge of what everyone else thinks about working in offices, lots of people, myself included, dont feel any differently to what they did pre COVID but suffer from the piss poor work ethic of many work from home staff

Dont listen to all the jealous moos on here.

It sucks. WFH obviously works just fine, forcing ppl into the office is so backwards.

It maybe depends on your manager, i have a friend who has been told he must be in 3 days a week from September and wont be able to continue with his 9 day fortnight.

The fact that people are looking after children whilst supposedly working is probably why they want them back in the office.

It might not be necessary in some cases.

But how is it backwards exactly if it has led to increased productivity, better staff retention and more positive staff survey feedback?

When I started my job many years ago - the communte was about 30/40 mins each way

I havent moved jobs or house - my communte would now be 1hr 30mins approx each way.

this is due to less public transport, more housing and more traffic

My office got rid of car parking spaces during COVID. So no longer an option to drive to work - grand

Pre-covid - this was our life
If my child was in creche, this would mean leaving my house at 7am and working 2km to the creche (no public transport) in all weathers.

When walking about 1.5km to the train - Train takes approx. 15mins, change lines and about 10 mins walk to the office .

and obviously repeat on the way back.

My husband had to leave the house at 6am so he could start work at 7am, so he could get back for 5.30pm to pick the children up from creche and i would get home around 7pm.

Post covid
we all get up around 7am, have breakfast together, start work at 8am. Children cycle to and from school

We finsih work at 4pm and have dinner and a life together.

i will never put myself on that riddiculous hamster wheel again especially as my no requirement for me to be in the office

We’ve been back two or three days a week for 2.5 years now.

You’ve been lucky to avoid it until now. It has nothing to do with being a mother.

Covid is long over? Really?

Half our team is sick with it at the moment.

You know what she meant.

The ridiculous 'return to office' is trashing any attempt to reduce the gender pay gap. Big companies may as well just throw their DE&I policies in the bin and admit that they actually prefer white men in all roles, particularly in leadership, seeing as they're throwing up more barriers to work for women, who still shoulder more than 90% of the caring responsibilities in our society. There's no link between presenteeism and engagement/productivity - certainly not a positive one. Studies show that the RTO doesn't have net benefits for companies, and it's pushing women (and disabled/ND people) out of work. Great stuff, if you're a man.