Wfh with a child. Is it fair?

[violetsparkle]

Employee wants to pick up their kid from nursery and then do 2 hours more work. Is this fair? There's no policy against it so is it just what's acceptable now? I don't know if I should approve it. I don't want to really but we're desperate for the staff so I'm not sure if I have a choice. Just want to give employee a heads up that HR might not approve it so they can consider alternatives.

For those saying that it’s irrelevant whether or not it’s fair to the child, in my industry this would come under risk of reputational damage.

If it were to get out that this was something the company allowed, it could easily be spun as something encouraged or even demanded, and therefore could damage the brand.

If full on work can come in during hours when the child could need close supervision, it's a no from me.
I WFH after school with my older children (10 and 12) but I also do online and F2F training and I would never schedule that with even my quiet primary school age child present - you have to be "on" and present for the trainees, but my child might need something even if minor.

Is the work suitable to be done with a minor in earshot? Eg could they overhear a conversation about a sensitive subject or a safeguarding matter?

I'm sure you've considered this, and there definitely should be a policy in place if this is the work that you do.

Also, how often would this be? 5 days a week?

You also need to ask her what provisions she has if her child is ill or not in nursery/school, as obviously she cannot work whilst looking after a sick child. Where my Son works, there are quite a few working at home 2/3 days a week with young babies/children, they mostly take the view that as long as the work is done, there’s no issue, but one time, they could see that an employee hadn’t logged on or read emails for a long period, so trust has gone to that particular employee.

My friend is a mental health nurse and was on a call with a patient in lockdown when her DS came in to show her his Egyptian loincloth costume. Sometimes the child can be inappropriate for the work not vice versa!

I would say no. If an employee is unavailable for work meetings for part of the day because of child care issues then she can't do her job properly. If other employees are paying for childcare to avoid these issues then so should this employee, or reduce her hours to part time. I suspect many employees do child care while WFH and don't say anything.

Not cool with a toddler, no

could the employee do the extra 2 hours once child asleep in bed? Assuming child is a good sleeper.

I don't know why you think this is normal now and employers need to agree to it.

Yes to WFH. Yes to flexible working. No to WFH whilst also caring for a child at the same time.

If it was possible for this person to do, say, 9-3, pick their child up, and then do another two hours from 8-10pm once their child is in bed, that could potentially work. But they are proposing to WFH and look after their child at the same time. But both of those things are a full time activity. If they are working they won't be supervising their child and if they are supervising their child they won't be working.

Starting in September I'll have my child at home one afternoon a week whilst WFH. I am fairly certain that for at least the next 6 months he'll still be taking a very long nap on that day because he will be so tired from what he is doing on the other days. Any hours of work I don't manage to do during his nap I will catch up that evening once he is in bed. If I have an urgent meeting I will send him to his grandparents. If he stops needing a long nap in the afternoon it will become unviable and I will need to find a proper childcare solution. But if the nature of my job was that the work had to be done during standard working hours and couldn't be done earlier or later in the day, I wouldn't even contemplate doing this. It's just that at the moment it doesn't seem worth sorting out childcare for 4 hours when I expect him to be asleep for 3 of those hours and my work is flexible.

If the kid is at nursery, probably no. Unless it is like a friend of mine did after her vile ex dumped her when she was pregnant. She would stop work, pick up her baby from nursery, do the evening routine, then log on when baby was in bed to do a few hours of her admin .

I always do 1-2 hours extra work throughout the evening. I might do 30 mins of short emails while the tea is in the oven and the kids are watching TV, and then another hour or so once they're in bed. This works OK for us.

I couldn't commit to 2 hours' straight "proper" work with the kids awake.

I do an hour or so after school pick up with my DC but they are 9 and 11. Wouldn't be possible to be productive with a nursery age child.

I let my employee do that (ie work from home with a child aged 2 a few hours a day) - I felt as a manager, my role is to help my employees work how they want and not micro manage. It’s her role as a mother to decide what is suitable childcare for her baby; and her role as an employee to decide how she can be most productive.

I do track productivity, so was clear if she wasn’t hitting her KPIs, we’d reconsider. I know she mostly worked after the baby was asleep, often like 8-10pm. She also sometimes did the hours on the weekend, if her baby had needed her more than usual. I checked she felt that wasn’t too tiring but she said she preferred it. And sometimes she did have her husband to help with childcare, it’s just his hours were unpredictable, so she couldn’t rely on him for pick up.

I think it worked well! I think employers should let good employees lead their lives how they want as much as possible. It’s not for us to judge their parenting.

It really depends on the employee's role and duties as to whether it's workable or not. I work in L&D and manage a team of trainers and we can offer flexibility around this, with some caveats. But not all jobs can.

We do have parents who work in a similar way to this, they have to organise their days so that they do meetings/training sessions before school/nursery pickup and their admin work during the last hour or two of the day, so that kids are not disturbing any client facing work or important meetings. Everyone works remotely except for occasional away days and travel to client sites to do training.

Sometimes there are requirements for later training sessions/travel to client sites. Evening sessions and travel to site have to be shared fairly within the team so it doesn't always fall on those without kids/older kids, as many of those staff have other responsibilities too. We agree with individual employees what reasonable notice is for parents with younger children for those engagements so they can pre-arrange childcare for those times, and this goes on the flexible working agreement. Most parents tend to be happy with 1-2 weeks notice.

If a parent comes to us and says "help I can't get childcare for that day" of course other team members will step in. The issues, where we've had them, have been where a staff member didn't communicate and then dropped it on me last minute that they hadn't got childcare and either I've had to rearrange my entire diary at short notice to cover the customer's need or ask another team member to.

We have only ever had to withdraw this type of flexible working once, because someone just wasn't managing things properly and we ended up with kids shouting in the background on a customer training session. I think the staff member had just crossed their fingers and hoped the kiddos would stay quiet, but they didn't. Because we give a lot of flexibility, dishonesty doesn't go down well.

Childcare is a nightmare but it's not a reasonable request.

My role invovles a lot of independent work so I did 1 hour after bedtime so worked a 9am-5pm and then 8-9pm Or some days I'd do a 6-7am and a 9-5

My boss was happy for me to do this flexibly / informally with no change in contract.

There is no way you can work productively for 2 hours with a toddler and its not a practical or reasonable request.

I also agree with "give an inch" and the general team morale.

I can see this with an older primary aged child maybe 8 upwards, but nursery aged no way. They'd either be neglecting work or their child. Ask them what childcare arrangements will be in place after pick up and make it clear there will need to be something. Also what about the nursery run itself, how long will that take and will that impact their work and availability for meetings?

No to supervising a toddler while working. I'd talk to her about reducing her hours, to fit in with nursery. That would be the safer option. You cannot work and safely supervise a small toddler.

If they're unavailable for meetings at those times then they're impacting on other team members.

I do think the age of the child makes a difference.
The age of the child affects their level of independence, and how often they will interrupt the parent who is meant to be working.

While children don't suddenly grow up over night you can be reasonably sure a 5 yo can get a drink if it's made up in a drinks bottle from the fridge and go to the loo independently.

I wouldn't be so sure about a child just turned 4.

I also think their is a difference between primary school kids for a couple of hours after school, when they have been busy all day and primary school kids in the holidays when they get bored.

My company would allow this. They are very much "based on trust" which is a breath of fresh air.
Most sensible people would think carefully about this. For example - is the employee going to wait until child is in bed to continue work! Might they prioritise the mundane, easy stuff for then? Is their toddler calm? I could have done it with my daughter. She was so placid. She would have sat and eaten her dinner and then been perfectly happy playing etc. my son is a whirlwind and no way could I do it. For that reason, I put him in childcare.
Have an open discussion with your employee. Are they usually trust worthy? Could you do it on a temp basis to see how it goes?

Depends on the age of the child, the type of child and the circumstances. This has been my agreement with work from day 1, spoke about it in interview. I do the school runs and then continue working. Sometimes I might take an hour or two off and work later in the evening, sometimes I might work while they are playing, sometimes my DH might get home early. My employer is all about output so as long as my work gets done and I am high performing, it's up to me to manage my time.

Exactly that @Foraging4sweet I have my meetings during the day and do my high stakes work then. When DC is home, I am replying to emails, doing mundane admin tasks etc which can be stopped and started as necessary.

It depends on the child, 2 hours my 4 year old chilling on the sofa with iPad where I can see I could manage working.

No way we would allow this