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.

I'll be doing something similar from next September and finishing my last 45 mins of work after I've picked up my son from school. The difference here is that my son will be six by that time and can happily entertain himself with tv, iPad or toys in the same room.

My baby will be in childcare as there's no way I could work with her around.

Will the work get done? If so does it matter!

Op you have a nursery aged child yourself. Why are you even asking the question?

Do you honestly, hand on heart think what she is asking is do-able?

Would your boss be happy if you were to do that?

This would be unfair the child and very difficult for you to manage or monitor. If this was a temporary or emergency situation absolutely consider this but not as a permanent arrangement.

You don't have a policy against this, you can assess her productivity easily, it won't impact negatively on other members of the team and she was the top performer before going on maternity leave. Presumably she knows the commitments of her role and the requirements of her child. She thinks she can do it.

Why wouldn't you offer a trial on a temporary basis with a review scheduled in a couple of months? Seems pretty self explanatory to me.

Every child is different and no I couldn't do it with mine. But I'm managing the team

I don't know. I guess a trial. But once I've done the trial it will be harder to row back as I would have accepted that it's acceptable to try and work with a child there

Yes I get that. I was responding to this:

But saying no because you can't imagine how she is going to do it is actually dismissing out of hand this woman's proven competency.

Shes not proven she's competent while also looking after a child

Therefore a trial is needed for both side. If it’s proven to work, then a trial would be inappropriate, it should go straight to approval instead.

This. Or the rest of your team. It will cause resentment speaking from experience

We wouldn't even be asking this pre covid.

We absolutely shouldn't be normalising working whilst neglecting children. Also are we them surprised when businesses want people back in work...

We wouldn't even be asking this pre covid.

Which doesn't actually matter in 2024.

It's not your concern what their set up is at home unless it impacts their work. So if she's telling you, is this because she wants accommodations?
What accommodations is she asking for?

Then you decide if those are acceptable and if other people in the team have access to accommodations that could be considered similar in scope and frequency. If not then it could quickly breed resentment.

Otherwise, it's really not your place to say what childcare she needs or what's fair to her child. It's probably illegal discrimination to take that into consideration.

Children might be different, but they aren't that much different.

You need to be very careful because it's easy for a precedence to be set. And you can't really have different policies for different people based on their ability to manage or how their children behave.

Employee A Gets to collect their preschooler, and copes
Employee B Wants to do the same but work suffers.

Then you have an issue trying to manage Employee B's performance. And their are all sorts of factors that could play into it.

A one off in an emergency, yes. Regularly, no.

It does as what we did in an emergency isn't a good predictor of how we should live.

If they're nursery age it's not safe if they are actually working - so assume they're not, and it's ok to refuse.

Either they neglect the child or their work. Neither is OK.

Nope, it doesn't. Not least because the changes to both the labour market and working norms have lasted a long time beyond the emergency period, and the OPs organisation cannot opt out of them. Hence she's mentioned being extremely short staffed.

What you mean here is that you think it should, which is not the same thing at all. I think I should be able to pay the same for food and energy as I did before covid, but that means absolutely sod all in the queue at Lidl.

Which isn't to say this is necessarily going to work. But if it doesn't, what would've been done in a world that's long gone is not the reason why.

It’s about time there was a policy about working from home. Even men might ask! Therefore there should be a robust policy on what can be considered as a reasonable request. You cannot recruit staff so some flexibility might help. Your company needs to work out how to monitor productivity and if presenteeism is vital. It’s probably not. You could look at late starts, longer hours and then a day off and other forms of working flexibly. Lots of firms have set days and times for team meetings where attendance is expected. Other important functions like mentoring and coaching should be factored in too. So give a bit of flexibility to everyone.

You cannot query their parenting competency. Thats nothing to do with an employer. Just concentrate on your business and how to attract staff and keep them. If they aren’t productive in the new set up, that needs performance review.

How is it half arsed @HelloMiss to work once baby is in bed? This works fine in some jobs which can be done in flexible hours. With my own job it's perfectly OK to finish at 3 if I start at 8 and then log in again at 7pm. It's not fun but it's worth it to spend more time with my DD.

On the other hand if I don't do my full hours no one cares because my output is excellent and my productivity is high so I'm not expected to clock watch really.

This. Kids under 6 need too much supervision to be able to concentrate on work. DD was 8 1/2 at the start of the first lockdown and even with a brilliant teacher online and being an independant, responsible child capable of getting on by herself she still needed regular attention during the day (obviously this was different as we had no option to go into the office or put her in childcare then).

@BurbageBrook what do you do?

I genuinely would. Like to long term progress to a career where I just need to be productive so I can work in fits and starts like lots seem to on mn. I'd love to know if it's obtainable. An hour faffing in the garden while I think then working at speed for a bit would mirror how I bets studied at uni!

It’s not fair on the employer. Mum knows she can’t do her job with a child at home; the whole point of being at home is to look after the child, keep an eye on them and sort them out when they need something.

You should think about updating your staff handbook or WFH policy to clarify that staff cannot work from home while being responsible for young children.