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.

OMG let them WFH and be flexible. FFS it’s not 1996!

It's not about WFH it's about trying to do two jobs at the same time. Physically not possible.

Either the job or the child will be neglected, or done half assed.

Not really the Ops problem if the child is neglected but the chances are it will be the job that's neglected.
Children have a habit of being able to demand attention, noisey creatures that they are.

I've no problem with them working from home..

I work like this and nobody is neglected, not my child, not my work, because my employer focuses on outputs not hours sat in front of the computer. If I need to take an hour or two away it's fine because they know I will deliver my work (and more) regardless. It's called being treated like an adult!

@CandiedPrincess how old are your children?

@Needanewname42 My youngest is 4.

I'd see how it pans out. Chances are kid is knackered and just wants to flop in front of the telly/insert screen here for a couple of hours. Mine do.

@FriendlyRobin I'm an academic. I likely do more than my contracted hours overall throughout the year but it's often flexible in terms of when I can do them. I do have friends in other careers though with similar flexibility as long as they don't have meetings etc.

@StormingNorman What??? That’s discrimination. An employer has no right to question childcare or put on such restrictions. They don’t even have to know an employee has children. That idea is almost certainly illegal.

What an employer can do is look at how working from home weaves into the work of the business. Is the employee needed all day? Or can hours be adjusted on a flexible arrangement? What does productivity look like? How is it measured? What arrangements are there for interacting with the team? Does being in the work place 9-5 trump everything else? These days you cannot discriminate against parents like this.

Honestly as an employer I don’t have time to weave stafff into the fabric of the buisnes
Too busy keeping the show on the road as otherwise there will be no jobs for anyone including me
All flexible working requests are of course considered
Would not allow WFH with small children

Have run this past the Company lawyers a few times and been told it’s fine,and not discriminatory

@Motheranddaughter How do you know if a man has small children? Or is it just women you discriminate against? Or just parents in general. I hope no one wants to work for you if your business is precarious. My DH ran a business for 40 years. Definitely had a family friendly attitude and they made £ millions. Just nicer to work for people who value good staff and understand that sometimes dc need to be considered. Shame you don’t understand how to adopt different ways of working to enhance the business and ensure you return the best staff. I called it weaving but you obviously know little about organisational change and discrimination.

We have no problems recruiting and resting staff
There is no discrimination
We allow lots of working patterns but do not allow people to WFH with small children

The problem I can see is that you would be potentially setting a precedent.

Dd1 I probably could have worked from home with her from about 9 months. She would happily sit for an hour playing with toys round her. Give her a quick snack, change the toys and I could have done another hour.

Dd2 absolutely no way would I have got anything done at all. She was never still and generally made a beeline for the most dangerous thing in the room.

Ds would have been find if he was on my lap cuddling me, and I could have got some done, but not full work.

But if you let her, and it works, then another person comes forward who's got a dc more like dd2 and you have the potential for them saying it's not fair you let someone else and it's just discrimination etc.

I don't think this is appropriate.

You could offer for them to reduce hours but then perhaps they'll just do it anyway and I suspect a lot of people do this anyway.

For clarity, this is what ACAS say.

I bet on many occasions no one asks if a man has children! It’s clearly sex discrimination of dads are working from home and mums not. Childcare is not an employers business. No assumptions should be made. Someone picking up dc might take them to grandparents up the road.