How do you fit in 35 hours of work if you do all school runs?

[Hillrunning]

I manage someone who doesn't appear to be doing anywhere near her 35 hours a week and have been advised to get her to confirm when she is completing thoes hours.

She does all school drop off and pick ups Tuesday to Friday and very often on Mondays too. She has also stated that her children have sports/activities 3 nights a week.

I just can't see how she has 35 hours spare to work with unless doing them at very unsociable hours. While she has a partner it's made very clear that he does not support and work out of the home 9 to 5.

It would be very useful to hear from others of thier patterns if they have similar demands please.

I used to stat at 8 and finish at 6 with half hour break

Would start at 745 so could drop at school at 830 and be home 840. Would use lunchbreak to pick up from school.
But if she isn't meeting objectives you performance manage her. Does she realise she isn't? Maybe chat to her about how she can make her hours fit in etc eg by working late in the evening when children are in bed etc.

This only works for permanently online roles when you must be online 24-7. Otherwise it always falls over when the union then requests anonymised data for all employees in a similar role and employee ends up logged in longer. Remember people who are office based have the least screentime and are the least productive.

Agreed, that's why it's better to go down the performance management route based on output surely rather than pick away at screen time.

I often print out chunks of guidance etc and read them away from the screen to rest my eyes. Or spend 20 mins or so plotting something through on paper. That's probably some of the most productive work i do! I could be on the screen but yakking away with a colleague about love island* for four hours

(*Unlikely as I have never watched love island but you get the point)

Gosh, I'm talking of those who say they start early to accommodate school stuff, then work late to make up for it.

Not everyone lives 5 minutes away, literally.....

So commute to do drop off, if driving to the school or put them on a bus that's a lot, especially in London.

Then same for pick-up, errands on the way back for some and then breakfast, load the dishwasher etc.

It's doable for some but if done properly where kids or work don't suffer, then it's a select few.

I've witnessed it but someone will be here to say they live 5 minutes from the bus stop so they're doing well.

Im contacted 37h a week with a 10 year old (breakfast and afterschool clubs for late pick ups on office days but he walks himself to and from school wfh days, its 2 mins away) I have personal appointments 2xs a week during working hours and put it on my signature “apologies if you get an email out of regular working hours I do not intend for you to respond till your working hours”

I work a lot of late evenings like when my son is in bed to complete reports etc etc and plan my diary and meetings accordingly. My work output is the same as anyone elses doing the 9-5 but sometimes ill just be up till 11 when my son is in bed to make that happen.

My manager is aware of this and doesn’t mind when i do the hours as long as they’re done and im still keeping up with work and to partnership agencies make it really clear “my best availability is Wednesdays or Fridays” where i keep my diary clear for meetings and any emergency work things that crop up.

also when able, ill just smash out a 12h day like Tuesdays im in the office 8-8.

i have colleagues (and another manager) that condense their hours so they do the same amount of hours but just longer days for a non working day or a half day a week.

understand that is a big ramble.

I drop off at school at 7.30 and pick up at 5.30 and work far more than my contracted 35 hours.

I work unsociable hours to manage the school runs and activities. I work most evenings once the kids are in bed. I suppose it depends on the age of the children. Mine are less dependent on me so it's easier to be a bit more unsociable.

@HoneyPie12
My work output is excellent. I'm a very high achiever. No one ever asks what I'm doing when. I give my work 1000% and am super loyal to them because they give me the flexibility to also be a mum. I also attend assembly, nativity, Xmas crafts when I can and just make that time back. I honestly cannot understand how her school runs local ones are affecting you so much. Poor woman needing to justify every minute- I would leave if you were my boss honestly.

Have you read OPs updates?

The reason she is being asked to verify her hours is because her output is low and she is not meeting targets, or is missing deadlines, and this impacts whole projects and other people's workload. And school runs were taking up 2 hours at a time, presumably means she is not available at hours where colleagues might need to speak to her.
Not because she is working flexible hours

I don't need to do school runs anymore but have colleagues who do. Here's what happens in my public sector organisation.

We work hybrid and full timers are in the office 2 days a week, part timers it's 1 day. If we don't come in on the office days we must have permission IN ADVANCE. Otherwise we risk being treated as absent from work.

We have cases allocated to us and then it's up to us how we manage our day/diaries, but we have a weekly diary visible to the whole team so we can see what blocks of work colleagues are doing at any given time. We need to be available for appointments, calls, consultations etc during core hours (even it's taking a call while doing the school pick up).
If someone is busy occasionally it would be fine to decline or miss meetings but would be unacceptable for someone to do this regularly and would be quickly pulled up and told to rearrange diaries.

But the biggest indicator of performance would be if someone was getting through the same amount of casework as others on the same grade/hours. This can be checked in casenotes and contacts and would quickly become a performance issue if there were big discrepancies

Good point!

I do all the school runs and work 9-3, that's 30 hours so she'd have to be working at home too and it doesn't sound like her husband would allow that (!!!)

I don't know anyone with secondary children who WFH and has childcare..... secondary age kids are no more distracting than your average co-worker in an office.

You are the opposite of her then. I have others like you in my team. They are an inspiration to work with because they showcase to employers that work does not need to be rigid.

Sorry but why you can’t tell her that she has to work contract hours??
does she have formal agreement on flexible hours?
the fact she has no wraparound care is not your problem; she has to arrange it like everyone else. Generally she isn’t even entitled to pick children up from school if she’s working full time, you are being kind and generous allowing for that.

in all previous examples people enjoyed the perks of formal or informal flexi working because they delivered AND because they still made up contracted hours at different times of the day - she does neither.

she has to do both even if on formal flexible arrangement.

I run a business with my DP. He is there most of the time, but I only work 10-2 to fit in with the school runs. I do a couple of hours there on Saturday too, and the remaining hours I do from home across the week, in the evenings, to make it up to 35 hrs

Someone in my last company got fired for that. She was never available 2.30-6pm, despite being contracted for 37.5 hours.

People like this are the ones who make the flexible working approach ‘unsuitable’ for a lot of companies, because people take the piss. Similar situation to you with one of my staff, when initially approached whether the 45 minutes she was doing before the school run, so starting early, was entirely productive (based on her role, she worked from a shared inbox with simple general enquiries, which are logged). She was doing zero and she immediately flipped when it was asked.

It became apparent soon after, when asked to pick up a task which she should be able to do, but hadn’t for a long time, that she was looking after one child from 1pm, after a 20 minute pick up, and the other from 3, after a 20 minute pick up. Taking a 15 minute break and hour lunchbreak. Other staff were working over their hours to compensate for her low output.

Totally!
The hour before school run when kids are getting ready isn't going to be productive work time, Neither are times after pick up, tea time or bath/bed time.

Posters saying pick/drop is 5 minutes away, come back and jump straight back to work in 10 minutes aren't being realistic.

Logging on isn't the same as being productively working.

Always a few who spoil it for everyone else.

Exactly. That's why my GC come to me at 7.00am for breakfast and I take them to school. That way my DD can do two hours proper work in the time before she'd otherwise be home and working after drop off. Two hours is a hefty proportion of the day.

If she only takes a short break at lunchtime she's done her day's work by the end of school (though she's very conscientious and will pick up anything urgent after that).
I struggled with having four children and a full-time job so used a childminder before and after school until they were older. I'd have loved to WFH but it just wasn't done then, and obviously not all roles can be done from home.

I really think your employee is taking the piss@Hillrunning

people have different jobs. I for example get a ton of emails so can easily spend half an hour or more them to start the day, and then mulling them over while In doing the school run/on the train.

That depends on the job, I also have flexible working hours so it doesn't really matter how long the school run takes

I have a certain number of things I need to assess and authorise each day , it's easy to sign back in after 10 mins and get straight back to it

Really? Depends on the job surely and how focussed the person is. I have always had a reputation for churning out a prodigious amount of work and working 9.30-2.30 (9.15-2.45 if traffic is clear) and the rest when the children are in bed /at clubs

I climbed the career ladder rapidly while working that pattern. I progressed past heaps of people working 9-5 far less productively

Truth is not everyone can do it, yet everyone claims to, even the person OP is talking about.

Everyone thinks they're doing well and being more productive yet it's only a few that are disciplined enough.

Like I said, I lived with someone who would log on and do the bare minimum.

My work week with 2 kids but only 1 at school.

7am start, nip out at 8.30 to do school run
8.45 back at work
Work till 3 (usually through lunch break) if at aftershock clubs I work till 4
Family time from then
7 I tend to put another 2 hours in more if deadlines are approaching

Weekends are my time

Do you have references for this?

I’m not picking a fight, just genuinely interested as I hear this described in different ways.