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.

What is she like to work with? If she’s good when she’s actively engaged with work and you want her to just improve, then rather than trying to understand how she’s trying to fit it all in (and run the risk of alienating her or getting her dismissed for gross misconduct when you don’t have a replacement) have a chat with her. Explain you have received fb that she hasn’t been around much either in the office or when working from home and ask if everything’s okay.

If she then tells you she’s struggling to manage her work and family life you can try and help her by using your company procedures to formalise flexible working for her. If she refuses to talk about it then you must put her on a pip that clearly articulates your expectations. Make it as granular as possible -

Eg document everything she’s expected to do, when it’s expected by, all the meetings she must attend (and whether they must be in person or remotely). Explain that all emails and Teams messages must be replied to within 2 hours (arrange a company phone if she doesn’t have one), and that if she isn’t around she must inform you / her manager and have an out of office on. TELL her that she must be in the office consistantly 3 days every week of her choosing (allow her to start late / leave early for school runs but explain she must do all the work you’ve agreed she needs to do for that to be allowed permanently. Set the expectation is she signs in after work to get the job done and works however long it takes to get her job done.

Then every Friday get her to send you a review email of all the work she did, who the stakeholders are, what she’s waiting for, so you can demonstrate improvement and take her off the pip.

If she isn’t good to work with and you want to get rid of her then start collating evidence for a gross misconduct case.

I don't do all drop.offs and pick ups but I work more than 35 hours a week. I definitely could if I was working from home and only doing 35 hours, school is five minute walk and soft start is 8:30-8:50 I'm at the gate at 8:25 home by 8:35, if doing pick up without ASC or sports I would leave home at 3:05 (school kicks out at 3:15) a 30 minute lunch each day (which I rarely take but has to be accounted for) that would be 30 hours, so if on a Monday I didn't do pick up until 5/5:30 that would be another couple of hours and 3 hours over the week in the evening would be easily done or I'd use ASC once or twice a week.

We don't work like that as we both flex and condense our hours, but tomorrow for example I'm WFH and DH will do drop off so I'll be online from 8:15, DS has athletics directly after school and I will pick him up from ASC around 5:30 so easily 8.5 hours. Today I had to travel for work so DH did school runs and I left at 7 for home at 6 my office is less than ten minutes from my house so almost all of that is on the clock. Thursday DH is working late so I'll do drop off and pick up after ASC. I tend to either do a few hours on my nwd while DS is at school or I do one evening a week if needed to balance hours. DH does one 12 hour day 8:45-9:15 a week and then 3 more regular days. DS has one of us pick him up at 3:15 twice a week and 3 days goes to after school club or sports.

School pick up for her starts at 2 and can go on till 4, for a school that appears to be about a mile from her home and about 4 from work.

A 2 hour school pick up? How often is that happening because that is taking the piss

Do you have core hours where people are expected to be online?

If output was exceeding targets then I would not mind my team popping out for any reason as they are adults. But would expect them to not decline meetings, not delay their own deadlines and more importantly not delay their colleagues deadlines by not being available.

For example fine to make up your own hours but if that means someone else is delayed or they expect their colleagues to stay late too for a call that should have been done during the day then that’s not acceptable

Informal flexibility needs to work both ways. Want it on your terms then put in a formal flexible working request

From the sounds of it, there are a lot of more concrete things you can focus on than the mystery of when she is doing the 35 hours. With those 35 hours, it is going to be really difficult to prove one way or another unless she is in a role where she should always be "live" online and someone else is available to monitor if she is or isn't. So much about that issue would come down to what her contract says - does she have fixed hours? Do you have core hours? How does worked hours demonstrably tie into output?
Someone else above raised the point of whether 30 mins from 7-7.30 would actually be useful work time. I get a lot of emails overnight and wake up at 6.15 with the purpose of reading them all before actually getting up at 6.45. I don't reply to many then but it gives me a chance to mull them over whilst doing the really mundane tasks involved in getting the DC out of the house & to school and my commute.
As for the after school clubs, so much will depend on what those clubs look like. Are they on site at the school so your employee is picking up 30/45/60 mins later than school would otherwise finish or is she collecting from school and then driving her DC somewhere. How many of her DC are involved in these after school clubs? What are the others doing? Does she claim to "work" whilst waiting for her DC to do their clubs when, actually, most weeks she is chatting to the other parents, running errands or doing something with the other DC?

I start very early while partner does the drop off and use ASC with long days and compressed days on pick up days. I think the issue sounds like goals aren't being and work isn't being completed rather than her doing school pick up.

Is the issue that she isn’t doing her work? Or that some people have noticed the shorter hours.

if the former, I think you’ll just have to ask her hours and say that she will either have to drop her hours or get childcare.

I drop my kids to school for 8.30 and am online by 9. They go to after school club or childminder until 5.30ish so I can easily do my 8 hours. If I was picking them up at 2.30 / 3 I’d have to go part time.

Wow. Thank you all. Sharing your patterns is so useful . Thoes of you that have added advice too has been a help. It's either confirmed I'm on the right track with steps already taken or given me something new ro consider.

Up until now I've kept conversations about performance expectations but the hours element has just come to a bit of a head.

To the poster who asked what she is like to work with, well I see a lot of potential and get on with her. I don't particularly want to loose her. I'd rather she stepped up.

We have after school club on the day’s I’m in the office but when I’m working from home I do:

7-8am I clear all my emails whilst OH takes them to school
8-9am school run
Then 9am-3pm I work straight through.
Pick up the kids and eat late lunch/get them a snack etc 3-4
log back on from 4-5ish (sometimes 6 depending on the day).
Mine are late primary and quite happy to chill after school.

Our school has a 2 hour pick up if you have kids across KS1 and KS2 as it’s a drive in school where parking is atrocious so you need to come in around 2:20 for a 3pm pick up for KS1. Then wait until 3:45 for KS2 minimum. It then takes a minimum of 30mins to get out of the bloody place.

As it stands with one DC it takes me a minimum of an hour - I just block that time out of my diary as even trying to take calls around other parents doesn’t work. But I’ve already explained to my manager I can’t work during that time and as my output is decent and I work until the job’s done (often on Saturday and nights) it’s allowed. But that depends on the job - I have a very senior position so it makes sense. But I wouldn’t expect a secretary or EA to be working back her hours like that every night - I’d try to reach a compromise if I could.

Should say 7-8 I clear emails whilst OH gets them ready for school.

I work flexi-time, so I can manage the school pick-up and drop-offs into my work hours.

I'll log on around 7.45am after I've given DS his breakfast. I'll read emails, code them up, and update my CEO's action list (I'm an Exec Assistant) in this 45 minutes, so it's a productive time. Clock out at 8.30am. Get DS dressed, brushed teeth, cleaned up. School gates open 8.45am, back at my desk for 8.50am.

Then I generally work through to 3.10pm, pick DS up, make my lunch and his food, back online for 3.40pm. Log out at 5.30pm when it's time to pick DD up from nursery. My mum picks her up in a morning to drop off as she passes her nursery on her way to work.

My CEO is quite content with DS being home during the final 2 hours of the day, as he causes very little interruption. He is generally in his bedroom next door to my office playing with his toys, or doing some handwriting/number blocks.

So I work:

7.45-8.30am - 45 mins
8.50-3.10pm - 6hr 20mins
3.40-5.30pm - 1hr 40mins

A total of approx 8hr 45mins and I'm contracted to work 7hr 24mins a day (37hour week).

Oh and she isn't new but is newish to me. When I approached her last manager initially as I was worried about what I assumed was a sudden change in output, they just shrugged and said "oh no she's never been up to much but I didn't have time to address it" which made me very angry on her behalf.

I work 5 days a week, 6:45 am -3:45 pm, from home.

We have 2 kids in nursery and 1 in reception.

My husband gets the kids ready every morning, gives them breakfast.

I then leave my desk for 15 minutes to drop off the 2 youngest at nursery at 7:45 - back at 8 am.

My husband leaves the house at 8 am for work.

Our school age child stays with me until 8:30 am whilst I am working. I then take my morning break to do the school run.

After that I work from home until 3:45 pm. When I finish work I pick up my son from school and the kids from nursery.

We usually eat very simple food in the evening, like steamed fish, vegetables, mashed potatoes or oven pizza.

I definitely fullfill my hours at work and I always reach my targets (sales jobs).

We don't have any family we can rely on for childcare, so if our kids become ill, we have to take days off.

Your post makes it sound like it's impossible, but it definitely isn't.

Then you have your answer. Look for solutions. My strategy above does work (I’ve used it several times). Just keep talking to her, make yourself available and if possible (check your procedures) get her personal mobile number so you can call her if there’s an emergency.

Irrespective of the hours worked, performance manage for the low output and missed objectives.

Sounds like some ground rules need to be set? Why does she get away with total flexibility if she wasn't employed on that basis?

She’s got used to doing what she likes and getting away with it. She won’t be able to tell you how she manages to cram in her hours because she doesn’t work those hours.

I couldn’t without afterschool care. I collect them twice a week, once to take them to basketball (my boss knows about this) so take a couple of hours there. Once is to bring
them home and the piano teacher comes so I go back to work. I don’t collect the 2yo as I can’t work effective with her at home. I do plenty of evening meetings and early mornings when important- I ask my husband to start late so I can join, or if more casual meetings I dial in in the car or while they get ready. I work well over 35 hours but I’m management. I’d ask her to tell you the hours, say it’s not working for us that you decline meetings at normal working times, so you will need to be available for these hours, and revisit the office attendance - say it’s part of the job and others are having to do more as you aren’t doing it.
Then put some meetings in at different times for her current projects within her set hours.

you say you want to keep her. Can you rescope the job to less hours (& less pay obviously) while she’s in this phase?

School run as lunch break then carry on in the afternoon afterwards? Depends what time clubs etc are I suppose.

You have had lots of good advice already. Please make sure you also look at her contract. Does it specify the location and hours she is supposed to work? If it doesn’t then that makes a conversation slightly harder, although not much because you still have the performance to talk about.

If it was me, depending slightly on her contract, I’d be having an informal conversation initially (but make sure you take notes). I would tell her there are two issues. The first is relating to timekeeping/presence in the office/hours worked and the second is output/performance. Explain you want to understand whether the two are linked and how you can support her achieve what is expected.

Tell her that you don’t want to lose her and so you’d like to work with her to address the issues.

From this, you can probably identify where you can compromise and where you can’t in terms of days in the office, school pick up etc.

I don’t do both school runs but if I did, it would look like this:
work 6:15-8:15 (DH gets DC ready)
8:15-9:30 school run
9:30-3:30 work (eat at desk)
If my DH didn’t get DC ready and DC wasn’t in after school care 3:15-4, I think I’d manage 5.5 hours/day, maybe 6.5 if I started at 6 and worked until DC got up at 7. BUT I only have one DC (5) and she is very self sufficient, stays in her room till 7, comes out dressed, gets herself breakfast. I’d also have to be incredibly organized (I am already pretty bloody organized) but I’d have to get a lot more ready the night before so I could really make that 6-7 hour count.

I currently “work” 40 hours a week and do one school run most days but my employer measures on output and my job only takes me 3-4 hours a day at most I am regularly told that I am a very high performer and 100% meeting my goals.

I'm a teacher. I drop my kids off by 8:20 and head straight to my school (just a few minutes away). Leave at 4pm to collect my kids. Then I do a few hours of work once they've gone to bed to catch up on planning/marking. It's a grind but it works for us.

It sounds like she is getting paid for 35 hours but only working 20?
Mon to Friday 10-2 by the sounds of it.
That seems ridiculous…

I do. School run 8:10-8:30
Start work at 8:30 and finish at 4pm
School run pick up from 4:05-4:25

This. Address the results not the process.