Employer insisting DH returning to the office and childcare

[Hedgepond]

My DH has worked 4 days a week at home and 1 day in the office since the return to work after the pandemic. During that time we’ve had a second child and arranged our childcare around our working hours.

I work in a healthcare job, leaving the house at 7.20 and not back until 8.30/9pm on Mondays and Tuesdays. On those days he drops the children in their before school clubs and nursery and collects them after. One child is at a nursery a 15 minute bike ride from the house and one is a 7 minute walk. So he gets the furthest child at 5.40 in order to get back for 6pm for the other one. From January our little one is going to be in a preschool next to the eldest child and will finish at 5.15 so pick up will be even earlier.

We live an hour away from his office. Currently he works from 8.30- ~5.30 non stop in his home office and the logs in again in the evenings after he’s done bedtime.

On Wednesdays he goes into the office while I work at home and then on a Thursday and Friday I work occasional extra shifts to top up my income but to be flexible in the school holidays, so again he does the childcare on those days. I can do that work within school hours but DH is a back up in case I get caught up in an emergency. He will then collect the eldest
and he watches TV until I’m back… I can extent the nursery last minute for the youngest. I come back from work and take them straight to their swimming etc after school clubs.

He has alternate Fridays off and works at home the other Friday.

If DH has to go into the office on a Monday and Tuesday he will be able to arrive at 8.45 at the earliest (he could do an earlier drop off for the children) and he’d have to leave at 4.30 at the latest to get back but this will be impossible from January onwards when the pick up is 5.15. On a Thursday and Friday I would have to give up my extra work to guarantee I’d be back in time for the pick ups as I can’t risk not having any back-up in case I can’t leave work.

He won’t be able to do the hours he does now if he goes back into the office due to the commute so he’ll have to log in most evenings to finish things (he already does quite a bit anyway). I don’t see how this works well for anyone. I’m worried I’ll have to give up my job to do the childcare as we have no one else who can do the pick ups for us. I can’t change my working hours or days.

Does he have any leg to stand on for continuing WFH or should he start looking for another job? He’s the main earner so if he can’t find another job I’ll have to give up mine.

Absolutely not true that he doesn't have a leg to stand on - for some reason there are some real anti WFH people on MN. The Flexible Working Bill enshrines the right to ask for flexible working into law, meaning employers have to justify why they're NOT allowing it - which if it's worked successfully for several years for your OH, they won't be able to do. The issue is that kicking up a stink at work often causes more problems than it solves, so if your husband's employer refuses to backtrack on this, then probably best just moving on. Most employers realise how important flexible working is for getting and retaining the best talent.

If he's doing extra hours so he has every other Friday off, he's clearly already got a flexi working request.

Honestly he should look for another job. How is it sustainable to be working this many hours?

Would it work better if he just did 5 days a week, 9-5, and you had the kid in nursery for that Friday instead?

Not everyone is in a job where they can leave exactly on time every day.

It's likely de facto rather than written into the terms and conditions of his contract.

Good luck - it seems as if the company have no regard for individual circumstances and what’s worked well for both sides.
I agree there’s a precedent been set that should assist a flexible working application. I wouldn’t change your work until I’d tried to find a childminder to collect from school - it’s not for long and worth paying really well if you can get someone reliable.

I suspect it’s more to do with people taking the piss. I’m not saying OP’s husband does this, but plenty do. In fact, wasn’t there a thread just recently in which people discussed the antics they get up to while “working from home”? Businesses are starting to realise that people are looking after their kids, going to the gym, going for walks, watching TV, having a nap. They’ve decided they want them where they can see them. And to be fair, if your 9-5 job can be done between 9.30 and 3, then you probably should be made redundant, or at least have your hours formally reduced.

I don't think any company allows a de facto every other Friday off if I'm honest. It'll be the WFH that isn't.

Exactly. The more senior you get the more you can demand flexibility and a lot of people don’t realise the leverage they have, often because their employers tell them they are disposable. In the past there wasn’t the technology to enable WFH - now there clearly is so the idea of forcing people to come and sit in the office every day is ridiculous. Hopefully more people will vote with their feet and leave companies that don’t offer this.
My friend is quite high up in the civil service and received a demand to be in the office four days a week. It would fuck up her childcare as she has to commute to London so she said to her line manager that she was going to have to resign and surprise surprise they immediately folded and manager said she’d turn a blind eye and please please don’t resign. If you’re well qualified and good at your job it’s idiotic to get rid of someone over something like this. The OP’s DH sounds like he does a lot more than the vast majority of in-office workers so they’d be so stupid to lose him.

Also when I worked in an open plan office it was nigh on impossible to get proper work done and most people seemed to wander round with cups of tea and chatting to others. It’s definitely not conducive to productivity.

I feel that just because things were done a particular way pre-pandemic it doesn’t mean it’s the best way and working in the office isn’t always best for family life/childcare and employee motivation. When DH is working he is on back to back meetings online with people in all parts of the Uk, Europe and the US and being in the office makes very little difference to who he talks to. He feels that he is disrupted and interrupted more in the office by small talk and questions that don’t need to be answered instantly. He is much more productive at home.

@HardenYourHeart there could be something in this about quiet firing. I didn’t mention in my original post that his company has recently been taken over by a bigger American company and it is them who have decided on this office working. Redundancies are expected but perhaps if they can force people out with this new office working arrangement it’ll save them quite a bit of money.

I really feel for DH, he works v hard and bends over backwards for his company. Sometimes (every couple of months) he’ll work all night and occ 48 hours with minimal sleep for major incidents or projects which he’s not contracted or obliged to do. It just feels a bit brutal.

My partners office does. It’s called TOIL - time off in lieu and you can do overtime on your other days and have one day a fortnight off.

He should give up his alternate Fridays off and work shorter daily hours

Yes.
How did people exactly arrange their lives, when there was no "WFH"?
🙄

It all depends on his contract. If he had it changed during the pandemic then he can argue it's not in his contract, but if his contract doesn't state this then he's no leg to stand on.

I still can believe people would be stupid enough to build their lives around working patterns that aren't contractual. I've heard of people having babies and working childcare around wfh, even moving to remote locations without thinking that they need to have this worked into their employment contract. I've wfh for over 10 years and I'd never verbally agree anything unless it was written into my contract.

It doesn't matter if he works solidly during his time, that you think he's more effective at home, blah blah blah, it doesn't matter a jot if it states in his contract he should be in the offfice between X hours.

What does he do? Because in the corporate world you absolutely wouldn't be doing this.

OP my manager had a similar arrangement as your DH and we were asked to increase our days in office. we also work for an international company, most of our team are on West Coast of US which means lots of later calls. She spoke to our P&C team who worked with her to find a solution that worked and meant she was still able to work from home but adjusted her hours so she was still able to do late calls. I'd advise your DH to speak to them and his manager as surprisingly they're sometimes more helpful that you'd think :)

@LazyArsedMagician

We had "non working Fridays" every 4 weeks over 20 years ago, with the time coming from slightly shorter lunches and slightly longer days throughout the month.

We are now have many roles which are very flexible with time (if not always location) , building up our hours between. 7am-7pm with standard core hours 9.30.-3.00. Site based teams don’t have this, but have Non Working Fridays still.

He feels that he is disrupted and interrupted more in the office by small talk and questions that don’t need to be answered instantly. He is much more productive at home.

There's zero point in you dwelling on this. If a company wide decision has been made to return to office, they aren't going to be interested in revisiting these arguments for and against. I'd be looking at paid babysitters who can slot in where needed.

Also I would agree with person upthread who said that if your husband is valued then hopefully they'll be flexible. A dear friend of mine works for a global investment bank who were the first to announce they were going back in company wide for 5 days. She works 3 days in the office and the rest at home now. It's always worth a conversation.

I agree - I am ND so have always struggled to work in conventional offices. The distractions/irritants made it nigh on impossible for me. I've WFH since 2015 now and while actually I'd like to do one day a week in the office now, for meetings/collaboration and socialising with colleagues, I'd never agree to more than that as I wouldn't get anything done. I need complete quiet and no distractions to get my work done. All these edicts trying to get employees back into the office don't take DEI into consideration at all - such a step backwards.

DH did WFH well before pandemic well over decade ago - he was working away all week and then home with us at weekends few years in he manage to negotiate home working on Friday. When we finally moved down here - he spoke to HR and they said as it was a practise that had gone on for years they said it was seen as part of his contract.

So I think he may have a leg to stand on.

DH was prior to that made redundant by a USA company take over - back fired as it was in area UK has shortage of people in - the company location was not great very rural and it's big selling point of stability in unstable sector was thrown away and ever since they struggle for qualified staff. UK law meant a payout and longer process as it was so many over 10% - so depending on how long been there and how many they want rid of could be worth waiting it out.

The employer is being very unreasonable imo. He should absolutely refuse to log in again when he gets home, if they don't want him to WFH then that should also apply to evenings and weekends.

I wfh, at the pojnt where 'school runs' became necessary I dropped to part time because there was no way to fit it (and childcare before and after of course) into a full working day.

Lots of women do this - when dd was in primary the only mothers I knew who worked ft had young enough, local enough parents willing and able to help with the kids, or in one case an au pair. For some reason always the women not the men...

Isn’t it just!

TUPE rules apply whether the company is UK or foreign owned.

However in his case it sounds like he already has a flexible working arrangement to do a 9 day forthnight and only one day in the office. Going to two days a week in the office is still a flexible arrangement. My guess would be the business need might be cited as "development of junior staff" (which is absolutely a real issue where seniors all WFH) and/or "integration into the new organsation". These would both be legitimate IME and not just a sign of poor managers who can't supervise staff effectively.

Your home arrangement or childcare has nothing to do with work, as harsh as that is.

Be grateful for having it good thus far instead of complaining about something out of his control.

What he can control is finding another job that suits his lifestyle.