Strong case for home working for childcare

[SillyRubyPeer]

I'm after some advice from those who have successfully gained home working contracts due to caring responsibilities (childcare).

I'm a civil servant and work in HR. Our policy states anyone can apply for homeworking however its more likely in my area of work to gain HW if you have disability. I want to request it as we are required to go into the office three days a week and it's just difficult with trying to drop off and pick up - drop off 8am and pick up 4pm so I'm leaving office at 3pm. I'm full time (can't drop hours) and already have flexible working in place. Home working would just make life A LOT easier... which is not an excuse they will support.

For this to be granted I need a super strong case to explain how child care impacts (as I know loads of parents make this work!) and wondered if anyone has a strong example of wording?

Working from home definitely won't impact the business negatively however given I'm in HR.. we see so many requests so I feel we have a stricter line.

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

What is the business need for you to be in the office? That would be my starting point.

Sounds like you need longer childcare hours if you work fulltime.

And this is what ruins WFH - you can’t fit full time hours in even if you drop off at 8 - home for 8-15 and left at 3-45 for pick up.

so it would be a no from us.

Surely you’d just ask to work longer hours one day and shorter hours on drop off days. And arrange proper childcare for the longer hours?

Use childcare

Longer childcare.
I'm happy to be flexible with ad hoc childcare such as emergencies, sickness etc but as a long term plan people should use paid childcare for the length of their working day.
No one can work effectively with little children around and no one can parent properly while working.
People should wfh as they should if they were in the office

I think you’d have a stronger case if you have a particularly good reason why your childcare finishes at 4pm rather than later?

You need childcare until 6pm for those 3 days a week really. You don’t say how old your DC are but most nurserys are open to 6pm and most schools offer ASC or activities, don’t they? I know my work wouldn’t grant full time WFH due to this as there is a business need to be in the office and it’s too much of a compromise to allow it and sets a precedent for all parents of dependent children (which is a high proportion of our workforce).

Slightly confused by this - if you are stoping work at 3 for the school pick up how can you be working full time? Does your husband give you a couple of extra hours in the evening to work?

If you WFH full time, who would look after the children once you had collected them for childcare?

A lot of people have childcare duties. I don't think everyone with childcare duties can be excused from going into the office. You need to make arrangements with childminders. But ask by all means.

If you are already wfh 2 days a week then this application is simply going to tell your employer that you are already eating into the working day by picking your children up from school. Get longer childcare hours.

How old is the child?

I would need to wfh too because although my ds is 12 he has SEN he cannot be home alone and there is no childcare for 12 year olds he doesn't actually need "looking after" once he is in the house though because it's set up for his needs he just requires snack and drinks available in the fridge and his television but ice still been told I'm unlikely to get it because I would be looking after my child while working

Tricky to get a job that will accommodate my life

Does your child have additional needs? I managed to get a home working contract with the CS. But, my child has additional needs so I already had a carer’s passport in place before applying for home working. Good luck with it.

Edited to add that I only work part-time too within school hours.

As pp have said - why do you need to go into the office at all? Is it policy or custom and practice? Start from this position.

The case I would hear is: the only childcare available to me ends at 4.30, and I need to leave at 3.30 to get there but if I worked from home I could work till 4.25. I do not want to hear that when you’re working from home you are also responsible for children (unless extreme - eg sickness, school closure for an emergency).

I can’t imagine that they’ll allow you to WFH when you’re looking after your children. You’re meant to be working

When I worked in the Civil Service, my husband would drop our child off and I went into work early then race back to collect her at 5 pm. This was 5 days pw and all working parents did it. It would have been like a dream come true to wfh 2 whole days a week.

I think your hybrid model is good from business and personal viewpoints, a nice balance.

I agree with others - share the drop offs and extend nursery hours

First post nails it

Yes, this is the sort of thing I was thinking of - if your child has additional needs so it’s much harder / impossible to get after school childcare, for instance. Also we’d listen to people who had a last minute emergency for something, eg nursery has been closed, and they have a space at another one but not for 4 months, or something like that. But not “i don’t want my child at the childminders any later than 4pm for personal preference”.

Are you hoping to request WFH for the full three days that you are currently in the office?
And what are the existing childcare arrangements for when you are in the office and when you are WFH the other two days?