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.

I would say the business need for her to be in the office is to do her job rather than finish at 3.45 to collect and care for children.
ive been in many HR meetings that have gone on past 4 o’clock!
if you put in this request I assume your employer will think that you are requesting to reduce your hours to finish before 4 every day

I’m not sore childcare is ever taken into consideration when it comes to home working. Surely that is the parents responsibility to arrange and fit in, and around, work not the other way around.

Children are not a disability, a disability is a disability so should be taken into consideration.

It’s easy to say “use childcare” but in my area childcare is non-existent and the ones that exist have a waiting list. I know quite a few women in my mum group who have given up work because of this.

I think WFH is fine to help accommodate pickups but then working when child is home is a no no.

I would be more inclined to ask to go part time or compressed hours so you can finish earlier.

As a fellow CS, unfortunately I don’t see how you can get out of the 60%. They’re hell bent on reducing CS numbers and this is the best way to do it. They know that the city office commuted (local offices shut down) will make a fair few quit and they won’t have to pay redundancy. It’s meaning a lot of mothers are quitting unfortunately. Know in my own dept a lot have left.

I think you might need to see if you can negotiate a part time contract if you want to finish early instead?

Firstly, as a fellow public sector worker I feel your pain.

I would not apply for complete wfh as it won’t work or be supported as they will say you need to be in for the team / welfare / supervisory support etc

i would ask to do 1 day in office (compromise and then you can explain you could do the activity required in their reasons to want you in the office this day)

is your office open plan- I would use this as a justification to wfh to help confidentiality / less distraction

businesses save money by allowing a hybrid system on their utilities and office space too

What about the other parent? Are they doing their fair share of drop offs and pick ups?

ultimately if you are working full time you need later childcare than 4pm.

I worked from home (admin) for 10 years. Number one rule was it was not a substitute for childcare.

HR and you want to wfh to look after your children?

As it's usually HR that manages these things surely you know what the answer's going to be.

I can’t see that childcare reasons are ever going to be good enough to wfh every day? What about all the other mums doing the same thing as you? What makes your circumstances so special?

Have you had to increase from 40 to 60% in the office? If so, is there a strong argument to at least keep to 40%? I was planning on asking for that first as when I first took the job it was 40% in office and I’d worked out the maximum number of hours/minutes I could fit into school hours with 2 days in the office. When it increased to 3 days office attendance, I wouldn’t have been able to fit all my hours in with the extra commuting time. And my son with additional needs couldn’t cope with pre/after school childcare. Luckily I had an amazingly supporting line manager who suggested I requested a homeworking contract. Wonder if sticking to 40% might be more easily achieved for you?

You will have to put a case forward to change to a home working contract. Doing the school run is not a case though for this on its own- you realise a huge percentage of civil service have dc at school and pay for after school childcare. You have 2 options.
1)Get childcare
2) Redo your flexible working request and reduce your hours so you can pick up.

Yes, sorry, parents 😊

Pre covid, I had it written in my WFH agreement (for two days a week) that I was not providing dependant childcare. We paid for nursery 8-6, 5 days a week (and then breakfast/after school club once they were school age).

I did drop offs, DH did pickup. We managed and kept our careers intact and didn’t spend weekends and evenings catching up.

Hang on - you are HR, get so many requests for WFH and are asking here what a good reason would be? Really?

Why can you not use childcare?!

@Truetoself Clearly no idea what HR is.. there are lots of different areas of HR in the Civil Service and I don’t work in anything to do with working arrangement. Thanks for your useful input to the convo.

Why couldn't she work from home? It was fine when it suited the business (Covid) but God forbid it could suit us?

@CantHoldMeDown I’m not asking them to solve my childcare. I’m asking to work from home to be able to do my role better and work around childcare as a single Mum.

As you mention yourself planning team days together is far more valuable if you’re together. I work in anything office with no other HR people.

@AskingForAFriend10 Exactly.. I was ‘high performing’ graded during Covid so will have have no negative impact on my performance.

But you have flexi time? That’s enough surely? What time is childcare hours and what time are your hours?

I would see if someone can drop them off in the morning and you do 7am to 3pm?

@UncharteredWaters I can fit full time hours in by starting at 8 and finishing at 4. I didn’t mention working with a child around me. I live 5 mins from the Childminder. She can’t do longer hours cos she has her own four children and there is no space in nurseries. Obviously considered all the points people are moaning about otherwise I wouldn’t be at the point of this request.