Work meetings clashing with school pick-up are making me anxious

[LiquoriceAllsorts2]

I have received several meetings that clash with the time that I need to collect my kids. Where possible I have tried to make it work and have my husband collect but there is a couple that I can’t make work due to him being away. I will tell work I can’t make it and will need to leave early but I feel so anxious that it will reflect badly on me and hate that I have been put in this position.

feels that however hard I work, sometimes it just can’t be enough.

dont know what I am looking for really, just want to rant and get my frustrations out. I hate that this needs to be an issue.

Read all the OP's updates before commenting.

Read the thread!

You are not available at that time. Block your calendar. When they schedule anyway, suggest an alternative that works for the majority and make it someone else’s problem.

Offer to reschedule for 9pm after the kids are in bed!

Just because you don’t have fixed hours surely doesn’t mean you are expected to be available at any time whatsoever? Or if it does I’d really push back and just say you’re not available at 6pm. If they really don’t like it might be time to look for a more family/life friendly job. Sympathies.

For a 35 hour week yes. OP works a 40 hour week so the expectation (in the absence of a formal flexi time agreement) will be 9-6.

Sorry OP but you are being unreasonable, and need to discuss with your line manager. Maybe reducing your hours slightly.

Are there other working parents at the school that you could work with to cover for each other? So between you, DH and say 1 other couple ... you share the pick ups.
If the expectation is that people can make these meetings and you dont have any set hours and you dont want to ask for flexible working ... you need to find something else if DH cannot cover

What industry sector are you in (roughly) and what sort of level? If a large company what policies are in place around supporting staff through this phase of life? What discussions are you having with your practice/department heads around scheduling of this type?

I have had a lot of junior and senior managers/junior directors struggle with this (levels tend to coincide with the early child years). We can accommodate anything in an emergency, most things with planning but someone consistently not available at time X everyday can create issues. Travel is part of the job for our people as well and adds to the complexity.

What helps is clear discussions up front with department leads rather than just lots of individual LM agreements which conflict. I have no interest in losing good staff for want of support during the early years period but also have to balance the needs of the business and constraints on others. What options can you offer to balance against the challenges of not being available 5-6? Can you for example say “not possible on Tuesdays or Thursdays but fine on Mondays and Wednesdays" rather than simply “not possible after 5pm"? Do you eg have overseas clients wanting evening calls and offer to pick those up on days where you cannot cover 5-6pm?

This scenario is a common problem and it can help to treat it as a generic problem for both staff and employers to be worked through together with both sides giving a bit.

This
have they not heard of “work:life balance”

Read the thread! She has done so - but the meetings go until 6pm. I don't know any afterschool club that is open until 7.

OP - I'd block your calendar from 5pm every day (presuming you get in at 8am to get your hours in?) and have a chat with your manager. Say that you can attend anything they like before 5, or if you go home in the afternoon you can stay online until 530. That is genuinely fair - I thought this would be another one of someone wanting to leave at 3pm every day to collect children but this isn't that situation at all.

I think the 9pm via Teams alternative might make those with no consideration for others think again.

This is not about meeting children at 3.30pm, which is very different.

I would guess some of these meetings if properly run could be done in half the time. And I bet some don't start on time because of the phrase that should be consigned to history 'let's give it a couple of minutes'.

Hope you can get sense OP.

Threads like this are so depressing. It's no wonder the UK birth rate is falling when employers make it so difficult for staff to juggle work and childcare.

My last 20 years of work were for an employer that had won awards for its family-friendly policies. It was almost unheard of for meetings to go on beyond 5pm, and my team changed both the time and venue of meetings to accommodate one person who had kids to pick up and lived on the far side of the county.

It also disadvantages women, who are far more likely to be single parents who are the sole carer for their children than men.

In my workplace the expectation would be 8-5 so it depends on her usual start time really.

Honestly my first thoughts were you were doing the 3pm pickup.
But your not your doing all you can, bosses need to accept you can't be at work after 5.00, meetings need to be earlier if they want you included.

You can't be the only person with kids to think about

I am normally in the office at 8:30 and take half an hour for lunch. Other people choose to start later (or need to). I do often do work later in the evening once my children are in bed and have no problem with that

If there's no fixed hours do you have core hours i.e. ones where everyone is expected to be in the office/available? We don't have fixed hours but core hours are 9:30-4 excluding12-2 for lunch, so anything out with those I feel within reason to push back on, particularly before 9 and after 5. I don't even have kids to pick up but I wouldn't thank anyone for a regular 5-6 meeting, even if I was WFH and it was on Teams!

Agree. This working pattern makes it very difficult for working parents to do the job.

Can you raise it with your line manager? There was a similar thing at my husband work where people were putting in meetings at 8am making it impossible for him to do the school/nursery run. There were very few women on the team and that was one of the reasons!

Standard hours for every job I’ve had in London have been until 6pm. It’s crap. I’ve been lucky to get flexibility where nobody watches the clock (probably because I’m working all hours of the evening too), but it really is hard. I think you will have to continue to raise with your line manager OP but I really do feel for you.

This is precisely why working mothers end up with a reduction in pay, it could be that its a father that can't do it too but it tends to fall on mothers.

I have worked in situations where I have felt like you and others where as long as I got the work done I could come and go really flexibly. Can you discuss it with your manager I actually think a meeting until 6pm if a fairly unreasonable request personally and I wouldn't work there anyway and my kids are far too old to be looked after!

My suggestion would be to look for something else - I stayed far too long in a family 'unfriendly' department and should have left years before. Or maybe discuss your request with your line manager?

This is a “practice” by your employer (not moving a meeting from 5pm) which disadvantages those with a protected characteristic (ie women, who are still most likely to have caring responsibilities) = indirect sex discrimination. Even if you are the only one impacted you can raise this point with HR. The company can potentially justify it (ie they may have a legal defence) if they are being proportionate in achieving the aim the 5pm meeting is geared towards, but this might make the person who is refusing to move it from 5pm think again. Even alternating the meeting (say 3pm one week 5pm the next) will help the employer show they’ve tried to be proportionate and minimise the discriminatory impact.

Then can’t you go early for the children..skip after school club? Go before the meeting? At school finishing time?

Yea it fits in the senior manager/ junior director category. I won’t say the industry that the company is in but my role is in finance.

but how does it even work, my calendar is very busy - if someone put a meeting there without checking my availability, chances are I can't make it. Or do you have very few meetings, so whenever one happens, it is assumed you are all available?

I feel your pain. In this scenario I was in by 8am and had from 5pm blocked out as busy and would decline meetings with a note saying why.

You shouldn’t be missing out and they need to arrange accordingly. I would feed this back, constructively to your line manager or HR. I more than delivered and some flexibility is needed.

With AI presumably there are usually minutes if unavoidable.

I agree.