Hi Holly

We have moved to an outputs based approach for measuring performance -i.e. can staff perform their job to the required level and are the delivering what we need them to deliver? If they are, then there's no issue. If not, then there's a performance management conversation to be had. For example my 11 year old son is well able to entertain himself if he's at home during my working hours - so him being around has no impact on me being able to attend meetings and do my work. However if a member of staff wasn't able to attend necessary meetings or wasn't meeting deadlines due to needing to care for their children, then that would be a different issue and would need addressing with that member of staff.

I would recommend working with your member of staff individually - focussing on where and how they are not delivering to the required level and asking them for suggestions about how they could change things. You're more likely to get a better response if you involve them in being part of the solution rather than imposing a solution on them (i.e. pay for childcare). However you need to be clear that things need to change, but you're prepared to work with them on how that change is achieved.

Kind regards

Jackie

In reply to Jacqueline:

Hi Jackie,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my post. It is really appreciated and your response is extremely helpful.

The Manager has been extremely supportive and accommodating with this individual in particular due to difficult personal circumstances but unfortunately they seem to be pushing this without much compromise and the work completed is very little day to day. It has went on a little longer than it would have previously because of other people having their children at home due to the pandemic. I have found your response very helpful in next steps.

I anticipate there are likely other cases ongoing across the Company who still have children at home while working that didn't pre-pandemic but think perhaps they are going under the radar - which for as long as their work is unaffected is not an issue.

I think it may be a case of us taking it case by case if any issues arise.

One thing you may want to factor into your thinking is the number of childcare providers that have gone out of business as a result of COVID.

Childcare is not only expensive but can also be very hard to find. The most willing parent could be struggling at the moment.

In reply to Anna:

Also more childcare providers are limiting who they will accept. The holiday club I use (which rents space from a local school, but is not part of the school) has been told by the school that they can only accept children from that school. As my son doesn't go to that school, I can no longer use their services, even though they are the only holiday club within walking distance of my house. We now have to drive him half way across the city to a different holiday club which will accept him. Last summer we patchworked together a number of different providers for the care we needed, instead of being able to use the holiday club we had always used. This is madness in the current situation!

In reply to Jacqueline:

I really love your approach, Jackie... which you also outlined in your post to this related thread.

In reply to Jacqueline:

At the turn of the century when we had a government of a different hue we also had a group called Employers for Childcare (usual suspects, big name employers) whose role was to work with government to resolve childcare (and in later years elder care) for working parents.

Contrast that with the current situation where the Women's Budget Group issued a statement last year that an investment by government in the care sector would do more to boost the economy than the same amount invested in the construction sector - which was ignored by the powers that be. And the recent (last week) hue and cry that social care was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech, despite promises that it would be.

I'm not trying to make a political statement, simply to say that in the absence of state provision the issue of childcare (and elder care) is going to have to move up the employer's agenda if we are to keep women in the workforce and close the gender pay gap.

From what you have said your colleague seem to be in a desperate situation that is why they are pushing so much. They have so much going on in their private life... separation, moving out, the child, the pandemic. If the remote working is not working and the productivity is not there may be your business could arrange flexible working for them? Part time hours or even some form of leave as they physically might not be able to afford paying for the childcare and forcing them into it will not work? For example in my area the cheapest private nursery that accepts children at the moment will cost you £800 - £1200 a month.

As outlined by Anna and Jacqueline above, I think one of the key issues here is to be prepared to respond to both the individual and their circumstances uniquely when necessary, this requiring consideration of three issues overall: Two of them to some degree familiar, and one "new".

First is clearly the problem of (suitable) alternative childcare: Is it available, or is it not? The "bottom line" this creates therefore is, and has always been, whether the parent can work or not, this in turn (hopefully) involving mutual discussion of what work can be done "working around" childcare needs/intervention and whether this is acceptable and valuable to both. In general one might expect that flexibility of working times and (as suggested earlier), evaluation of productivity rather then working hours, should enable more childcare to be undertaken as an integrated activity with that of the parent's employment, rather than as a separated function.

The second issue is that of the parent's (and any employee's) attitude to the agreement to work from home or flexibly. Inevitably some parents will see that parental role as excusing all and any inefficiencies or lack of diligence, while for the employer doing the job comes first. Again this is, and has always been, a balance to be struck, in the same way that any WFH or FW now has to be (albeit in the past, that fact often being conceded reluctantly from the employer's point of view). Now, however, we are living with a new reality, a new "normal", and this is one part of that equation.

The third complication is, however, one which has previously been rare (at least, in my experience) and that concerns the use of the home as a workplace potentially including the employment of a "third party" professional carer; i.e. someone from outside the home or family coming in to care for children in the home, rather than in their own premises. This needs thought, since in their role the "outsider" will not necessarily fall under the employment-concessions of being a "domestic servant" and that opens the door to all sorts of complications regarding H&S, liability insurances and a raft of other considerations, since the home is now not just being used to a nominated and limited extent as the parent's workplace, but also theirs.

In resolving this latter challenge, particularly, the parent's employer's greater knowledge of those factors, or access to advice on them, might prove crucial, both to the parent being able to continue working (at all) and to the way that childcare is integrated into their working activity or working time; not least as changes to home insurance to cover an outsider working as carer, and reviews of H&S etc., will add to the already high costs of care.... Especially given its recently reduced availability (as also mentioned by colleagues above).

What is, I feel, essential is that having spent some forty years moving away from employers seeing parenthood as also being a liability they don't want to engage with (and one particularly affecting women, of course) we should not now allow being a parent to once again become a knee-jerk problem for either employers or parents themselves. That will almost certainly require some fresh thinking from a lot of different directions and will (inevitably) be resisted from some on both sides, but that is our new reality and needs to be addressed with a view to both making best use of our people, parents or not, and providing best care and opportunities for all children also.

Work must not compromise good Childcare, any more than providing good care for one's children should compromise one's quality of work for one's employer, or one's right to work for them.

P