Flexible working question

Zazen999

onlyroz wrote: »

Is this correct? Can the company forbid me from working when I'm at home alone with my child?

If you are working when home alone with your child, then who is looking after the child? If it is you, then how can you be working at the same time?

Doozergirl

Makes flexible working pretty pointless if you can't be flexible around your family. Who is to say that there won't be someone else at home with you and the kids? Seems absurd to me that HR (or indeed people on here) think that mums can't cope with doing two things at once - I mean that's what we spend most of our time doing isn't it?! The whole point is that it is flexible - if the kids do need you then you are there for them too.

My company are incredibly flexible for me and I am for them too. My line manager isn't concerned - she trusts me to put in the hours and she knows that if she calls I will answer the phone, whenever it is. I worked from home all of last year but I'm now mainly out in the field working normal hours. I feel a bit guilty putting the kids into after school club (my DD is 4) but it's a couple of hours and it's all over and done with and I'm not spending evenings catching up on time I've missed during the day because I've been pulled in a different direction. I know I was putting in too many hours because now I'm out in offices my working days feel a lot shorter!

Zazen999

Doozer; would you take your kids to work with you then? And still expect to get on with your job whilst they are there in the office?

onlyroz

The way it seems to me is that it is virtually impossible to have a household where both parents work full time, without making use of some form of childcare. In most of the families I know, one parent (usually the mother) has to work part-time, or is in some sort of educational job where the hours are the same as their child's. I am one of those awful women who want to have it all - and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to, to be honest.

I don't want to reduce my hours, because my income is the largest in the household, and my husband cannot work any more flexibly than he does because he works on a help desk that must be manned between fixed hours - they've already changed the help-desk hours to allow him to leave early on Thursday and Friday, and they're not going to do any more than that.

Yes, I could hire a child-minder to take the kids to school and nursery, but I don't want to do that partly because of the additional expense and partly because it would take away from me even more of the little time that I get to spend with them each day.

And to those of you who ask how I can get in 2-3 hours work in the afternoons as well as watch the kids, make dinner, clean up, wash the dishes, get the kids to bed etc - well isn't that what women are meant to be good at? My company might say that during this time I've only got half my mind on my job - but like I said to them - I might spread the same work over a longer period. So in the office I might do 2 hours solid work, but at home I might do the same work in 3 hours - but I'd still put 2 hours down in the time sheet.

My immediate boss was happy with my working arrangement for the last 18 months. He knows that I get the work done fine, and he would be perfectly happy for me to make up my extra hours however I please - and he knows that I'm always available on the phone or MSN if he needs to contact me when I'm out of the office. He even let me work from home for all of September-December last year, because my son was only at school for half-days during that period. It's *his* boss that has now decided to crack down on the flexible working - and that's largely because people started taking the !!!! - by emailing in the morning to say that they weren't coming in that day. So then of course HR dragged out the rule book and decided to impose the working-from-home guidelines to the letter.

Anyway, I think I should be off to bed - it's looking like a 6 am start for me in the morning...

onlyroz

Zazen999 wrote: »

Doozer; would you take your kids to work with you then? And still expect to get on with your job whilst they are there in the office?

That's not the point - of course you wouldn't take kids into the office. They'd be bored out of their minds and run riot. But at home they've got their own toys to keep themselves occupied, with the only restriction that they keep out of mummy's way for a few hours.

choccybuttons

Hi

Getting up earlys not too bad. Im up at 6am at the latest to get myself ready for work and then my 2 year old ready. Its fine once you get into the swing of things.

xxxxxxx

galvanizersbaby

onlyroz wrote: »

The way it seems to me is that it is virtually impossible to have a household where both parents work full time, without making use of some form of childcare. In most of the families I know, one parent (usually the mother) has to work part-time, or is in some sort of educational job where the hours are the same as their child's. I am one of those awful women who want to have it all - and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to, to be honest.

I don't want to reduce my hours, because my income is the largest in the household, and my husband cannot work any more flexibly than he does because he works on a help desk that must be manned between fixed hours - they've already changed the help-desk hours to allow him to leave early on Thursday and Friday, and they're not going to do any more than that.

Yes, I could hire a child-minder to take the kids to school and nursery, but I don't want to do that partly because of the additional expense and partly because it would take away from me even more of the little time that I get to spend with them each day.

And to those of you who ask how I can get in 2-3 hours work in the afternoons as well as watch the kids, make dinner, clean up, wash the dishes, get the kids to bed etc - well isn't that what women are meant to be good at? My company might say that during this time I've only got half my mind on my job - but like I said to them - I might spread the same work over a longer period. So in the office I might do 2 hours solid work, but at home I might do the same work in 3 hours - but I'd still put 2 hours down in the time sheet.

My immediate boss was happy with my working arrangement for the last 18 months. He knows that I get the work done fine, and he would be perfectly happy for me to make up my extra hours however I please - and he knows that I'm always available on the phone or MSN if he needs to contact me when I'm out of the office. He even let me work from home for all of September-December last year, because my son was only at school for half-days during that period. It's *his* boss that has now decided to crack down on the flexible working - and that's largely because people started taking the !!!! - by emailing in the morning to say that they weren't coming in that day. So then of course HR dragged out the rule book and decided to impose the working-from-home guidelines to the letter.

Anyway, I think I should be off to bed - it's looking like a 6 am start for me in the morning...

Yes - it's called multi-tasking - some are better than others at it admittedly

I have similar arrangements to you OP and I do under so I see exactly what you are saying.
I fear as you mention a few have abused the system and spoilt it for others - that's a shame - hope you find a way to juggle it so that your life/work balance (as my company term it) are better suited rather than having to get up a stupid o'clock every morning

Doozergirl

Zazen999 wrote: »

Doozer; would you take your kids to work with you then? And still expect to get on with your job whilst they are there in the office?

Cheap shot comment if ever there was one. Of course I wouldn't take them to the office, that is the entire point of working from home - to keep them in a safe and secure environment.

They are able to keep themselves occupied for a while and if I come away from work to do something for them then the work still gets done because the office doesn't close at the same times!

There are plenty of distractions in the workplace that deter from work and it's recognised that home working is incredibly productive - even if you share a couple of hours in a day with the kids in the same place. Working from an office feels like a breeze after a year of working from home - my work rate was incredibly high and every minute I stepped away from the laptop, I'd probably spend five back at it to compensate anyway.

Doozergirl

It does seem that those of us actually doing it are able to appreciate the valuable contribution we make

onlyroz, do you have a Union that you can ask about this childcare/working arrangement? Also about whether your hours really have to be restricted to 9-5?

onlyroz

Doozergirl wrote: »

It does seem that those of us actually doing it are able to appreciate the valuable contribution we make

onlyroz, do you have a Union that you can ask about this childcare/working arrangement? Also about whether your hours really have to be restricted to 9-5?

Don't think there's a union. And my hours don't have to be 9-5, just that I have to specify exactly which hours I'll be working so that I'm contactable. They'd be perfectly happy with 8-10pm each day if that was what I chose.