[Closed] What's your work place's policy looking after children with covid?

We give staff the time they need - but do ask if they are not ill would they do what work they can from home.

We give staff the time they need – but do ask if they are not ill would they do what work they can from home.

ta. And is that the same if little Jonny had boring old fashioned D&V too? And if an employee's role simply could not be done at home would you treat them the same (minus expecting them to do stuff , because they couldn't)

Send a missive to HR asking exactly what ‘covid proof child care’ actualy means, and how it may affect/contradict the T&C's of your contract of employment, specifically;
endangering other employees
sick pay
paid time off for family issues (plague in the house)
compassionate leave.

That should keep them busy for a while 😀

That's the plan - just getting a feel for what other work places do first before sending it.

Wfh if you can, but if you can't then it's annual leave or unpaid.

Feels miserly to me, and I've got 4yo twins with it and a partner who's going to have to go in Thursday onwards so that's 2 days of "wfh" but the game will be up as soon as I have to actually talk in a meeting.

The eldest, missus, twins and now me have tested positive all 4-5 days apart so we're heading into week 3. If this happens again this year we'll all be out of holiday or struggling to pay the gas bill.

WFH, and I accept they’ll not be 100% efficient. If they can’t/won’t do that, it’s holiday or unpaid.

Is the same as it is for any dependency related leave you take. COVID is irrelevant; you are entitled to take up to 25 days, I think, per year, of dependency leave. This can be for a child or an elderly relative and be For any reason if you are the primary caregiver.

Mine were paying staff during the time when the whole house had to isolate when someone in the house was testing positive.

It then went to “you’re allowed to come to work if you’re in a positive house if you’re double jabbed and testing negative”. Lots of people were saying “but……I’m potentially bringing it in to work, do you really want it ripping through the work force?”

Since Christmas the corporate line is “anyone in your household testing positive, stay at home”. Nobody has had to test we whether we get paid yet, that’s the next hurdle. But it does seem more sensible being as we can’t work without being in each other’s pockets.

Don't know, didn't ask just told them I wasn't coming in, had to do 2 days Mrs anagallis did 3. This is as a teacher, I don't get annual leave as such so can't take it, I'll be shocked if I don't get paid.

Is the same as it is for any dependency related leave you take. COVID is irrelevant

Aside from my role in this; I think this is the interesting element. A lot of workplaces bent their own rules during the pandemic proper in the employees' favour because it was inevitable. Firms that would say (rightly imo) you can't work productively at home and provide childcare to a pre school age child at the same time suddenly found that they had to accept their employees had no choice. But now were coming out the other side (or are we?) normal rules are applying again much to some employees chagrin.

This is as a teacher, I don’t get annual leave as such so can’t take it, I’ll be shocked if I don’t get paid.

This is a school were talking about - just one of those cushy to work in private ones 😉

Is the same as it is for any dependency related leave you take. COVID is irrelevant; you are entitled to take up to 25 days, I think, per year, of dependency leave. This can be for a child or an elderly relative and be For any reason if you are the primary caregiver.

Shame you missed out the key fact in your quote about (emergency) dependency leave. Your employer's under no obligation to pay you unless it's outlined in your contract.

Wife works in NHS and gets paid carers leave.

Mine is the usual unpaid dependent leave or holiday. COVID proof child care is bullshit though, it doesn't exist any more than unicorns.

We give staff the time they need – but do ask if they are not ill would they do what work they can from home.

This is what we’re doing at the moment but I can see a more formal, stricter policy coming soon.
This is because:
1. People want to know where they stand contractually as there’s some discretion/inconsistency between departments.
2. Some people will take the proverbial. In fact I can name a few doing so already.

This is a school were talking about – just one of those cushy to work in private ones 😉

In which case, HR should be able to suggest what the **** is covid proof childcare, possibly suggest where you could source it from... 😆

And if an employee’s role simply could not be done at home would you treat them the same (minus expecting them to do stuff , because they couldn’t)

Our delivery staff are 60% in school, delivering training. This can't be done easily at home, although we do offer customers an online session.

We've also worked with delivery team to come up with a lot of jobs / tasks / things we don't get around to to complete while at home if they can.

Shame you missed out the key fact in your quote about (emergency) dependency leave. Your employer’s under no obligation to pay you unless it’s outlined in your contract.

Yes very good point and I did think about that and then totally forgot to point it out.

I’m pretty flexible with my team. If people need to take a few days off to look after kids, or start late / finish early, take a block of time off in the day etc. then so be it. everybody knows what their job is and will get it done at some point. Not had anybody take the p1ss yet and the flexibility works both ways too.

Edit: the industry I work in can accommodate home-working which I know is lucky and makes the above easier.

Scrap that.

My work give unpaid leave. Most of my colleagues are female and it can be frustrating when so many are absent for childcare issues. why is it that more often than not, it’s the mothers who have to miss work to look after the kids, it rarely seems to be their partners.

why is it that more often than not, it’s the mothers who have to miss work to look after the kids, it rarely seems to be their partners.

Not to be flippant, it’s often the lower paid member of the household that takes the unpaid time off. Of course that would never happen in these days of equal pay within the workforce. 🙄

In our house I’m the full time employee, The Wife is part time TA at a local primary school. Financially it makes sense for her to take the time off, plus the school is very understanding.

My lot offer 5 days paid dependant leave per year. So i've been instructing people to use that in the first instance - we're all working from home anyway, and for time beyond that i'm being understanding. In general people have responded by doing what they can and I think that's all that can really be asked of in the circumstances.

No idea what covid proof child care is! My childcare is grandma - i would not ask her to look after a covid infected child for obvious reasons!

My current work policy is if anyone in your household tests positive then they dont want you to come into work and they will pay you your normal rate of pay until the person in your house tests negative

We have had quite a few people off with covid and have had employees and employee's partner's who have died due to covid

As we work in a close enviroment at a small site it can easily spread around even though we are all masked up, wiping surfaces down between shifts and taking other precautions like sanitizing everything we can and taking lateral flow tests 3 times a week, trying to keep our distance as much as possible etc...

Not to be flippant, it’s often the lower paid member of the household that takes the unpaid time off. Of course that would never happen in these days of equal pay within the workforce. 🙄

Yep, usually me who takes time off.

Asking as a staff forum rep rather that impacting on me personally. A missive went out on Friday that staff with kids were to ensure they had arranged ‘covid proof’ child care

As a staff rep I’d ask them to explain that!

1. Our approach for Covid is exactly the same as any other disease your child may get - chickenpox, measles, flu etc. That means you'll be entitled to unpaid leave, often local managers will do something far more flexible, but HR freak because it might be seen as favouritism.

One issue we do have is that most of our staff are not single parents, but the emergency child care responsibilities seem to fall unequally. Basically the better we are to our staff, the more their partners' employers benefit. There are certain professions who seem to presume that their job is more important and so the other partner should shoulder the burden.

2. The only logical explanation for "Covid proof child care" is not contingencies if your child has covid, but contingencies if your normal child carer has covid. e.g. if the child minder has covid, or the nursery has insufficient staff... I think it's reasonable to ask staff to think ahead about that, but it's still perfectly reasonable for staff to take immediate emergency leave to activate those plans.

3. Beware of this sentiment - my team WFH and I hear it a lot from those who can't:

"If you are 100% working from home I guess it is kind of irrelevant as you just get on with it."

Depending on how sick the child is, and their age that may be totally true. However there's this assumption that you can be nurse, child carer, educator, and do your normal job full time. I've had to step in when some of my WFH staff were trying this and tell them not to try and juggle it all, in one case actually insisting that they take the week as self-certified sick leave (at her level we pay full pay).

I'd have thought a well organised school could probably put useful arrangements in place to help staff WFH for short periods when care commitments allow. e.g. doing marking for other teachers, doing teaching plans and other paperwork, perhaps even remote teaching support to pupils who are self-isolating etc.

Child 1 developed symptoms on their day 1, she tested neg that day on LFT spoke to test and protect and got a PCR for the following day. Day 2 still neg on LFT but the PCR test was positive. I was testing neg all this time and for a further 3 days after this. In this time i visited 4 of our sites, potentially infecting them all..as i then tetsed positive on day 5..So now we have three in the house of four testing positive, the forth is still at school merrily (possibly) spreading this further and further. But All of this is within the guidlines...