Working Mother Absence Issues

Hi all,

Looking for some advice for my wife, she is working part-time and only started just before Christmas. Unfortunately she has been absent a bit due to being a close contact of a Covid person in work, then both of us had Covid so that was nearly 3 weeks in total, then our son was sick so that was another week as we had nobody to mind him while he was out of creche.

Anytime she was absent she let them know the full reasons for it and all seemed ok. Then she had a performance review recently (the first in 3 months after 2 cancellations on their part) and they questioned the absences and only mentioned our son's illness.

It was brought up like it was an issue but not saying it was an issue as I presume they need to thread carefully on things like this. What I would like to understand is what is the worker's rights, if any, when they have to take time off due to a sick child?

In any case she will be going back to say more absences were due to Covid so that it is fully clear.

Our concern is they see all of these absences and are trying to manage her out as they have brought up issues around her work as well which in the main is down to lack of training and organisation on their part. All of this can be countered but doesn't create a great work environment.

Thanks

First 6 months you have very few protections and can essentially be let go without cause - unless you think it was on one of the protected grounds - race, gender etc

You need to let it be for the first while till your wife gets a feel for the place. I think you are over thinking it and either way it is out of your contol other than answering the questions asked correctly. It's natural for all to be tetchy at the start but it was probably an innocent question in concern during the review.

dereko1969 said:

First 6 months you have very few protections and can essentially be let go without cause - unless you think it was on one of the protected grounds - race, gender etc

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Thanks

My advice to her has been to lay out all of the issues and concerns around training etc. in writing and then on the absence to lay out the reason for all absences in writing as well. Then in the next meeting to ask the direct question - are there issues around absences if my son is ill? They have a big thing about welcoming working mums and in fairness they are flexible on work times.

Anyone see any issues with the above?

elcato said:

You need to let it be for the first while till your wife gets a feel for the place. I think you are over thinking it and either way it is out of your contol other than answering the questions asked correctly. It's natural for all to be tetchy at the start but it was probably an innocent question in concern during the review.

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Not sure she can, everything was negative in the performance review even though she did not have her own laptop until the end of Jan (it is fairly critical for the job) and she has no direct manager as such until the start of May so she is being guided by an inexperienced peer who is extremely busy and the director has no time.

The way the absence was brought up was quite upsetting for her as in the main it was due to covid but they only mentioned our son's illness.

Leesider32 said:

Our concern is they see all of these absences and are trying to manage her out as they have brought up issues around her work as well which in the main is down to lack of training and organisation on their part. All of this can be countered but doesn't create a great work environment.

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You need to look at this from the employer's perspective too. They have only a very limited window after taking someone on to terminate without cause if they feel it's not working out.

Leesider32 said:

Then in the next meeting to ask the direct question - are there issues around absences if my son is ill?

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Employer's are not obliged to grant unlimited time off to mind sick children. The majority of employers do their best to accommodate these issues, but it does cause them problems when people can't work for a week without advance notice. Some employees abuse flexibility, so employers will be more wary of that until they get to see a track record. To someone without the full details, they might just see someone in the company ~12 weeks who has already been absent for 4.

I would advise that she should not get confrontational about these issues while on probation. Provide assurances, seek solutions, but don't go making demands. If the peer is extremely, busy, have your wife think about how she could perhaps ease some of that burden. Even in terms of asking for what she needs to achieve her goals, perhaps organise a short meeting once a week to talk through those and provide updates rather than approaching them as the issues crop up.

Leo said:

You need to look at this from the employer's perspective too. They have only a very limited window after taking someone on to terminate without cause if they feel it's not working out.


Employer's are not obliged to grant unlimited time off to mind sick children. The majority of employers do their best to accommodate these issues, but it does cause them problems when people can't work for a week without advance notice. Some employees abuse flexibility, so employers will be more wary of that until they get to see a track record. To someone without the full details, they might just see someone in the company ~12 weeks who has already been absent for 4.

I would advise that she should not get confrontational about these issues while on probation. Provide assurances, seek solutions, but don't go making demands. If the peer is extremely, busy, have your wife think about how she could perhaps ease some of that burden. Even in terms of asking for what she needs to achieve her goals, perhaps organise a short meeting once a week to talk through those and provide updates rather than approaching them as the issues crop up.

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this is good advice, look at it from the employers perspective.

also you say she was out due to Covid which is fair enough but could he work not be done remotely or is it an on site role?

Leo said:

You need to look at this from the employer's perspective too. They have only a very limited window after taking someone on to terminate without cause if they feel it's not working out.


Employer's are not obliged to grant unlimited time off to mind sick children. The majority of employers do their best to accommodate these issues, but it does cause them problems when people can't work for a week without advance notice. Some employees abuse flexibility, so employers will be more wary of that until they get to see a track record. To someone without the full details, they might just see someone in the company ~12 weeks who has already been absent for 4.

I would advise that she should not get confrontational about these issues while on probation. Provide assurances, seek solutions, but don't go making demands. If the peer is extremely, busy, have your wife think about how she could perhaps ease some of that burden. Even in terms of asking for what she needs to achieve her goals, perhaps organise a short meeting once a week to talk through those and provide updates rather than approaching them as the issues crop up.

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Good advice and I do agree with you. I just think she needs to push them to be clear on what they are asking of her as they are all over the place in their communication, setup, training etc. so a bit of push back in a non-confrontational and constructive manner I believe is required. They might not even be aware of some of this or have not put all of the pieces together from her perspective and how it affects her work.

I agree it has to be solution focused.

Leesider32 said:

I just think she needs to push them to be clear on what they are asking of her as they are all over the place in their communication, setup, training etc. so a bit of push back in a non-confrontational and constructive manner I believe is required.

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Yeah, good thinking. They seem very poorly prepared for this, so her doing some of the legwork in identifying what's required to ensure her success should be welcomed.

Blackrock1 said:

this is good advice, look at it from the employers perspective.

also you say she was out due to Covid which is fair enough but could he work not be done remotely or is it an on site role?

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Potentially could have done some work from home but they had not given her a laptop at that stage or set her up on the some of the systems. It took nearly 2 months (including Christmas) to get that sorted and they also paid her incorrectly for nearly 2 and half months where she had to keep going back to them on it........to say the least she has been quite frustrated and then to have the performance review concentrate on little negative things with no realisation of the challenges encountered smacks of very poor management in my view!

Rant over, we will be solution focused!!

A few pieces of advice from my working experience.

1. You both need to tag team this when child(ren) are sick. It can't be down to one parent to take time off.

2. Unless your child is in hospital (heaven forbid); don't give their illness as the reason for absence.

3. If you can, enlist other family members / grandparents etc., who can provide support if needed.

Are you aware of force majeure? You could take a day of it if required, then your wife. Also in the long term I'd consider a childminder as they can often be more flexible. Hope it all works out ok.

Also agree on the tag teaming. I've changed jobs over the years I didn't take time off for kid's illnesses until I was settled in. An established employee has more goodwill built up for this sort of thing. Even if one person works less hours or earns less money, it should not be the default that they are the go to...eg a half day off for you could mean she could work a full day in her part time hours.

FYI - Force Majeure guidance.

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated...........great site for getting good advice in multiple areas!!

I suspect the reason there was a focus on your son's illness in particular (rather than the covid-related illnesses) is that it may suggest that your wife will likely absent herself at short notice any time your son is unwell. While this is understandable from a parental perspective, an employer (as has already been touched on) is entitled to expect regular and effective service from an employee. While they may be sympathetic, they may fear it will turn in to a scenario that can't be sustained longer-term. I think they would have wanted to hear, for example, that it was a once-off, that there are normally alternative arrangements in place, and that you, for exceptional reasons, weren't able to provide cover.

I'm not certain that force majeure would apply in such a scenario. In the Civil Service, it is specifically stated in the guidelines for force majeure isn't intended to provide for instances of a child's illness (where it would be regarded as a reasonably-expected occurrence rather than an emergency). However, even if it did apply, it's unlikely to sit well with a new employer that you're quick to invoke your rights. Unfair perhaps but that's a possibility.

It's unfortunate that all this has coincided with covid but given the duration of her employment, the employer holds most of the aces.

Your wife's best approach might be to convey renewed confidence in the employer that non-attendance won't be a recurring issue in the future, but (as has been suggested) with gentle challenging of the company's administrative shortcomings that have prevented her from performing to her full potential.

As an employer, it is the absence due to the child’s illness that would concern me. I would expect the parent to take annual leave to cover the absence (unless covid related).

If there were child care issues, like these current times, I would expect the parent to make every effort to work from home. (Lack of laptop, training, etc would be on me). And I would expect as an employer that each parent take 50% of the responsibility for the lack of child care. As an employer who treats genders equally I would not consider my female employees job less important than a male employee and I would expect both parents to take equal responsibility.

All I see is that the employee took a week off (after 3 weeks of covid absences to mind a child). That would really concern me. This is showing a serious attendance issue and I may not want a permanent employee with such a track record and I need to decide fast my next steps. If the employee started sending me written information on the problem being lack equipment or training it would get my back up and be another red flag.

What I would like to see for the next 3 months is a 100% attendance (and if my employee decided to take some annual leave that would be another red flag as she could have used that for the childminding slot). And also someone who showed they could do their job and not create waves.

Otherwise before the 6 months were up I would be saying, thanks but we won’t make you permanent, goodbye, take care.

Not sure what the age of the child is but there are other options including parents leave and parental leave.

Having said that, the clever thing for your wife to to have done, since she is on probation, would have been to volunteer to take the time out for minding a child as part of her annual leave.

If she can also work from home, she should be considering formally requesting that

Peanuts20 said:

the clever thing for your wife to to have done

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The "clever" thing would have been to ensure the other parent took care of the child.

It is probably hard to adjust to a new routine where one parent didn't have to take time off for sickness of a child. It is part of family life though so you need to have a plan in place, we tend to take it in turns depending on what each of us has on at work and we can both work remotely. On those sick days one if us will get up earlier and start work while children are sleeping to try to catch up, or catch up on the weekend. It's not ideal but it gets us through the illness. I think a lot of families take this approach. Also when a child starts a new creche illnesses always happen unfortunately, but this calms down.