Hi everyone. Following the latest announcement of school closures, we are revisiting what we do to help employees juggling work with having their children at home. We know a lot of companies have tried to be flexible during the pandemic but we are considering whether we should take any additional steps, such as inviting employees to opt for part-time working. Any experiences that have worked for you would be really useful. Many thanks.
Hi, We are asking those employees who are not entitled to a school place, to try and make alternative arrangements for the care of their child/ren, including sharing the responsibility with their partner or family members. Managers are discussing with their employees who are in this situation as to whether there is alternative work they can complete from home. If either of these options are unavailable, then we will record this as ‘Special Leave’ and employees will be paid their normal pay. Employees working at home will be supported to work flexibly to balance childcare responsibilities. We understand that due to what is often ‘stop-start working’, colleagues who have children at home or other caring responsibilities may not be able to complete their full hours or work to their full capacity, as they would do in normal circumstances. Managers and employees should discuss and agree any temporary changes to working arrangements and expectations. This may include a change to working hours, reducing workload, or being flexible about deadlines where possible. During the period of national restrictions employees do not need to complete a timesheet or complete their full working hours where all options for alternative arrangements have been explored. This will all be reviewed on 15 February 2021 and extended if necessary based on further guidance from the Government.
We're taking a similar approach to Iain.
Each employee's situation is different (age of kids, spouse situation etc) and we're aiming to support them through this very tricky time by embracing/facilitating flexibility. But ultimately they know what will work best for their scenario.
We are fortunate enough to reman busy through this time but this does mean that we can't feasibly offer furlough to parents.
We are managing as we did previously - we are allowing lots of flexibility in work patterns and arrangements, we are allowing people to use holidays and we've provided additional paid dependants leave for people unable to work, which can be taken as a day here or there. We are not intending to formalise any part time working arrangements given this will be a temporary situation, although if someone makes a FWR we'll consider it per normal process.