How Parents Can Speak To Their Employer About Summer Holiday Childcare
Here we are-at the dawn of the summer holidays already. A time that is dreaded by most parents and carers with school-age children when it comes to juggling work and family.
It can be difficult for other colleagues to comprehend this juggle, especially when they don’t have children or dependents.
However, there are many things that you as parents and carers can do to ensure August and early September goes as smoothly and stress-free as possible with your employment.
No matter the initiatives that are in place during that period, reminding your employer that the UK is the third most expensive country in the world for childcare might be a good place to allow them some empathy towards you. And to realise you’re not alone with this problem. But let’s take a look at how you can manage this period effectively.
Make sure you discuss strategies with your employer if you have school-aged kids
First of all, you should ensure you have those conversations before school is out or as soon as school is out rather than waiting for issues to arise.
From your perspective, figuring out the right mixture of days off, from you or your partner, the grandparents, other parents, paid childcare, camps is already brutal. The earlier you can have a discussion on how to best be supported, the more relaxed you will be and able to focus on the job more effectively.
Make the most of flexible work policies
Using flexible work policies for this period and ensuring managers/members of team are fully onboard is one of the best ways to handle it. If your standard flexible work policies require you to apply, fill in a form and a few weeks for review, can you see if there is a smoother process available?
Ask your manager what options are available to you - such as flexible working hours, working remotely, compressed hours etc. Schedule a meeting with them or someone from HR to fine tune the details based on your wishes would probably be the most straightforward way of doing it.
Be patient. It won’t be as simple as standard flexible working and you will likely have to ask for changes, such as: later start those days; working remotely from the grandparent’s that other week, then starting earlier the last few days. As tedious as it seems, as long as it is agreed ahead of time, everyone is in a position to make it work.
If your organisation has a significant number of employees and budget, they may be able to spend some of it on childcare alternatives or activities which can be really helpful. Similarly to what some companies did during lockdown with magic shows or activities over zoom for children to attend. Make sure you have the information.
Communicate to everybody
Now that the plan has been defined, it is about ensuring the environment is as supportive as possible. This means making sure the immediate team, wider team and clients are all aware and know how to cope.
Depending on the nature of the company’s business, it might require to have a designated person available when the other is starting later or finishing earlier. But as you should now have the whole schedule until school starts again, it can be easily figured out.
You could ask your boss to have some form of buddy system for example for two employees in the same team, so one of them is able to handle anything critically urgent that arises on the day the parent/carer starts later or finishes earlier.
Make sure you have added details of your temporary working patterns in your email signature or out of office notice, and that your team has easy access to it if needed.
This isn’t about being policed but about making sure there is no additional stress brought on by 5 different people asking you “what hours are you doing tomorrow?” or “how come you cannot make a meeting at that time?”
That way there are no surprises, all details are out in the open.
Make sure colleagues are on board
Now a part that can be a bit trickier could be navigating the lack of understanding from colleagues without dependents or in more privileged situations.
You want to make sure those temporary adjustments don’t end up as bitter gossiping, which is not as easy to spot before it does happen. Having communicated ahead of time always helps of course, but you will need to have some form of contingency plan if the workload gets too much.
A problematic situation could be emergencies arising while you are in charge of looking after your children, and employees having to pick it up having an already heavy workload.
How do you want to tackle this kind of scenario? Could you ask your boss for a workload review be carried out regularly throughout the period to ensure there isn’t one team that is stretched and another too available? Could you ask for some temporary workforce assist? Can some projects you’re working on be put on pause until September?
There are many ways to handle those situations. The only wrong one is not doing anything at all.
Navigating summer holiday childcare is tricky, but making sure you speak to your employer as soon as possible and aligning with your colleagues and coworkers can help things go smoother for everyone.
About the Author
Florence Weber-Zuanigh is a certified ICF coach and diversity and inclusion consultant. She is the founder of Diversity in the Boardroom ltd, which is on a mission to bring true diversity and inclusion to businesses, leadership teams and the corporate world away from the typical all-cis-straight-abled-neurotypical-white-male leadership team.
