Post Covid : Working from home as a parent, our tips on how to manage yourself, your kids, and your boss
Since the Covid outbreak the reality for a large number of parents has been working from home. Now with the end of lockdowns in sight here is some tips on how to balance all aspects of your work life and home life
Decide what works best for you ( and be honest )
In this post Covid world, lots of employers are currently deciding on how to move forward. Some are pushing for a return to the office full time, some are looking at hybrid ways of working and some are undecided. They key is to know what works best for you and understand why. The lure of being at home in comfy joggers and no makeup is a big one ( we totally get it ), but building company culture does play a part in retention and that’s really difficult to achieve over Zoom. So a balance needs to be struck.
The truth is that for the most part your workload and type of work should dictate your presence in an office or not. My job is very project based and pouring over endless spreadsheets, so I find being in a noisy office really challenging for me to get the detail done. But I understand that people want to speak to me and in person meetings need to go ahead, so my boss and I sat down to discuss how to get the best output from me and we came to an agreement that revolves around my workload, and that dictates when I’m in the office or not. We use our calendars to mark what days we will be in / from home so there are no surprises or ‘Where is XYZ today?’
2. Be upfront with childcare clashes and challenges
Does your boss know what time your school run is? Do they know that on Thursday nights you need to get child A to point B via point E to pick up child D and getting away a few minutes earlier would help massively? In my experience being open and honest about childcare arrangements can really help to ease the pressure we are under as working parents.
You will be surprised how understanding businesses are. Don’t feel that you have to let your boss know every aspect of your life outside of work, but if you need to decline a meeting because it clashes with the school run my advice to to propose a new time and tell them why . Don’t shy way from it. The majority of people you work with either have kids themselves or know someone who does, and are already aware of the stresses you can be under.
Do try to put in more permanent arrangements if you can, such as blocking out time in your diary to do pick ups / drop offs so that you don’t have to decline meetings, but best to get your managers approval before doing this.
3. NEVER apologise for having kids
We brits love to apologise for everything, one thing that has become far to common is people apologising during zoom/teams call if their child wanders into the room they are working in and asks them something, or wants the parent to do something with them. Don’t apologise for it! Instead say something along the lines of ‘One moment please’ to people on the call and deal with the situation, or if its not too important of a call bring them up to say hello to everyone and explain to your child that you’ll be with them in a minute once you’re finished here ( then furiously text your other half who is supposed to be keeping an eye on them ).
The point here is that we as parents should not be shamed or feel we have to apologise for our children being a part of our lives. They are a part of us and if your co workers cannot accept that you are a parent and that causes friction in the team then my suggestion is to speak directly with a HR rep or you manager to resolve it.
4. Seek flexibly
We are all probably guilty of this on some level, we just don’t ask for other people to be flexible with us, but in return we offer them lots of flexibility. Ask for some back!
An example of this is to speak to your child care provider and see what times they could be flexible with, can you drop off a bit earlier to make your commute easier?
Car pooling is a great option for kids, particularly when they are at school. Is there another parent who lives close to you that can drop off your little one on the way home with theirs ? A nice bottle of wine every now and then, or a favour in return says they probably could.
Equally how can your workplace be a bit more flexible with you - are you able to ‘down tools’ earlier in the day to accommodate a school run in exchange for starting a little bit earlier - or what i do is log back in later in the day to make up for the time. Some people are against this, but it bothers me a whole lot less than I thought it would.
5. Plan, if you can
The best piece of advice I can give then it comes to juggling all aspects of work and home is to have a plan. What do you want and how do you want it to happen? If your goal is to work from home full time to be able to spend more time with your family - make that plan about how to get there. There is little use in waiting to be dictated too by the ‘powers that be’ - be vocal about your needs and more importantly explain why and what it would mean to you. An example from my life:
Working from home over Covid was tough with a toddler. But the one thing it gave my partner and I was the opportunity to be there at every bed time, every meal time, every day. Most of the time at least 1 parent would have to miss these key parts of the child’s day due to commuting or late meetings, but we never did.
The result is as a family we grew closer together, we both understood the difficulty in getting a toddler to eat their veg for example and we both celebrated the success of a happy bedtime routine.
Communicating these key things feeling towards your home life and returning to work is not easy, but if you don’t try you’ll never know what is possible.
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