Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I would think it would affect drop-off and pickup time. After all, when you have to factor in a commute, now you need to find childcare that will let you drop off the kid earlier and pick them up later. Or, if you had arranged for someone to be in your home with the kid while you're working, now you have to either find a place to take them to or make new arrangements with the person who's coming to your home, who may have accepted an agreement of you being present (after all, among other reasons, it's possible you could hire a local young teen or elderly person to come keep your kid occupied while you're just in the other room, but maybe you wouldn't leave them home alone all day with the kid).
In OP's case they were already in office 3 days per week. Are there really now daycares out there that do extended time for 3 days each week but not a fourth? I don't have kids so please do tell!
Are you accounting for all those little interruptions on your time sheet? That can add up to a lot more time than you think. They are super strict about this in my industry. They even fired someone because he took too many smoke breaks which collectively added up to a significant amount of time.
Might as well join the military. They are more accomodating
Companies don't want us doing laundry for 30min because it's "time theft" but are more than happy to ask us to come in early, stay late, or check email after hours. I have been asked to do all of these things over the past year. And because I'm salaried and not hourly, I don't get paid for any of it. I wish we could be more like French people who will protest over a 10min break at work.
You are being paid for it. It's part of your salary.
Well it's official. As of August 1 we will be required to return to the office 4 days a week. Pretty crappy of them to do it right during the middle of summer when kids are out of school. Now parents have to scramble to rearrange childcare.
Even worse, our remote day must remain the same and we aren't allowed to switch it if we are sick or have an appointment. So let's say my remote day is Friday and I'm sick on Monday, I'm not allowed to say "I'm feeling well enough to work but not come into the office, so I'll work remotely today and come in Friday".
This announcement is probably the most insulting and micro-managing memo I've ever received from an employer.
Guess I should start preparing my CV.
"Rearrange childcare" is one of the reasons workers should work in the office.
If you are "working" at home, you are not watching your children. And if you are providing childcare at home to your children, you are not "working".
So, whether you are at home or at the office, someone else is responsible for your childcare.
"Rearrange childcare" is one of the reasons workers should work in the office.
If you are "working" at home, you are not watching your children. And if you are providing childcare at home to your children, you are not "working".
So, whether you are at home or at the office, someone else is responsible for your childcare.
I don't have children, but this is a vastly over-simplified, black and white statement. There is a range of ages where one has children that ideally are not left entirely on their own but do not need constant supervision - likely no more interaction than one might otherwise spend with people stopping by their desk or getting held up in the breakroom with people talking about football, TV, weather etc. If their children are 'out of school', it is quite likely they fall into this range.
Sometimes when my sister in law needs someone to 'watch' my 7 and 9 year old niece and nephew for half a day or something, I let her drop them off at my house. The reality is she really wants someone around in case of an emergency. Other than making them lunch when I make myself lunch, they keep themselves busy with drawing, reading, dungeons and dragons, playing in the back yard with my dog etc. Am I not 'working' because I'm providing 'childcare'?
For me personally, I am very happy that I've been, at a minimum, a hybrid worker for the last 7 years. At my previous company, I enjoyed going into the office. I worked directly with a lot of people in that specific office, I was 20 minutes by train, the office was in a nice high rise with a nice view, and I was walkable to bars, restaurants, museum, library etc. Made it easy to choose to go in a couple days a week even though it was not mandatory.
My current position, when I got a big promotion over covid, I was reassigned to the executive office 45mins (before traffic) away as it was the closest office that was assigned for my business unit and level. I do have to go in 2 days a week. I can deal with it, but it's just a corporate office park off the highway with no amenities outside the building. No one I supervise in my office and most of my peers are also not in my office (in both cases, spread throughout the country and world in some cases). So, I mostly spend 1hr+ driving in and then sit on Teams calls with people in other offices, share some pleasantries with people in my building whom I may occasionally interact with from a business perspective, and then drive home. It's quite silly and a waste of productive work-hours. But at 2 days a week, I deal with it, since it was a great promotion. If it crept up to 3-4, I would start looking elsewhere.
By the way, I fully support my remote and hybrid team members. I don't give any special treatment or boost in performance eval for someone who is approved fully remote vs someone who is in the office 5 days a week. It's purely on performance. And, in general, I've seen no real pattern or trend that correlates to location vs performance among my team.
I don't have children, but this is a vastly over-simplified, black and white statement. There is a range of ages where one has children that ideally are not left entirely on their own but do not need constant supervision - likely no more interaction than one might otherwise spend with people stopping by their desk or getting held up in the breakroom with people talking about football, TV, weather etc. If their children are 'out of school', it is quite likely they fall into this range.
Sometimes when my sister in law needs someone to 'watch' my 7 and 9 year old niece and nephew for half a day or something, I let her drop them off at my house. The reality is she really wants someone around in case of an emergency. Other than making them lunch when I make myself lunch, they keep themselves busy with drawing, reading, dungeons and dragons, playing in the back yard with my dog etc. Am I not 'working' because I'm providing 'childcare'?
Absolutely. There are a good number of years where they can't be alone by themselves, but don't need constant supervision.
You are being paid for it. It's part of your salary.
Time worked (on salary, exempt from FLSA) is negatively correlated with someone's rate of pay. The more hours one works, the more it devalues their compensation. If someone took a $50k/yr job under the presumption of a 40 hr./wk., but winds up averaging 55 hrs/wk.,. that reduces their compensation value by as much as $6.56/hr. I don't think anyone is agreeing to that sort of pay cut when they accept a job offer.
I've never really understood what the thought is behind FLSA-exempt status. Is it supposed to allow employers to work their workers to the bone at no additional cost? In effect there is no legal limit to what added hours they can pile on and the salary is still fixed.
I've never really understood what the thought is behind FLSA-exempt status. Is it supposed to allow employers to work their workers to the bone at no additional cost? In effect there is no legal limit to what added hours they can pile on and the salary is still fixed.
FLSA was initially established as a protection for labor, to grant them, among other things, rights in terms of pay that exceeded a certain number of hours per week. But as we've moved more towards a knowledge-based economy, companies have gotten creative about who they classify as exempt vs. non-exempt. There are likely millions of individual contributors without management responsibilities who are classified as exempt. A company I worked for long ago, based out of Illinois, tried to re-classify a bunch of us non-exempt employees as exempt, and they got their hand smacked. We were paid backpay for all the OT we had logged, but weren't paid for.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
