Parents of small children - how are you managing RTO?
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Anonymous
I used to pay $15 per hour in year 2019, now I pay $30 per hour. Aside from the cost, it’s a lot harder to find childcare providers now. A lot of them rather walk dogs and leave after a few weeks. I would say personally I struggled and it impacted my performance at work which eventually led me to miss out on some opportunities. |
Anonymous
No one loves these years when you feel squeezed beyond belief- financially, physically, emotionally. I am a mother who has been through this stage and it was hard. We paid $40k a year for daycare. I’m sure it’s more now. And then we paid for aftercare. You and others will go through this stage and it will be hard. There is no way around it but through it. |
Anonymous
I don't understand this mentality at all. Especially when you can see the data that costs exceed raises. So we are squeezed x times financially which adds x more stress. Commutes are longer. Fact. Cost increased. Fact. It's not apples to apples no matter how much you pat our heads and tell us how hard it is. It's like a grandparent tellinf their grandkid they paid for college working during the summers and just stop getting Starbucks. |
Anonymous
But that PP was not very specific. I bet the colleague's son was an ES-age kid, and the colleague did not have him signed up for aftercare on her telework days, so he would come home and watch TV for like 30 min to an hour in a different room while the colleague finished up their workday. Big deal! I doubt the colleague admitted to the manager that she was watching a 2-yr old all day while she supposedly "worked". |
Anonymous
| Nope. I’m the PP. my colleague’s kid should have been in preschool but wasn’t. It wasn’t letting a 7 year old watch tv for an hour or two after stepping out for 10 minutes to pick them up at the bus. We were told telework was a privilege and that we might have to come in some times. I had two kids in preschool and was spending close $55k at the time so I wasn’t very sympathetic when this colleague pushed back and would t make herself available. For those scrambling now, even less so. Congrats. You saved big and had flexibility for many years but didn’t plan for this even though it’s been obvious for months that the writing was on the wall. Sorry not sorry. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
What does that enrollment prove? Do you know that those two kids were at home with their working parents before? Maybe they were in a different care arrangement that didn't have the long hours that your big center has, which this family only now needs for the first time to cover their new commute... Look, I'm sure there are some folks out there that have been keeping their little ones home with them while working, and that is wrong. Full stop. But I'm not convinced it's been a wide scale phenomenon. No one in my circle -- good friends, mom acquaintances, neighbors, etc. did that... |
Anonymous
It's even worse when your kids don't have a bus. My kids are 8-3pm. Kids used to just walk home and I was teleworking. They played with their friends until I got off at 4. The drama I've had to endure from them going to after school daycare has been unbearable. It's also an extra $800 a month for 1.5 hours of care a day ($100 a week per kid). I promised them I'd figure it out, so I'm going to try working 6-2:30pm. I also think full time remote work wasn't working for my agency. I'm a manager and had numbers to show it, so did other managers. 50% however, worked great. It was ideal from both employee and agency perspective. We had in person meetings, but also had silent, at home days to get our work done. |
Anonymous
THERE IS A WAY AROUND IT. Telework an workplace flex. |
Anonymous
You're sorry, alright. And I'll say it again, since you dense types don't seem to get it. YOU DON"T KNOW THEIR SCHEDULE. I was 5 days remote and had a flex schedule so I could step out and do things and make up the time in the evening. What is it your business if my position allows for that? Also, some people were hired as telework or remote (that is, that is how the job was announced and what was a condition of their employment). While we all sort of expected SOME arbitrary RTO order from the Felon In Chief, a full 5 day RTO was not. Especially for agencies with long history of effective TW. This is punitive and arbitrary and will actually COST money. But, hey, you get to feel smug that you stuck to someone who you know nothing about. That makes you a POS but it doesn't make you right. |
Anonymous
Some would argue it’s the taxpayer’s business when and if you are working. |
Anonymous
| I got my citizenship recently and grew up abroad. I find this entire thread fascinating. America is such an individualistic country, I don’t think I’ve seen this anywhere else. There seems to be a notion that because having kids is an individual choice, they also are that individual’s burden and they are expected to carry that burden alone with absolutely no help from society. Yet having kids is a societal good and an aging population is dangerous for society especially now with ppl living longer. Who is supposed to look after you when you are older though? I’m not talking about individual arrangements. I’m talking about the nurses, the doctors, medical staff etc. Who builds the roads, houses, and infrastructure? Provides goods and services? Pays into social security? U know all the things needed for society to function? These are other people’s children. So there needs to be a way to figure out how to make work compatible with having families. Sure many of you can hire care but who looks after the family of the person you hire? Do they have affordable childcare? If we want to remain functional as a society we need to stop thinking in such an individualistic manner. Back home, the village literally raises the child. What’s America’s solution? |
Anonymous
I'm not for the "through it" approach- my DC is grown now, but I have no interest in seeing families crushed under the weight of childcare costs, student loans, and zero work flexibility. I went "through it" and I would like to believe that we can do better for families. |
Anonymous
They did!!!! It is just structured around different assumptions. These are reasonable assumptions based on the trends of the last 10+ years. Not just COVID. It is utterly stupidity to have people FT in offices when the work they do spans the country and internationally. It costs more in RE and drives unnecessary congestion and environmental impact. People who cannot grasp this are either incredibly spiteful or stupid or both. |
Anonymous
Some of the newer studies are included below. Fully remote work in particular shows reductions in productivity. There are many additional current articles (not included) that discuss the merits and challenges of telework in light of the studies. The previous administration also obviously had acknowledged challenges with the situation, and attempted to convey their request for more in-office time with urgency. Working From Home Leads to Decreased Productivity, Research Suggests "The results of the study, pointing to a 10%-20% decrease in productivity for fully remote workers, have brought forth complex implications for employers, employees, and policymakers." https://www.forbes.com/sites/benjaminlaker/2023/08/02/working-from-home-leads-to-decreased-productivity-research-suggests/ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kqbngD8pemqxAkZmWCOQ32Yk6PXK9eVA/view https://www.npr.org/2023/08/04/1192246138/the-evidence-on-remote-work-is-changing Americans are becoming less productive, and that's a risk to the economy “Productivity is down 4.1% on an annualized basis, the biggest decline since the government started keeping track of the number back in 1948. Since then, U.S. productivity had been on a steady upward slope. Until now.” https://www.npr.org/2022/10/07/1126967875/quiet-quitting-productivity-workers-ennui-working-jobs American worker productivity is declining at the fastest rate in 75 years—and it could see CEOs go to war against WFH “The U.S. has now had five consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines in productivity, according to research from EY-Parthenon, using data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That has never happened before, in data going back to 1948.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-worker-productivity-declining-fastest-181131658.html Work from Home and Productivity: Evidence from Personnel and Analytics Data on Information Technology Professionals "We study employee productivity before and during the working-from-home period of the COVID-19 pandemic, using personnel and analytics data from over 10,000 skilled professionals at an Indian technology company. Hours worked increased, output declined slightly, and productivity fell 8%–19%. We then analyze determinants of productivity changes. An important source is higher communication costs. Time spent on coordination activities and meetings increased, while uninterrupted work hours shrank considerably. Employees networked with fewer individuals and business units inside and outside the firm and had fewer one-to-one meetings with supervisors. The findings suggest key issues for firms in implementing remote work. .... WFH productivity was lower for employees who had children at home, so this is a partial explanation. However, those without children at home also suffered a large decline in productivity, with similar patterns for reduced focus time, increased time spent in large meetings, and decreased one-to-one communications and meetings.” https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/721803 White House asks Cabinet agencies to ‘aggressively execute’ return to in-person work "The email, sent to Cabinet secretaries by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, cites the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency and the benefit of increased productivity from in-person work. 'This is a priority of the President – and I am looking to each of you to aggressively execute this shift in September and October,' the email reads." https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/white-house-cabinet-in-person-work/index.html |