Anonymous wrote:Hi! OP here. For what it's worth, I have four kids under the age of 10. They go to full time summer camp and they go to after care in the school year. Our telework forms used to say the language about childcare and dependent care. Unlike other agencies, we are required to be in the office 3x a week. I have an employee who does not have childcare. I told her she had six weeks to get a childcare for the days she is in the office. We do not offer remote or telework because of childcare. This is not a case of someone who doesn't have childcare in a one off situation, like a center that is closed or someone's kid is sick. This is someone who didn't get childcare because she didn't want to incur the cost and doesn't want to send her child to day care or hire a nanny or sitter. I tried to be flexible with the employee and I have addressed it with her re: her performance. Whose smart idea was it to not require childcare? This is a liability to the agency. All summer we've had people bringing in their school aged kids or preschoolers as a substitute for child care.
I don't make the rules and I would approve people for a fully remote position, but our leadership will not allow it so a lot of people are leaving. I had talked to this employee months ago about child care, but now it is just defying not coming in the office and/or bringing in her child and distracting other colleagues (child is an infant). I have other team members who live where there is a child care shortage in staffing but we have onsite, subsidized child care with available spots.
I work for a fed agency and I have never seen someone bring their young child into the office. Your office kisy sounds like a lot of dysfunction.
Talk to HR to figure out your policy.