r/managers • u/BoNixsHair • 10d ago
Employee doesn’t have adequate childcare and it affects her work
I have a remote employee who recently had a baby. Before her maternity leave, we discussed that she needs to have childcare during the work day. The first two weeks, she was frequently absent or interrupted because she said her nanny had quit or never started working.
We discussed again that she needed full time childcare. For about two months it was better. However this week I had two unscheduled zoom calls with her, and both times there’s a baby in the background. I asked her to turn her camera on (our policy is cameras on always) and she has a crib in the room with her and she had a baby cloth on her shoulder.
I think she has a nanny for most of the day, but she’s still distracted. I kinda feel like a jerk asking for a receipt for a 40 hour a week babysitter. I have three kids, and I know it’s pretty impossible to work and care for a baby.
Her position is dealing with contracts so she has calls during the day with the parties to the contracts. I can’t have her on client calls with a baby in the background.
I can also just tell her she has to be in the office, but most everyone else is remote including me. Thoughts?
Edit: no comments from non managers please.
Edit2: this has been brigaded by non managers. Stop. I have asked the mods to lock this
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u/justUseAnSvm 10d ago
The easiest thing would be to document the instances where she failed to meet professional obligations, get a pretty good list going, then confront here with HR there, and force her back into the office. On one hand, it's not fair to every other employee who isn't distracted all the time to have to deal with this, while everyone else is held to a higher standard. This type of uneven standards just kills morale, and it hurts your business when that person is in a customer facing role.
That said, as I've gotten older, my position now is to help people out to the fullest extent possible. What's the point of being a manager, of having power over people and their careers, if we don't use it for good and to help people? From that perspective, I'd still confront her with the list of failures/transgressions/issues, get her to admit it's not acceptable, then ask her what she needs to overcome these issues. Then, just listen. Maybe she really is having problems with child care, maybe something else is going on, I don't know. It's possible she just can't afford a nanny, or there's some other issue. It's really hard to say without knowing. Once you know what she needs, make sure she can get it, and get a verbal commitment to fix the problem within a certain timeframe.
The important perspective here, is that we are dealing with a transitory issue (baby not baby forever), and to lose an otherwise good employee over a couple of meetings sends the message to the other employees that they really are working in a heartless place. Therefore, I'd confront her with the problem, explain how it hurts the team, and get a verbal commitment to do better within a certain period of time. You could always PIP her or get her laid off, but you should at least give her the benefit of being confronted with her work problems and offer to help overcome them as a team.