Mixing work and children

Working parent Michelle Pickering uses two words to describe the school holidays: "bloody stressful."

"You obviously still have to work and you're trying to rally round family and friends as to who can have your children for a day here and half an hour there," says Pickering.

Pickering says she's always torn between making an income and being the best mum possible, even though her employer, the internet service provider Watchdog, is "brilliant".

Among other things, Watchdog lets Pickering take time off to watch her children play sport, start a little later and finish a little earlier, and occasionally bring her children to the office.

However, Pickering says she has to take all her annual leave during the summer school holidays, making her working year a long one. Her mother and wider family carry the largest child care load at these times and because her children may need to stay with family for a week at a time, Pickering misses them.

"If I didn't have family then I wouldn't work at all because I don't want my children in a school holiday programme. After a busy term they need [unstructured] breaks and just time to play and relax," says Pickering.

When you look at it, it's a pretty simple equation: three or four weeks of annual leave compared with 12 weeks of school holidays and more than a few 'teacher only' days. How do parents cope with that - and what can employers do to help?

Options include allowing people to have more flexibility around start and finish times during the school holidays and considering whether people can bring their school-age children to work occasionally and extra paid leave instead of bonuses. Increasing numbers of employers let parents work from home during the school holidays and a rare few have children onsite with a paid caregiver during the holidays.

But are these suggestions fair for employers - can they afford to implement them while also meeting the requirements of myriad labour laws? And does the nature of their business allow for school holiday flexibility?

Melissa Donaghey, HR director for IT firm Hewlett Packard New Zealand says her company is keen to support working parents with school age children, but needs to balance this with its customer's needs.

"This is an issue HP is grappling with. We have flexible work options in place, but we also need to achieve a balance between what employees need and meeting and exceeding our customer's needs and expectations," says Donaghey.

Donaghey says some of HP New Zealand's 800 staff have requested funding and help to cope with the school holiday period, and HP attempts to meet these needs. Among other things, the firm allows flexible start and finishing times, avoids scheduling major training and events during school holidays, and lets some parents work from home.

Unpaid 'lifestyle leave' of up to six weeks can also be agreed between staff and managers, but whether parents can take it depends on timing and the nature of their jobs.

"Our IT infrastructure supports a lot of large organisations and people don't always think about that. Leave propositions can create challenges around that support as well as productivity," says Donaghey.

HP occasionally has school age children on site as a temporary measure, but prefers them to be cared for elsewhere. Donaghey says a permanent arrangement would require HP to provide a dedicated area to ensure any children on site were safe and well.

"The office is not really set up for children in a safe way," she says.

Pickering thinks more employers should provide an area with a couch, books and games; and - to prevent pre-teen rebellion - a TV and a DVD player. People who needed to have their school age children at work for short periods could then leave them to relax in a safe environment, she says. Happily, some employers have managed to go even further than that.

Deborah Bailey, group human resource manager for Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, says 13 years ago its employees asked for on site childcare for pre-schoolers.

"An awful lot of research was carried out and the decision was made to shift the focus from pre-schoolers to school aged children as this would be able to provide a benefit to more employees," says Bailey.

The company now provides a subsidised school holiday programme for children aged between five and 12 which runs from the end of each school term and is located close to the company's main site.

Anecdotal evidence suggests more parents stagger their leave so one parent can remain at home during the school holidays. If both parents have four weeks leave each, this covers eight of the 12 weeks. Throw in statutory holidays and parents are nearly there. The sacrifice is that the family cannot holiday together outside of the public holidays.

Donaghey says one solution HP offers is the facility for working parents to buy additional weeks of leave from their employer. The annual salary or hourly rate is then adjusted to accommodate the longer leave period.

Pickering says this might be one way to avoid the burden placed on today's grandparents.

"More than ever before, grandparents are being asked to provide school holiday care, yet they can get sick or may be unavailable for other reasons. Working parents get so stressed out by it all and some employers either don't care or don't notice," says Pickering.

With a large percentage of the workforce raising school age children, smart employers will do more than notice.

Employers making an effort

A number of organisations provide a school holiday programme for employees of school age children. These include Bayer, The New Zealand Police, Scion (previously Forest Research), Enable NZ, and Equinox. Organisations that welcome children at work include ACC, Bayer, Brookers, Enable NZ, Equinox, Harrison Grierson Consultants, Mount Albert Pak'n Save, Scion and Vector.

Vector, which won the 2005 Large Organisation Award at the EEO Trust Work and Life Awards last year, allows staff to work on a variety of days and locations - including on weekends and from home. Vector also offers job-share and part-time positions and is flexible about school holiday leave.

The National Library, runner-up in the Large Organisation Award, subsidises a school holiday programme and provides similar financial support to staff in other regions. Children and other family members are allowed at work.

And it's not only big businesses that make a difference - smaller internet service provider Watchdog offers flexibility and allows children in the office, and Strategy Recruitment, which won the Small Organisation Award at the 2005 EEO Trust Awards, allows children at work and insists on no meetings outside regular working hours.