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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    3

    Default Employees Not Allowed to Work From Home While Caring For Their Children

    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: PA

    OK I work for a very family friendly company. They are well respected in the current media and have won numerous of best places to work awards. As a young Mother, I have always appreciated the flexibility that has accompanied my position especially the provision to work from home when needed. The work at home policy has always been loose in it's description and the ability to work from home has always been at your managers discretion. In the first 5 years of my career, I worked from home several times when my kids were of sick from school or daycare. Last year, my old manager left and I got a new manager. This manager fully supports the work from home policy but will not allow you to work from home if you are responsible for a child at the same time. He has actually told us that he doesn't not believe that you can work from home with a child even though he is a single, unmarried man with no children. Recently he approved my colleagues request to work from home one morning becasue he has a headache, but would not approve mine becasue my daughter was sick and could not go to daycare. I explained that my daughter slept the entire 4 hours that I was out of the office but the perception was still that my colleague was able to work from home with a headache but I was not with a sleeping child.

    Within my company, many other managers allow their employees to work from home when they have childcare issues, but my manager remains firm that he will not allow it.

    Is this discrimination?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Toledo, OH
    Posts
    16,307

    Default Re: Employees Not Allowed to Work From Home While Caring For Their Children

    Is this discrimination?
    Sure.

    It's also perfectly legal. It's well within the purview of your manager to set conditions for being able to work at home, given the "manager's discretion" clause of your company's policy.

    I'm not unsympathetic to your position, mind, but I can see where your manager may have some reservations. I've worked from home full-time since 2002 (largely self-employed, so I get to set most of my own rules), and while it's really fantastic when no one else is home, it can be very distracting when the whole fam is in residence.

    Babies wake, dogs need to pee, cats fight, teenagers yell at the 360, spouses get all mush-faced and schmoopy and want attention, too. You might be "at work", but it's difficult for people who don't regularly work from home to grasp that you're not actually available. It seems to me that this is the perspective your manager is looking at things from, and is taking the "better safe" approach.

    You might consider sitting down with your manager and/or your HR department to discuss the WAH policy.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    23

    Default Re: Employees Not Allowed to Work From Home While Caring For Their Children

    Quote Quoting pubs90
    View Post
    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: PA

    OK I work for a very family friendly company. They are well respected in the current media and have won numerous of best places to work awards. As a young Mother, I have always appreciated the flexibility that has accompanied my position especially the provision to work from home when needed. The work at home policy has always been loose in it's description and the ability to work from home has always been at your managers discretion. In the first 5 years of my career, I worked from home several times when my kids were of sick from school or daycare. Last year, my old manager left and I got a new manager. This manager fully supports the work from home policy but will not allow you to work from home if you are responsible for a child at the same time. He has actually told us that he doesn't not believe that you can work from home with a child even though he is a single, unmarried man with no children. Recently he approved my colleagues request to work from home one morning becasue he has a headache, but would not approve mine becasue my daughter was sick and could not go to daycare. I explained that my daughter slept the entire 4 hours that I was out of the office but the perception was still that my colleague was able to work from home with a headache but I was not with a sleeping child.

    Within my company, many other managers allow their employees to work from home when they have childcare issues, but my manager remains firm that he will not allow it.

    Is this discrimination?

    Was the person that was allowed to work from home a man, and your a women? Does the unwritten rule that your boss is enforcing disproportionally fall on women rather than men? I would bet my bottom dollar that the only people that are denied work from home priviledges are female, even where the males that get those priviledges have children.

    Go see an attorney. I bet he'll be able to help.

    Good luck

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