my employee wants to work from home for a job that requires being on-site

A reader writes:

I have a tough situation. Our new business manager of one year for an office that requires in-office management (due to daily printing requirements) has come to higher management to state their childcare is no longer available. And due to childcare being so expensive, this manager has requested to work fully remote until their young child is at least three years old, which will be in 2028.

Their direct manager offered the solution of working remotely a few days a week and asked if their partner could help on the other days, but that isn’t an option. We also offered another big office rent-free for the manager to hire a certified babysitter, but that wasn’t viable either. The employee says that the only solution is viable will be working remote from home full-time.

The position requires the manager to be in office to manage the team and to be a fill-in when other manager is out of the office. There are other team members with young children who have found childcare, and this office has always been flexible with time off or hybrid work schedules due to family issues. What other solutions am I overlooking?

Saying no, and that’s what you should do.

This employee isn’t just asking to work full-time remote for a job that requires an in-office presence, which is a no-go on its own. They’re also openly telling you that they plan to be taking care of a toddler during that time, which is a full-time job itself. There’s a reason that employers generally require people who work from home to have separate child care if they have young children, and it’s because if you try to do both at once, you won’t do either of them well. (It’s part of why parents of young kids struggled so much in 2020 when so many people had to work from home with no child care; it’s impossible to do both at the same time with any hope of remaining sufficiently attentive to your job.)

It’s also a recipe for trashing the morale of other employees who do pay for childcare (for whom it’s also expensive!) — and doubly so if this employee becomes less responsive when they’re at home, which they almost certainly will.

Explain to the employee that you’re sympathetic to their position but the job does require being on-site and, due to the nature of the work, you can’t be flexible with that. The only real path forward here is for them to figure out if the position still works for them or not. And if they decide they’d rather find new childcare than leave, you could certainly be flexible in the short-term while they’re actively working to get that in place.

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