Parenting in the Workplace Google Project 10^100
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PARENTING IN THE WORKPLACE: Encouraging and helping businesses to set up sustainable, low-cost programs in which parents care for their children at work while doing their jobs. There is growing evidence that millions of today’s jobs can be done successfully … |
PARENTING IN THE WORKPLACE: Encouraging and helping businesses to set up sustainable, low-cost programs in which parents care for their children at work while doing their jobs.
There is growing evidence that millions of today’s jobs can be done successfully while parents are simultaneously caring for children. At least 100 organizations in more than 35 states in the United States (and several in other countries) have established programs allowing employees to bring their pre-crawling babies to work every day, involving more than 1,300 babies to date. Baby-friendly businesses (which range from 3 to 3,000 employees in more than 20 different industries) have discovered that, within a well-structured program, allowing babies in the workplace costs an organization almost nothing and provides extensive business benefits, including employees voluntarily returning to work earlier after a baby’s birth, higher workplace morale and long-term productivity, increased retention, better recruitment, and higher customer loyalty.
These businesses have demonstrated that babies thrive and are highly content in structured workplace programs and invariably end up creating a community parenting dynamic in which many coworkers bond with the babies and voluntarily assist in their care for brief periods. These programs have proven successful even though many people were highly skeptical of their viability prior to implementation (these same people often became staunch supporters of structured programs after seeing how well they worked in practice).
The keys to widespread implementation of these programs are (1) grassroots and media outreach to mitigate skepticism about program viability and to provide education about program benefits for businesses and (2) assessing and disseminating information and resources to businesses (on a worldwide scale) to enable effective program implementation. The first component is already happening considering that, just in 2008, baby programs have been discussed in Time Magazine, People Magazine, USA Today, and U.S. News and World Report, as well as in media pieces in Australia, Hungary, Denmark, Brazil, India, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, and Canada.
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This is a great program!
What a wonderful idea! It’s worked for my family for more than 15 years, and I’ve seen it work for many, many other people. Thanks for spreading the word about something that can help families maintain their bonds, lower their costs (no daycare, fewer illnesses if they’re breastfeeding, etc.), lower their stress levels–AND help businesses too!
I am one of the lucky moms that gets to take part in babies at the workplace. It is so great to have my son with me all day. I know he is taken care of and I am able to continue breastfeeding. Now that I have him near me all day, I can’t imagine life any other way. i think this could help so many more parents and employers.
Fantastic idea — it’s about time!
My family has been able to benefit greatly from this program! I have been working very hard to make this a reality for families in my area, too. It is high-time that our society begin to honor the family in ways that really matter! Hurray for Babies in the Workplace! Great work, Carla.
Carla with the Parenting in the Workplace Organization helped us set up our babies in the workplace program and it has been a HUGE success. Our company has saved money, we’ve helped our team members who are new parents save money…and it’s been great to see everyone pull together as a family. With our struggling economy, it’s definitely an option more employers should consider and more hard-working parents should request.