Thanks to everyone who is reading and commenting on my post about taking your kids to work.
I’m still in the LEAVE YOUR KIDS AT HOME AND FIND DAY CARE school of punk rock — but I’m totally sympathetic to the issues around day care. Furthermore, I’m impressed because several readers are plugged into the childcare mess at The Googles.
Some background:
- Google proudly advertises their daycare program as an employee benefit, but they are raising the costs of on-site daycare at Google to an almost unfordable price.
- Some employees are staging a revolt and using the media, company time, and a mix of private resources to voice their concerns to Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Here’s a list of sites to get yourself up to speed with the day care issue @ Google.
- The NYTs kicks things off with a primer on what’s happening at Google.
- Frank Roche boldly and succinctly tells Google that the bloom is off the rose.
- FrannyO plugged us into a discussion on Google Daycare.
- There are some who argue that the rise in daycare expenses is unfair because the quality of Google’s on-site childcare is declining.
- Valleywag has the communication from Google’s chief HR officer on this issue! Turns out that short-sided nepotism may be involved in the reasons why Google started offering expensive & subsidized day care in the first place.
- Is childcare a benefit or a luxury in this economy? Even Google is facing challenges, as evidenced by the fact that they’re closing offices in Denver and Dallas.
The dollar is weak, the economy is lagging, and fuel prices are up. It’s almost too expensive to have children, and when you do have a kid, the work environment doesn’t provide any benefits or incentives for birthing & raising the next generation of doctors, lawyers & tax accountants. (Oh, and thugs.)
If Google can’t get childcare right, can any organization?! Can the government help?
What do you think?
I just changed jobs to get less travel, way more work/life balance and more $$. In other words, more time and resources to “slave away” for my kid.
I now work for this unapologetically possibilities-focused entrepreneur guy, a real idea volcano. When he really started recruiting me hard, he said we could put a daycare in the office to support me and four other women with pre-K kids. I said NO WAY. I know HR would end up dealing with that all day long and I have other things I want to do for the company, I didn’t want the insurance issues and the main, most solid NO came from seeing too many “good ideas” get implemented, then taken away, with almost immediate turnover in the group who benefited from the “good idea.” Once you have a bene, it becomes a given - if for whatever reason it gets discontinued, employees are more insulted than if they never had it in the first place.
I agree with Google - it’s a luxury. Even if they have to pay comparable rates for the same service, they’re still lucky to have on site daycare. No amount of money can makeup for being able to visit your children and not having a long commute to pick them up and drop them off.
I think the Googlers have become just a little too entitled.
my fave excerpt from the NYT primer: “Ms. Wojcicki is a figure of significant stature at Google; hers was the garage that Mr. Brin and Google’s other founder, Larry Page, rented while starting up Google. Today she is the company’s vice president for product measurement, though as I discovered in talking to unhappy Google parents this week, not many Googlers seem to know what her exact duties entail. Everybody, however, knows that she’s Mr. Brin’s sister-in-law.”
i know many figures of significant stature whose exact duties are fairly nebulous.
and as illogical and spiteful as it may be, i love to see google get knocked off its pedestal. arrogant bastards.
I’m with Col.
EAT IT GOOGLE!! HOW’S THAT TASTE? QUIT HITTIN’ URSELF! QUIT HITTIN’ URSELF! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
@FrannyO I agree that a benefit is permanent once it’s introduced. I would hate to manage a day care benefit because WHO AM I? THE NANNY?
@RachL What’s your take on this: I’m totally sick of paternalistic corporations managing my benefits. No one spends my money better than I do. Give me the corporate money you put into my health care plan (& other benefits) and I’ll find my own health insurance, childcare, etc. - OR - I’ll vote for a government that will use my tax money in a more efficient way and implement universal pre-K, health care coverage, etc. Thoughts? Blog about this, please.
@cols Google seems to forget that the best place to work is in your pants. When you work those board shorts, cols, you boost employee morale!
@hrwench Col is now our SVP of Totes Awesomeness.
There have been a few articles/blogs/etc lately suggesting that maybe Google’s innovative HR ideas may not work out in the long term.
This person didn’t much like the lack of career structure or management & has headed back to MS:
http://1-800-magic.blogspot.com/2008/06/back-to-microsoft.html
There’s a lesson here: In sales you have to set the right level of expectations, then over deliver. It’s a disaster to set high expectations then under deliver.
Come on Google, we expect more forward thinking from an industry leader.
Here’s my take: http://snipr.com/2uawi
Loved the bizarre nepotism involved with the Google daycare issue. It’s such a throwback to the .dotcom boom time when business was conducted at random.
I’ve seen a few blogs/articles lately that suggest that Google’s innovative HR ideas might not really work out in the long term.
I thought this was an interesting one, for example:
http://1-800-magic.blogspot.com/2008/06/back-to-microsoft.html
@Frannyo I so agree that benefits, once given, create havoc when removed. Simple things like juice, soda or weekly bagel deliveries become an expected part of the workday. This benefit is much more important than orange juice…
Perhaps employees will sell some of their shares to cover the increase in costs (Icahn can pick up more ownership). Or they can use the 20% of time designated for projects they are passionate about to take care of their children (which I assume they ARE passionate about). Can’t imagine that would fly, but hey, it is an idea!
Especially sad for the employees is how obviously this one time benefit is meant to satisfy one person in the company (according to the picture painted by the press).
From the NYT article:
If Google had really wanted to do something path-breaking about its day care crisis, it would have spent less time creating elitist day care centers and more time figuring out how to “scale” day care for everybody no matter what their salaries.
Exactly… who cares if you have onsite daycare if it costs $57,000/yr? Certainly not your employees making less than $100K a year. Managing a daycare benefit would be a horrible nightmare of proportions I can only imagine, but if you’re going to do it it has to be affordable or it’s stupid.