I am wondering why I find it kind of odd that it doesn't have a childcare center.
His response was - paraphrasing - "What happens if someone quits, or is fired? In SV/SF, waits for child care facilities can easily take 6-12 months. If someone is terminated from our company, the last thing we want for them to do is have a crisis about where their children are going to go."
I believe they have a stipend, but I'm not sure about that.
Of course, I can't say if this is Apple's rationale, but it wouldn't surprise me if that had something to do with it.
I understand that on-site childcare wouldn't work for everyone, but it could work for some, and be a benefit to them.
Other companies DO provide it.
There's a on-site cafeteria, correct? Do they worry how people will get lunch if they quit/fired? Reservations in SV/SF can easily take 6-12 months. /s
Yes, they are unable because that would hinder them from getting another job.
> I understand that on-site childcare wouldn't work for everyone, but it could work for some, and be a benefit to them. > Other companies DO provide it.
Whats the difference between a daycare at your work or at a separate daycare building?
Lower cost and fewer logistical issues I would imagine.
You've just removed a 10~45 minute round trip commute to that separate building. That's twice a day every day, and if the kid gets sick or injured.
They, ultimately, have the responsibility to take care of their children, rather than always handing them off to a someone else - correct?
If these jobs are so incompatible with raising children, what's the point of trying to raise children? Does it now seem wise why they companies of these jobs could provide childcare for the benefit of these employees?
SV sounds like Hell on Earth.
It sounds like really you're critiquing parents in general for sending kids to daycare.
I've considered employers I wouldn't have otherwise considered because the thought of on-site child care is incredibly appealing.
Having child care is also an expensive distraction and liability for management. Do you want to deal with employee complaints over childcare hours, personnel, facilities, etc, or do you want to spend your time thinking about how to better sell product and keep employee's employed? What happens when an employee accuses a child-care worker of hurting their child?
>Child care is a competitive business that can almost always be provided better and cheaper elsewhere. So it's much better to use stipends to subsidize employee child care.
Child care facilities aim for profit like any other business, and a corporate add-on doesn't need to seek profitability (and even if they did, assuming it's on-site the operational overhead is ultimately lower). So how exactly would outside facilities compete with that?
>Having child care is also an expensive distraction and liability for management
Having children is an expensive distraction whether or not your company is involved. If something happens at a remote daycare, your employee will leave the building to manage that. If there's a child-care gap that doesn't align with work schedules, your employee will take time off to deal with that.
>What happens when an employee accuses a child-care worker of hurting their child?
What happens when an employee accuses another employee of hurting them?
>or do you want to spend your time thinking about how to better sell product and keep employee's employed
I want to spend my time making a good product and making my employees lives easier so they can do their best work.
Running a software company doesn't give you any of those skills. Someone specializing in the business of child-care should be able to wipe the floor with anything your software company puts up in it's spare time.
Children are a distraction, I know. But having the management of the company involved in making decisions about how your kids are being cared for is a distraction from their core duties. By definition they are going to be slightly worse at sales, marketing, development, etc because they have to spend time on childcare.
Having childcare only benefits a few employees for a few years of their lives. There is nothing wrong with having company childcare, I'm playing the devils advocate a bit here, but there is also nothing wrong with saying the outside world will be better at serving this need and just offering a stipend to help parents with the cost.
You hire someone for this
>Running a software company doesn't give you any of those skills. Someone specializing in the business of child-care should be able to wipe the floor with anything your software company puts up in it's spare time.
Same hire as above
>Children are a distraction, I know. But having the management of the company involved in making decisions about how your kids are being cared for is a distraction from their core duties. By definition they are going to be slightly worse at sales, marketing, development, etc because they have to spend time on childcare.
Seriously, hire like one person.
>Having childcare only benefits a few employees for a few years of their lives. There is nothing wrong with having company childcare, I'm playing the devils advocate a bit here, but there is also nothing wrong with saying the outside world will be better at serving this need and just offering a stipend to help parents with the cost.
I'm talking about companies with hundreds of employees in the same building... like Apple, who has built a massively enormous HQ without childcare. An issue that likely impacts dozens, if not hundreds, of their employees at this location.
Are they skilled at it? You don't know, their resume looked good to you, but your expertise is elsewhere.
Are their policies correct? Again, you don't know.
Are your liabilities reasonably covered? Who knows?
And you still have to manage that person on a day to day basis. You have to be able to fire them if they screw up, you have to know whats going on in their department.
You can educate yourself, but again you won't become an expert and that's time you could spend building your business.
Even for Apple, and Tim Cook, it's easier to rely on the competitive market to provide child-care. The best of all worlds would be to rent space to a child-care provider, and bid out the service to get the best child-care possible. There are still issues, such as you don't want the low bidder, and you have to do research to pick the best bidder. But at least you aren't running it day to day.
You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Steve Jobs wanted to make this building "breathable" and paid to come up with a custom solution and your bemoaning the logistics of hiring competent child care providers.
Childcare in businesses is a solved problem. Thousands of businesses do it, as do many government agencies. Here in DC there are in-business childcare centers at places like the Smithsonian, Holocaust Museum, FDA, World Bank, HHS, etc. Heck the public middle school in my neighborhood has an attached childcare center for the teachers' kids.
Patagonia, one of the most-admired businesses in the world, has a huge childcare center on campus, and encourages other businesses to do the same thing.
Whether or not to offer on-premise childcare is a choice every business can make for itself, but let's not pretend it's some risky idea that is hard to work out.
Of course it's completely up to a company to do this. my point, and likely OP's point is that it seems like a glaring omission from an otherwise feature-rich campus.
Why can't there be onsite third-party childcare? The problem here is the concept of a surburban "company town" office, instead of having an office building integrated into the wider community.
On top of that, some would prefer an outside child care service, specially if the position has a lot of traveling involved (can your partner or caregiver bring the kid to campus when you are not there?) Even if you decide to do it. ¿How many people should you hire? ¿What happens when the employee is fired or quits? (it's hard to find a daycare center in short time), add insurance, etc...
The way most companies solve this is by subsidizing the daycare facility of you're choosing or allowing for remote work some days of the week. It's more efficient.
That being said, not sure what the policy at Apple is right now.
not every employee (most?) is interested in gym, so why provide gym? you can make survey or research to estimate what size of childcare you will need
> On top of that, some would prefer an outside child care service, specially if the position has a lot of traveling involved (can your partner or caregiver bring the kid to campus when you are not there?) Even if you decide to do it. ¿How many people should you hire? ¿What happens when the employee is fired or quits? (it's hard to find a daycare center in short time), add insurance, etc...
just put in contract childcare ends same time as contract, simple as that, it's just bullshit excuse not provide option hiding it behind caring about well-being of employee
My child has a bump on their head, I'm positive they didn't have it before I dropped them, I demand a firing!
Why isn't the company offering healthy snacks to my kids?
I chose not to have kids because I think it's better for our future not to overpopulate this planet. But why can't I leave my Shitzu there? He's never hurt anyone!!!!
Not an excuse. Just one of the many logistics problems involved. What happens when you have to stay longer than childcare is open, etc...
Yeah, these problems also happen with third party child care but that's the point. It might be wiser and more efficient to subsidize an external option that to build an internal one. Not only for the company, for the employee as well.
nobody rational is so insane to expect different services from child care just because it's provided by employer, but sure it is convenient for parent
I've worked at a Fortune 100 HQ with childcare. It was segmented and the kids/workers never entered the main building.
Apple will have cleaners, maintenance, food service, etc all over the place. It's not like it'll be a hermetically sealed place.
Why do people want a return to the "company town" model just to save a few minutes?
You can absolutely take advantage of it, by raising a child.
Apart from coffee machines, and maybe food service... no physical location perk is capable of handling the entire staff.
In regard to saving "a few minutes", I don't know how you (or other people) feel about it, but I'd happily spend more time with my child.
Show me how the kids of Apple benefit from this, "Insanely Great" technology.
Yes, those toddlers would probably stumble on Jony Ive's secret development studio! In reality the campus also has "a visitors center with an Apple Store and cafe open to the public". That means full sized adults walking around!
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/02/apple-park-opens-to-e...
I'm trying to imagine one now, with snooty little kids in black turtlenecks.