Working With Kids

New Templates Added for Babies at Work

In between Thanksgiving festivities, I decided to channel my worries about getting long-term funding into creating more template documents and getting them online for people to use in successfully implementing babies-at-work programs.  So, as of now, people can download the following editable Word documents from our Files area:

1.  Complete template babies-at-work policy (as one document and as individual parts)
2.  Detailed description of business benefits
3.  Explanation to be distributed to other personnel upon starting a policy
4.  Sign for parent-participants' desks (for bank tellers and others that interact with the public)
5.  List of issues for HR to discuss with parents prior to a baby starting to come to work
6.  Description of representative baby-friendly companies

Enjoy!

Getting Babies at Work Off the Ground--a Plea

I need help.

For those who haven’t been following this movement, I’ve spent the past three years analyzing babies in the workplace--business programs in which parents can bring their babies to work with them every day and care for the babies while doing their jobs, generally until the babies are six to eight months of age.  I founded the Parenting in the Workplace Institute in December of 2007, and we’ve had tremendous media and public interest in this work since then (Time Magazine, People Magazine, USA Today, and many others--and there are a couple of huge pieces to come in the near future).  We now have a list of more than 115 companies that actively allow babies to come to work (affecting more than 1,300 babies to date)--and in every organization with even basic guidelines, these programs work incredibly well and provide extensive benefits for businesses (and for families, of course) with almost no costs for the organizations.  

We have all the materials and resources ready for businesses to use to start successful programs.  We’ve already helped several companies to start new, highly-effective policies.  My books about babies in the workplace are finally done.  We have the attention of the media.  Put simply, we have an inexpensive, proven solution for core work and family issues that could make life dramatically better for millions of families and thousands of businesses--particularly in the current economic climate.  Parenting in the workplace--and the fact that it works when structured well--could quite literally revolutionize work and family balance around the world.  

The problem is that I have no idea how to get support for this work so that I can really make this take off.  I stumbled onto the babies-at-work concept three years ago.  It became my passion because of tremendously painful experiences in my own family that would have been avoided if I had had this option.  I want to do whatever I can to prevent other families from experiencing the difficulties we did.  Our Institute is in a position to help millions of people.  And it’s driving me crazy that we have this tremendous opportunity to change the world--but I’m spending 90% of my time working on other things.  I’m working as a legal secretary and doing freelance transcription--because those things pay the bills and enable me to support my two daughters.   

I’ve been talking to major organizations around the country for months trying to find one that wants to partner with us (and that wants to share in the media interest that is almost certain to come once we help more companies to start babies-at-work programs) so we can launch our babies-at-work pilot initiative on a large scale.  I’ve had lots of interest and made lots of great contacts, but they haven't been in a position to offer funding.  I have a detailed proposal all written up and ready to go--I just don’t know who else might be interested in it and be in a position to get this going.  If I could figure out how to effectively market my books, that would help solve the problem, since income from the books would free up more time to focus on this work.  But I’m at a loss.  I understand babies in the workplace and I understand how to help companies to start successful programs.  But I apparently don’t understand how to raise money.

So, I’m kind of putting this out there.  I don’t usually talk about problems--I tend to focus on the positive in life.  But I am running out of time, for various reasons--as are millions of families and businesses that could benefit from adopting these programs.

I would be immensely grateful for any ideas.  

Parenting in the Workplace Submission to Google Contest

This is the 30-second YouTube video about Parenting in the Workplace that I submitted to Google's Project 10 to the 100. 

Google's Project is a "call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible." Over the next few months, Google will be choosing the top 100 ideas from the submissions and then opening the contest up to worldwide voting on January 27, 2009, to select the top 20. A team of experts will choose the best 5 ideas from there, and Google will then devote 
ten million dollars to funding the organizations that are best positioned to successfully implement the ideas.

My overall description of the concept (for the Google submission) is:

-----------------------------------

Concept Idea:
Helping and encouraging 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.
-----------------------------------

Views of and comments on the video are appreciated, to help illustrate that this concept does have widespread interest!

 

YouTube Video and Insurance Update

I just posted a brief video onto YouTube about the babies-at-work books.  It'll be interesting to see what sort of reaction it gets. 

In other news, I have two insurance companies that are actively considering starting liability policies for babies-at-work programs.  I should have more concrete news on this next week.  Fortuitously, I got a call yesterday from a company that recently started a baby program on their own (using our template form) and was wondering where I could point them to handle liability concerns.  I think that once we get a policy (or several) set up, it'll go a long way toward "legitimizing" this whole concept in people's minds.

Back to the 50 other things I need to work on today...

Things in the Works

It's been a very busy several weeks.  I've been calling every work/family, women's, mother/father rights, and child development and well-being group I can find to try to establish partnerships and/or find potential funders to keep this work going.  I have a number of great prospects and have been getting a very positive reaction from nearly everyone I've talked with.  Nothing concrete yet but lots of great possibilities.

I also finally discovered a very reputable, nationwide insurance company that is interested in potentially setting up a liability policy specifically for babies-at-work programs--detailed discussions should start this week or next if all goes well. 

I'm exhibiting tomorrow at the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition's Annual Conference to disseminate information about our work--should be a very productive day (although I'm not looking forward to getting up at 4:30 a.m. to get there on time--Boston traffic is crazy).

I'm working on a script for a short YouTube video to attract attention to our work and to explain and illustrate the basics of these programs.  Given comments to recent major blogs (by other people) about these programs, it's clear that many people still haven't even heard of these programs, much less understand how feasible they are for many organizations.  I hope to get a video done and online by the end of this week.

Seeking Insurance Company Contacts for Baby Policy

One of the primary concerns we hear from companies that are otherwise open to starting a babies-at-work program is the issue of potential liability.  Although the risks of problems are very low, we encourage companies to have parents sign detailed legal waiver forms before they start bringing a baby to work--just to cover the bases. 

We're currently thinking of taking this one step further.  Given that babies-at-work programs reduce stress and increase breastfeeding feasibility (both of which would reduce health care costs), we're thinking that it might be greatly beneficial for an insurance company to more actively support these programs by setting up a direct policy or rider that would cover babies-at-work programs.  Based on the low risks of problems in these programs (since parents are responsible for the babies' care and since the babies normally only come to work until they're crawling), I think that such a policy would probably be relatively inexpensive for each company--and having one available is likely to greatly increase adoption of these programs.

If you have a contact at a business or health insurance company that you would be willing to share with me, I would greatly appreciate it!  Feel free to email me or call the Institute--(801) 897-8702.

Christian Science Monitor Article

There's an article in the September 15, 2008, edition of the Christian Science Monitor about babies in the workplace that extensively references our Institute.

State-by-State Listing of Baby-Friendly Companies

Just added a state-by-state listing of companies that allow babies at work to our Babies in the Workplace site.  We receive a lot of emails and calls asking about specific cities or areas of this country, so we thought this would be useful.  Suggestions of other helpful additions to the site are welcome.

U.S. News and World Report Article Mentions the Institute

I was just notified (I love Google Alerts) of a U.S. News and World Report article today about Sarah Palin that references our Parenting in the Workplace Institute's work on babies in the workplace. 

New Babies-at-Work Website

By the way, we recently went live with a completely new Babies in the Workplace website--it's much more accessible than the old one.  The baby-friendly company list is now all on one page, and the descriptive content is all new and a lot more focused.