The Works sets agency standard with new baby daycare bonus
Sydney agency The Works has thrown down the gauntlet to the advertising industry, offering to pay for childcare for staff as part of its push to keep more parents – and women, in particular – from jumping to the corporate side where there are more family-friendly benefits.
The agency will pay $100-per-day towards childcare for new parents from the start of next month as a way to give more back to staff to make the return to work after maternity leave smoother.
Kevin Macmillan, partner at The Works, told Mumbrella the decision to offer the childcare bonus was part of a broader “family first” initiative being run by the agency, which has close to 100 staff.
“It’s for the primary care giver – the mum or the dad, but obviously the majority are mums – that are returning to work,” Macmillan said.
“If we can make it simpler for parents to return to work then we are only going to improve as a business and they are going to be able to stay on the career path they want to stay on.”
The childcare bonus will be available to staff for six months after they return to work after the birth of a child.
The agency currently has 32% of its staff working part-time after having a baby with many saying the biggest hurdle to returning full-time was the cost of childcare.
“It’s such a natural next step for the industry,” Macmillan said.
“From an emotional perspective, hopefully it positions us as a caring business first, and from a practical perspective it says that The Works is an innovative place to be because putting policies like this in place is not something everyone is doing.”
He said that the agency had looked across a broad range of industries and sought advice from its own clients to see what was best practice, before reaching the conclusion there was more that could be done in the advertising industry.
“You walk into an agency at 7:00pm in the evening and you see 20 parents working at their computers when they really should be at home giving their kids a bath,” he said.
“(As an industry) I think we have a long long way to go because it’s certainly not perfect for mothers and for fathers.”
Great to see an agency taking this initiative. About time agencies started looking after their people. Good work The Works.
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this is a brilliant initiative.
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A little bit of research, and less spraying PR on the Net, would find that BMF for one, instigated this 6 years ago. Most the kids who benefited would now be in school….
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That is quite incredible good on The Works
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Great move!
Agencies have always been far more family friendly than the media. Know plenty of people working part time in agencies – don’t know any in media. You’re either full time or not at all – especially in TV and Radio.
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Well done Works … hope others will follow
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negative nelly much?
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How about the single people who decide not to pollute the earth with more humans ?
Can we get $100 as an incentive for not creating a new environmental disaster and not leaving our work short staffed constantly while we take care of children?
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Yup, I reckon I’d be more than happy to pay $100 for you to never produce children.
Bless.
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This is how you get more women in leadership positions – give them opportunities to stay in the workforce. Much better than a quota.
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You just pollute the earth with your negative energy instead.
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Fantastic! We need more businesses like you who value the contribution women, and mothers, bring to the workplace. Thank you for what you are doing and may many more businesses follow your lead!
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Haha! Agreed.
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Some of us have to have kids Jake. Otherwise who are you going to advertise and sell products to in 50 years time?
Some of us have of have kids to ensure there are people to replace you when you leave work for a sad, childless retirement. There you’ll grow old in a retirement home, with no children to be proud of or visit you.
Some of us have kids to make sure there are doctors and nurses to care for you in that retirement village as you slowly succumb to a lonely senility.
It’s fine if you don’t want to have kids. But please don’t try to position it as some kind of virtue.
Thinking even just a tiny bit about the logical conclusions of our arguments will save you a great deal of embarrassment in the future.
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You’re single.
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Well said, TrafalgarSquared 🙂
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