Years ago, as part of my job, I helped fill out an application to be considered for some list of great places to work. I noticed that my coworker had written a section praising our onsite daycare. I had no children, so assumed that it was just something I didn’t know about. “We have onsite daycare?” I asked.
“Well, corporate does,” she said. The corporate office was 50 miles away from our office, and we had sites all over the United States.
“Does any other site?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
I argued for removing it because the corporate office only had 500 employees and the company, itself, employed over 30,000 people in the United States.
It stayed in, and our company was included in the list, along with praise for our onsite daycare–which very few people got to use. There was no indication in the write-up that this benefit was only for the privileged few.
This inconsistency is something that happens all over the world–and not just in large corporations. In family-owned businesses, for instance, you’ll often see that the family members, regardless of position, get perks like flexible schedules and unlimited vacation, while the non-related employees better be on time or else.
Jennifer Y. Hyman, co-founder of Rent the Runway, noticed this two-tiered system–the same system they implemented in their company. She writes in The New York Times:
To keep reading, click here: Rent the Runway Stopped Two-Tiered Benefits. Why You Should Too.
The people who need an employee covered childcare programs the most are the ones on the lower end of the pay grade as their schedules are more varied by company needs than the ones in corporate who control their schedule. By making the childcare available for all, increases morale and productivity, making that expense an excellent investment by company which in turn will result in more seasoned workers and better profit line end result.
Long ago when I had wee kids, I interviewed at a bank in Jacksonville that (at the time) had an onsite elementary school. I thought that was amazing!
http://www.coopercarry.com/project/bank-of-america-corporate-campus/
This may not appeal to everyone, but the US headquarters (in New Jersey) of a former-employer was German-owned and had beer in the cafeteria. However, not in the cafeteria of my Ohio outpost. Two tiers, one with beers.
Ha ha, that made me laugh.