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Seems like a bullshit excuse that's using the illusion of empathy (which is some extra infuriating bullshit). I'd much rather the option of on-site daycare and

Seems like a bullshit excuse that's using the illusion of empathy (which is some extra infuriating bullshit). I'd much rather the option of on-site daycare and dealing with the fallout of leaving a job myself.

valuearb 9y ago
I'd rather not have my kids under the control of my company.
- accountyaccount 9y ago
  Then don't. Corporate childcare isn't mandatory... just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't incredibly valuable to other working parents. I've considered employers I wouldn't have otherwise considered because the thought of on-site child care is incredibly appealing.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    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. 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?
    - accountyaccount 9y ago
      This is all a bunch of weird handwringing... >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.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        Making something non-profit doesn't make it efficient. If your business is child-care, it's your job to know the cheapest/best way to comply with regs, build child-care locations to meet market demands, hire child-care staff, enforce appropriate rules and procedures, etc, etc, etc. 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.
      - accountyaccount 9y ago
        >Making something non-profit doesn't make it efficient. If your business is child-care, it's your job to know the cheapest/best way to comply with regs, build child-care locations to meet market demands, hire child-care staff, enforce appropriate rules and procedures, etc, etc, etc. 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.
    - snowwrestler 9y ago
      This is a classic HN conversation, a bunch of people trying to reason about something off the top of their head from their own personal experience. 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.
      - accountyaccount 9y ago
        I agree entirely. It's really weird to pinpoint this as some complex logistical problem. Apple creates intentional supply chains that are large enough to impact international economies — as a 'problem' this is like a fart in the wind. 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.

valuearb 9y ago

I'd rather not have my kids under the control of my company.

accountyaccount 9y ago
Then don't. Corporate childcare isn't mandatory... just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't incredibly valuable to other working parents. I've considered employers I wouldn't have otherwise considered because the thought of on-site child care is incredibly appealing.
- valuearb 9y ago
  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. 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?
  - accountyaccount 9y ago
    This is all a bunch of weird handwringing... >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.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Making something non-profit doesn't make it efficient. If your business is child-care, it's your job to know the cheapest/best way to comply with regs, build child-care locations to meet market demands, hire child-care staff, enforce appropriate rules and procedures, etc, etc, etc. 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.
    - accountyaccount 9y ago
      >Making something non-profit doesn't make it efficient. If your business is child-care, it's your job to know the cheapest/best way to comply with regs, build child-care locations to meet market demands, hire child-care staff, enforce appropriate rules and procedures, etc, etc, etc. 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.
  - snowwrestler 9y ago
    This is a classic HN conversation, a bunch of people trying to reason about something off the top of their head from their own personal experience. 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.
    - accountyaccount 9y ago
      I agree entirely. It's really weird to pinpoint this as some complex logistical problem. Apple creates intentional supply chains that are large enough to impact international economies — as a 'problem' this is like a fart in the wind. 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.