Given the chance, would you take your child to work?

Many mumpreneurs are doing it already – running a business from home while looking after their young child(ren). What a lot of people don’t see though is the efforts they have to go through to get through the working day with an active child or more at home, while you still have work to do. But given the chance, could it be done in the workplace?

One employer, keen to give it’s employees a chance to get that much sought after work-life balance officebroker.com. It decided to trial having employee pare ts from across the company bring their young children into the office and work a normal day.

This was not just another workplace with an onsite creche or nursery! Instead, the children are free to stay in office corners, meeting rooms and wherever their mum or dad’s workspace is to play in.

The trial took place on the firms’ busy sales floor (I can only imagine that the company’s customers must have been very understanding of the background noise!), with the babies sharing office space with mire than 30 telephone-based consultants.

As well as coping with the demands of their children, the parents also had to manage their normal office duties.

Four of the officebroker.com team have taken part in the experiment, with their children ranging from just four months old to 16 months.

The trial has been met with mixed results. Although some parents and colleagues found it distracting at times – as did their colleagues – it also increased team spirit, and the children brought departments from across the business together.

Officebroker.com’s MD Jim Venables believes companies have to support employees as best they can when it comes to childcare arrangements, or they risk losing a lot of good people.

He said: “We find it difficult to replace parents on maternity leave and those who choose not to come back to work. More often than not their decision on returning to work is based on the childcare options open to them and whether or not they are affordable.

“It’s a very real problem for us, and I’m sure for thousands of other companies across the UK, so looking into alternatives or ways to support parents is always high on our agenda. We heard about this particular programme so decided to try it out to see how successful it is.”

One mum who took part in the trial was training and development manager Fiona Spruce, who took in her four month old daughter, Grace. She was joined by receptionist Kerry Norman with Hayden, also four months, account manager Dean Ridsill with one-year-old Harry and sales support Cassie Radley with 16-month-old Herbie.

For Fiona and Kerry, their biggest problem was keeping the babies fed and comfortable, finding them quiet places to sleep and keeping them in some kind of normal routine. The general noise and comings and goings of the office was enough to keep the babies happy for most of the time, with the odd quiet moment with mum needed now and again.

For Dean and Cassie, the day was much more of a challenge. Being mobile meant that Harry and Herbie were keen to explore their new surroundings and were on the move most of the time.

The biggest issue the parents faced in the office was distraction, which affected most people, since the office is open plan. For the parents, their day was dictated by the needs of their children with the most work being done when they were asleep or being supervised by a colleague.

Head of UK sales, Chris Meredith, said: “The day wasn’t a complete write off. For Dean and Cassie it was much harder because of the age of their children. They spent a lot of time following them around the office and retrieving them. Their roles within the business are phone based, and the result was they couldn’t commit the time talking to their clients.

“With Kerry and Fiona the situation was more manageable. I think over time the babies would settle into a routine within the office, but both mums left the office exhausted by the end of the day because they spent a lot of time standing up and moving around with them.

“I’m sure for some companies this could work well. For us we’d need to consider it on a case-by-case basis, depending on the age of the child and the role of the parent.”

The verdict
Jim Venables concluded: “The key benefit for me was the increase in team spirit. The parents and their colleagues worked really well together to supervise the babies. Another bonus was Kerry and Fiona coming into the office for a day, even though they’re still on maternity leave.

“The distraction, loss of productivity and exhaustion which comes with looking after children far outweighed any positive points. I want to find a suitable childcare solution for our employees, and am always keen to give new ideas a go. However, this isn’t the right one for us.”