Nurseries on work premises

[Doyso]

I'm a new mom of a 10 week old baby, and thinking about childcare options for when I return to work. It occurred to me that this would be so much easier if my workplace had a nursery on the premises that I could drop my child to and can easily pop in and out throughout the day if needed and pick them up after work and we go home together. Does anyone's workplace offer this service? Like a nursery in partnership with a workplace? If not why do you think this sort of service is not readily available in the UK? Seems like it would make life easier for a lot of families unless I'm missing something?

Lots of places like hospitals have on site nurseries.

Why not just choose a nursery or childminder close to your workplace?

No setting is going to want you 'popping in and out throughout the day'.

How many people would actually use the nursery at your workplace? They are very expensive to run.

There sounds a lot of disadvantages, especially for the child.

Parents (as it would have to be a service offered to everyone) popping in and out will delay your child settling and limit what activities and care can be provided as an adult is taken away from ratios every time a parent arrives.

If your child needs picking up early because they are unwell, is your workplace close enough for your child’s other parent to reach quickly as your employer will expect this doesn’t fall to you every time. There also need to be enough working parents at your workplace to make a nursery viable.

If you are not going into your main workplace for some reason (illness, training course, future maternity leave), you’d still need to take your child in and if you change job, your child will need to move nursery.

Once they are older, your child’s friends are less likely to live near you, which will be more tricky when it comes to parties, play dates and having friends to go to school with.

NHS offer this and they are hit / miss. A private company I worker for offered this as most of the einployees were women.
Popping in and out was not an option unless the child was poorley.

You definitely can't just pop into a nursery. That would be super disruptive for everyone - particularly your child.

I always recommend having a nursery close to home instead of work if you can make the hours work. Then you don't have to have a commute with your children and if you yourself get sick you can still get your kids to nursery. I did both options and much preferred it when the nursery was around the corner from my house - particularly as I got a new job halfway through so it was actually in the wrong place altogether. It's super nice to pick up your tired, hungry child and be home in a few minutes.

I always recommend having a nursery close to home instead of work if you can make the hours work. Then you don't have to have a commute with your children

This!

I think everyone is taking my comment on popping in and out quite literally, and I didn't mean it like that so I take it back.

I hear all the other opinions though, I guess I was thinking that it would be more convenient especially if the nursery could work in partnership with the company so company employees get a special discount with the nursery. But there are other things that won't think about like if there are enough ps

My last post posted by mistake but I meant to say that there are other reasons that don't work which are already laid out. And in a place like London, it'll be a logistical nightmare to have to take your children in public transport to get into the office/ daycare

That’s a hard one. I’m not in UK but it’s a universal issue. Here, that only tends to work where the workplace is part of a huge campus, such as uni’s, large health campuses etc. DH used to work somewhere that had one but they had five large office buildings of 10 or 12 stories on a campus under that employer.

I don’t understand how a ‘special discount’ would work. Nurseries are expensive to run. How could it run if every child got a special discount? Are you asking an employer to pay some of your fee’s? My understanding for the ones here for large organisations is that what employers are able to do is pay your full fee directly to the nursery, then give you the remainder of your pay so you only pay tax on that, not the portion that was paid to the nursery. For some people this may lower them in regards to their tax bracket, that’s essentially the only advantage and won’t benefit everyone. The loser is the tax office but they seem fine for childcare to be a pre tax payment.

I think it’s a fabulous idea, a lot of things are changing for the better right now, I hope this idea takes off

When I worked at a university we had one on site, but it was a large spread out campus so it might not have actually been that close to your office so not that easy to pop in and out. I think if I’m remembering correctly, they had separate nurseries for 0-2 years and 3-5 years, so if you had more than one child they might have been at different locations.

My own daughter was nursery age then but we didn’t use it. It was easier to have her in one near our home for a whole lot of reasons: not subjecting her to a long commute, being able to take her if I wasn’t going into the office for any reason, having friends locally (some of whom then went on to primary school with her).

i dont think popping in during the day is recommended.

can you find a childminder near home?

So yes, having it deducted before tax would definitely be an option, similar to some childcare benefits that companies provide now as you say. For example, in a professional services company with over 500 people, there would be at least 100 people with children and 50 people who may avail of the service...the nursery can exclusive to the company and cater specifically to their needs when it comes to opening times, etc. It will require a lot of support from the company itself from a funding perspective. For big companies who have mandates to parents, this could be an initiative to support working parents.

Yes this definitely makes sense. I live in London, so I think the commute into work with kids will just be a nightmare... I haven't actually started experiencing taking my child to the nursery yet, so it's definitely interesting and helpful to hear all these opinions. One of the things I was trying to solve for was just how extremely difficult it is to find childcare and the wait times are crazy, that perhaps if this was something that was almost guaranteed with your workplace, it would make like so much easier for returning parents

i dont think work place nursery can ever guarantee a place, i know ours cannot.

My old workplace had a Bright Horizons partnership where I could access a certain number of 'emergency childcare' sessions a year - either at nursery or ad hoc nannies to your home, and this was a lifesaver. It did mean I commuted with DS a few times into London though when his usual nursery was closed and that was hell on earth!

Overall (and as someone who oversees the benefits/comps team) I think workplace nurseries don't get done more often as it's a logistical nightmare and they can't guarantee numbers unless the company is HUGE. It's also 'harmed' by hybrid working as id imagine no company would be eager to set up childcare for only office days.

These are all really great points, thank you!

I could see it working if you worked somewhere suburban near your home, so you commuted a short distance by car. It would just about be practical in my current job, which is a 20 minute drive. But as soon as longer distances on public transport are involved, it wouldn't be desirable at all for any nursery child and certainly not an under 3.

If the nursery is on site at your workplace, you're going to be the one doing all the early collections for illness etc rather than your partner sharing the load. An employer doesn't want to encourage that situation for obvious reasons. We've decided my job takes a backseat to my husband's so I do actually do all that stuff anyway. But there are still occasional times when my husband has to do them, so having the child in a nursery at my office would be inconvenient. And if I were the one sick, one of us having to drop my kid off at my workplace would be a real hassle.

Yes agreed, defo wouldn't work taking the child in the tube in central London at 8am, haha!

One of the things I was trying to solve for was just how extremely difficult it is to find childcare and the wait times are crazy, that perhaps if this was something that was almost guaranteed with your workplace, it would make like so much easier for returning parents

I used a workplace nursery, NHS so massive employer.
They still had waiting lists and with DC1 my MIL had to help out 1 day a week as she could only get a very part time place until more hours became free.
Needs to be very large employer to support it but then you get waiting lists.

And I completely agree with the commuting with child comments. Even in the car it wasn't great. So much easier when they moved to the nursery in the primary school a few minutes from home!

About 20 years ago a friend used to send her daughter to nursery at a bank in London. Her husband used to commute 45 minutes each way on the train with her. Must’ve been a nightmare but it was either free of very cheap so they did it for a couple of years

My workplace (large hospital,) has one, yet no nurse or doctor can use it because it doesn't operate suitable hours! Can you believe that?

I've used 2 nurseries like this, one at my workplace and one at DHs. Both were private nurseries open to anyone but actually onsite at our work places. Children of our employers were given priority on spaces at both but obviously only when a space became available.

DHs one did give a discount to staff members, mine didn't. Kids had to commute with DH about 45 mins each way which wasn't ideal but we had no choice as we were using a local childminder who suddenly quit childminding. No other local place had places available for 2 kids at 4 weeks notice.

Mine was only a 5 minute drive as by that time I went tied locally and when they got bigger, we used to cycle there in the summer. My employer was a school (not private) so they offered term time only contracts, closed for 2 weeks at Christmas/Easter and summer and also closed at 5pm so didn't suit a lot of 9-5 52 week working parents. I suspect they also had a higher threshold for calling parents to come and collect as they know teachers can't just drop everything to collect a child straight away.

Definitely no popping in to either though, when a child sees their parent at nursery, they know they are being picked up, to be there and not take them home with you would be confusing or even distressing for the child.

Not my idea of fun - the journey between work and nursery (however long that is) is often the only break you get when you work full time with a toddler. Mine was only seven minutes driving from home to nursery through countryside, but my god I loved it 😂

My DD went to a workplace nursery at my husband’s office - it was a campus-type setting with several buildings and a large number of employees, and was out in the countryside so there were no other childcare options nearby. The nursery was open to the public but staff had priority, and staff got a discount so it was subsidised by the employer (presumably a tax benefit for them somehow). As others have said, the parents couldn’t just pop in during the day.

It was a lovely nursery with great staff and DD was very happy there, but practically there were a few problems. The commute was 30 minutes and in the opposite direction to my work, so if DH was off work I had quite a detour to take DD there. He was responsible for collecting her if she was ill during the day, though that rarely happened, and looking back I can see he was under a lot of pressure to finish on time and pick her up before the nursery closed when his manager wasn’t always supportive. None of the other children lived near us so there were no local friends/ play dates, and none of them went to the same school as DD, and she did struggle to settle into reception.

I think the commute is the key issue - as others have said, it’s much better to have a nursery near home, especially now with the shift to hybrid working & working from home.