Like many full-time working parents, Rosie Akester is in a mad rush every weekday morning as she gets ready to leave her house in Brighton to drop her one-year-old daughter, Jasmine, off before work. Fortunately, for both mother and daughter, the nursery is actually an on-site creche at Akester’s workplace, The Body Shop headquarters in Littlehampton, where she works as a senior buyer in the community fair trade team.
Akester says knowing that her daughter is so close by not only gives her reassurance and peace of mind, but is also extremely convenient for a busy mother of one. “I did look into nurseries in Brighton for Jasmine but then I saw this one and it was a dead cert,” she says.
“Knowing that I would just be five minutes away made the whole decision of coming back to work not just feel good but also very empowering. As a mum it’s really comforting to know she’s right there; I know if she’s ill they can call me and I can pop straight across. It’s convenient and I can focus on being back at work.”
When The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick launched the creche in 1990, it was one of the first. Managed by The Co-operative Childcare since 2013, the nursery is open to children of employees and other local children. But the concept remains a rarity – only 1.6% of employers offered an on-site creche in 2014, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the professional body for HR and people development.
The average cost of sending a child under two to nursery in Britain for 25 hours a week has increased by 5.1% to £6,003 a year, according to the Family and Childcare Trust’s Childcare Costs Survey 2015. So it’s hardly surprising that workplace nurseries – which are often subsidised – could become hugely attractive to working parents, being both cheaper and more convenient.
Employers can justify the expense – they’re a proven way of attracting new talent and keeping staff happy. “With working parents now making up a significant proportion of the UK workforce, the provision of on-site day nurseries has proved an overwhelming success in helping to retain and attract individuals with young families,” says Richard Cherry, director of corporate services at medical device manufacturer Olympus KeyMed, which runs a 59-place nursery for children and grandchildren of employees at its Southend-on-Sea office in Essex.
“Work-life integration is the modern social norm, and the provision of an on-site facility that offers exceptional childcare for our employees is a key element of the company’s corporate philosophy to realise better health and happiness for our employees and society.”
Looking for a job? Browse Guardian Jobs or sign up to Guardian Careers for the latest job vacancies and career advice
