Google Parents Cry as Day Care Decision Sparks Employee Rebellion
Two months ago, Google held a series of secret focus groups with employees who have children in Google’s day care facilities. The purpose was to gauge their reaction to the company’s plan to raise the amount it charged for in-house day care by 75 percent.
Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500 — well above the market rate. For parents with toddlers and preschoolers, who were charged less, the price increases were equally eye-popping. Under the new plan, parents with two kids in Google day care would most likely see their annual day care bill grow to more than $57,000 from around $33,000.
At the first of the three focus groups, parents wept openly. As word leaked out about the company’s plan, the Google parents began to fight back. They came up with ideas to save money, used the company’s T.G.I.F. sessions — a weekly meeting for anyone who wanted to ask questions of Google’s top executives — to plead their case, and conducted surveys showing that most parents with children in Google day care would have to leave Google’s facilities and find less expensive child care.
Do you think you know how this story ends? You’re probably guessing that because it involves “do no evil” Google, Fortune magazine’s “Best Company to Work For” the past two years, this is a heart-warming tale of a good company reversing a dumb decision.
If only. Although Google is rolling back its price increase slightly and is phasing in the higher price over five quarters, the outline of the original decision remains largely unchanged. At a T.G.I.F. in June, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,” according to several people in the meeting. (A Google spokesman denies that Mr. Brin made that comment.) On Monday, Google began the first phase of its new day care plan, letting go of the outside day care firm it had been using...
See Also: Valley Bigwig Says Google a "Total F-ing Train Wreck." True?
Going back to google, Sergey probably sees this as the on-going problem in America. Parents never have time for their own kids, so they go off to day care and get synthetic formula instead of natural breast milk. Then easily get in the habit of being too busy for their own. Well I'd charge a premium too to give them a reality check. I speak from experience with two parents that were always to busy to actually have a family. It was more like roommates. But society is virtually irreversible.
it is hard to fault the day care decision makers at google (most likely parents themselves) from picking a solution that is best for their children at the expense of the lowest common denominator at the company. when they are making decisions related to their own children, it is hard to think of the person at the company who can't afford, such as a newly hired assistant who didn't benefit from the IPO. i think the NY Times is making too early a call for Google's demise just because some parents are deciding on what is best for their own kids over what is best for the company.
the conflict lies mainly in the two-tiered wealth of google between pre-IPO folks who are more likely to afford to spend more on their children vs. those post-IPO people. this is not fair, but who said a capitalist society ever was... wealth will never be evenly distributed or we'd reduce incentives to work hard.
So while they may make occasional misteps, they don't have a "do no evil" motto which implies they are infallible. You'd do your readership a favor by not misquoting things while your already sensationalizing a "saga".
You'll find your same misquote of this policy scattered around the web and in google groups, but you won't ever find it on googles own web pages. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22do+no+evil%22+site%3Agoogle.com
Ever hear of CHEAPER daycare? $28,000-a-year-per-head "Reggio Emilia" daycare is NOT FOR YOU IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT.
Cowboys don't cry, and heroes don't die
Good always wins, again and again
Love is a sweet dream that always comes true
Oh, if life were like the movies, they would never be blue
But here in the real world
It's not that easy at all
'cause when hearts get broken
It's real tears that fall
And Henry it's sad but true
But the one thing I've learned from you
Is how the boy don't always get the girl
Here in the real world
Picture this ->
Say you are a Stanford MBA with 2 kids married to a medical resident. You earn north of $125,000 per year at Google's Online Sales and Operations Division and he earns $55,000 at XYZ as a resident.
After taxes, I have $70,000 and he has $37,000.
Daycare costs $57,000
Paying MBA student Loans costs $13,000 per year
Paying Rent for a 2-bedroom home costs $22,000
Saving for a home down payment in the Bay is a non-starter.
That leaves us with a combined wiggle fund of $15,000 for my husband's gas, food at home, savings, Prius repayments (yeah, I know..), cable etc. That's $1,250 per month. We're not exactly poor and unaccomplished yet if we have one financial wobble, we can't balance the books.
The wealthiest people at Google should pick daycare that is in the interest of their children i.e., the best and most expensive available. Google is not a communist institution.
What needs to happen though, is Google should be honest about the fact that daycare is not a perk and just leave it at that. Opt in if you can afford it and not a cent of subsidy for the wealthy. We'll figure out how to select daycare that's cheaper than Yale for our kids and we're sure they'll turn out just as fine and balanced as we did.
One of the things married people do is make children.
Oh, did I mention that I'm leaving?
Have you visited such facilities? More often than not, you wouldn't leave your children in such "care".
One of the reasons why I'll try to keep my company private is to not have a problem financing essentials such as this.
VC-funded -> IPO or M&A is the eventual exit
Private -> Do whatever I want
The complicated part about pre-school education is appropriate methods to enable children to learn faster and to develop their logic abilities sooner.
Let's look at Google's expense for housing 1000 children. Maybe $60,000,000 per year?
GOOG's net income per quarter is $1.30709 billion. While the $60 million is an expense that would register on the bottom line, it probably is less than the healthcare bill is.
I foresee in very near future an independent daycare facility within a mile of GOOG facilities.
employees without children, shareholders, and customers shouldn't have to subsidize your brats babysitter because you decided to bring a child into your life. this group is already subsidizing your an employee's family healthcare and the extra leave and time divergence a family/child entails.
if you disagree, then i want companies to start offering $28,000 a year doggy daycare as my little pooch - a dog i chose to adopt - is my life and joy and deserves just as much as your brat does. oh and i'll need free daycare when my niece and nephew visit too because they are my family and just a deserving as anyone elses brats.
i'm sorry if a parnetal employee failed to adequately prepare for the financial burden of a child, but one would be hard pressed to find someone qualified for a job at google to not have the capacities to have done this. don't like what google offers, take your litle amoeba elsewhere. be thankful google offers anything at all.
I think Anon has children and agrees with you. She just doesn't think Google should hypocritically subsidize the wealthy millionaires as well.
Day care is not a guaranteed right and companies do not need to provide it, but when they do it should be provided fairly so that the average employee can take in the benefit.
good thing your parents were not as idiotic in their rational as you...maybe...
less we forget we are animals and without reproduction, we die away...
unless you want a socialist society where only the beautiful and strong reproduce and the rest slave away to pay for a life of pamper for the "breeders"
now come back to reality...
I get it to some extent (I agree, if you can afford it, too bad, its not goog's ultimate responsibility to ensure that both spouses can (or should??) work and also afford to drive Mercedes on top of daycare payments, etc), but the "choose to have babies" dipwads get under my nerves
ahemm.... I'll take 6 in my home and I make great PB&J and we have plenty of chocolate milk in the house. $160k per year for reading nursery rhymes and changing a few diapers works for me.
What ever happened to straight out Motherhood?
I think the non-rich google employees are going to have to grow up -- their next job is not going to be so cushy.
Also, programs like this do not create "geniuses", but they do ease the guilt of parents who now think their kids are geniuses -- this can be very entertaining!
ct: a tool (or nice troll). Leonid: an elitist (probably unjustifiably so). Anon: congratulations!
He's gone!
Not because he's a commie bastard but because as meritorious as Google likes to believe it is, it will never make as much money for the new genius as it did for someone half as bright (who happens to be very bright too) who met Larry and Sergey 10 years ago. Things like this happen without the top people at Google ever knowing and it's exactly the same elite mentality that has kept some Harvard grad schools devoid of an internally Nobel winner for years.
There are real benefits to showing some fairness to people who make less money. Giving less wealthy parents an equal rent subsidy at the Googleplex for their own affordable facility is the more sensible approach if the rich get to use the campus rent-free for their fancier day care. Children and day care are not a right but neither is retaining the best talent. If Google-type smarts were all that mattered in this world, we wouldn't have high-school dropout billionaires like the founder of Zara.
internally-generated Nobel Prize winner
And, to Messrs. Brin and Page, not feeling so good right now? Or could it be you no longer care?
It's one thing to provide day-care facilities for your employees, it's a whole other thing to have the executive team making decisions about the student-teacher ratio, or the teaching methodology.
I'm not a stockholder, but if I was, I'd be wondering how this, in any way, contributes to Google's misson.
you are an incredible douchebag. it's not about the semantics - it's about the message. And yes, we all get what Google is trying to say with their motto.
Are you a lawyer? Or are you just a whiny Googler with a false sense of entitlement?
Please go back to the shelter of your overlords Larry and Sergey, and refrain from embarrassing yourself with your idiocy further. Thank you.
Parents who work have to find childcare. Whether you use a daycare, nanny, pre-school, school, grandparents, or whatever, you're relying on that. When it goes belly up without a moment's notice, you're kind of screwed. Most parents don't have a lot of backup options (certainly nothing long term).
So basically, all the parents who had their kids in Google daycare are suddenly faced with a near doubling of the cost. Initially effective immediately, now scaled back to give parents just a little bit of time to scramble to find alternatives.
No matter who screws you in this way, you're going to be pissed off at them. In this case, it's your employer. Ouch.
Employer-provided child care sucks for this reason and many others. It's much better when employers just offer credits (just like they do toward gym memberships). Employers benefit financially when their employees have stable child care arrangements in the same way they benefit from healthy employees. But you don't expect your employer to staff an emergency room (unless they're a hospital, yeah yeah).
1) Google is raising its daycare rates because the highest ranking, richest executives want something almost imaginary for their daycare provider. Google has had market rate daycare in Mountain View for years. The problem is that the upper echelon had to cool their heels in the very long waiting lists like everyone else. By making the price out of the range that the majority can afford, they have cleared the deck for themselves.
2) There is very good daycare available for infants and toddlers in the high teens per month in this area, but again, with 1-2 year waiting lists. Now that Google daycare is forcing out the "rabble" these lists will only get longer.
PS: My prediction for the next Google perk to go up in smoke? The bus system. Hey, its only fair to recover costs, not everyone uses it, why should those who have made the choice to live close to campus subsidize those who want the swank single city life, and then get a free ride into work every day?
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&output=search&cluster=9412627337695832728
Colonialism and Cargo Cults in Early Childhood Education: does Reggio Emilia really exist?
Yup. Most of the riders get off ACROSS THE STREET from the googleplex if you notice. These definitely are not your higher-rung employees. why give admins and cs reps making $45k free shuttle service? if you want to check them out or are looking for a date, go near the muni bus stop in front of the sf caltrain walgreens.
Come on Google, we expect more forward thinking from an industry leader.
Here's my take: http://snipr.com/2uawi
The first signals of the hype going down?
It helped me out of a single mom jam.
Good luck!!