Fay Davids
Linda Adams of Corporate Childcare leads the pack in lobbying for the provision of childcare at work.
She’s knocked at the doors of this country’s major corporations to get them to start creches. Her perseverance is paying off. “More companies are requesting feasibility studies.”
The Liberty Life creche is one of three that Adams and her partner, Dillys de Leiburne, have started in South Africa. It’s a deluxe centre, though creches can be designed according to what a company can afford.
Adams recommends that corporations contract out creche management to organisations like hers “because we understand that corporate companies are not in the childcare business”.
The Labour Department could soon turn its attention to childcare at work. There is no legislation on the subject, though senior officials are set to assess international standards on the issue when they visit the International Labour Organisation soon.
“It’s a new issue in South Africa,” says a Labour Department representative. The department inherited this area of work from the Welfare Department. “We are planning a survey on [workers’] access to care- givers and the role of care-givers,” she says.
Adams says creches should not only be seen as social responsibility exercises. They can often be run profitably and are of “strategic value”.
`They can be used to head-hunt key skills of men and women.” And most importantly the creche can serve as an incentive to keep well-trained, professional women staffers who often have to opt out of the job market to raise their children.
The kudos for creches usually come from mothers, but Adams has found that fathers benefit too.
If it’s a father who works at the company with a creche, “he has the opportunity to become actively involved in the growth and development of their children,” says Adams.