Too High Cost for Google's Day Care Programs

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Google began a series of focus groups with employees with children in Google's day care facilities, two months ago. The reason for this was to inform those parents of Google's plan to increase the cost of in-house day care by 75%, and to find out what the parents would say to this plan.

Those parents paying $1,425 per month for the care of infants would see a rise in costs to nearly $2,500, and those with toddllers and preschool-age children (charged less than for infants) also would be raised to exhorbitant rates. The new plan would charge parents with 2 children in Google's day care programs more than $57,000 annually, up from about $33,000.

Parents were seen to weep openly during the first of 3 sessions of the focus groups, then the parents began to fight back. They began to come up with ideas on saving money, and used the weekly meetings which the company has with employees, to focus on the child care situation, and plead their case with the company executives who conduct the meetings.

Instead of Google executives coming up with a much-less expensive plan for the parents using it's day care facilities, they only rolled back their prices marginally and will be phasing the higher prices in over five quarters. The original plan seems mainly unchanged. One source says that a Google executive said that he had no sympathy for the parents, and he's tired of "Googlers" who feel entitled to perks. (Google denies this was ever stated.)

The outside day care firm that Google was using to provide day care, was let go on Monday, beginning the first phase of the new plan.

Google's recent financial picture could be one reason it is charging more now for day care. In recent months, Google's stock has dropped 44%, from $744 to $412, though some gains have been made since that time.

Day care at Google began 3 1/2 years ago, with it's Kinderplex facility which was run by the Childrens' Creative Learning Centers which offers (according to its Web site) "learning in a play-based, developmentally appropriate environment that incorporates a variety of activities and multicultural aspects in a thematic style." Parents of the children cared for at C.C.L.C., say that the teacher/child ratios were low, teachers were first rate, the facility was clean and the food was terrific.

Google's next child care center, 'the Woods' opened one year after Kinderplex. Google ran this one itself. This was expensive for the company, giving each child plenty of room, expensive toys, and teachers with college degrees.

Google then decided to upgrade it's Kinderplex facility to match the salaries and teacher/student ratio of the Woods. Google was now using the child care facilities as recruitment incentives for hiring new employees. Now with 200 child care spots, and new employees coming in at high rates, those employees were not so happy with having a wait list of up to 2 years to enroll their children into Google's child care system. It seems that Google now noticed that the company was subsidizing each child $37,000 per year (compared to $12,000 per year at other companies), and this is when the company decided to hike up the rates for child care. Google won't give up having the lowest child/teacher ratios or the most advanced toys for them. Google says it's priority is reducing the waiting list for parents needing child care. No longer is child care advertised as an incentive for new employees at Google.

What good is having the best day care, if only the very wealthiest of Google's employees can afford it? It's believed that if Google really wanted to have the best in day care for its employees, the company would have scaled it down to make it affordable for everyone, and not created such elitist facilities that only the richest families could afford.