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The center was run by Bright Horizons, one of the largest and best-known childcare providers in the country. Because the center was accessible only to employees of the financial services company where she worked, availability was rarely an issue, and the cost of care was heavily subsidized. On days when her baby was at the center, she could drop by to breastfeed her, instead of pumping at the office as usual.
When Katie unexpectedly had to move her daughter to a new day care, this access to backup care—those alternate arrangements parents seek out when their usual childcare falls through—turned out to be essential.
“They didn’t have a spot for her until she was officially 1, and we were having some issues with our regular day care,” she says. “So I actually used [the Bright Horizons center] for a full month just to bridge the gap between the two places.”
Even with a significant disruption to her childcare—a predicament that puts many parents in a bind if they have to work while their child’s day care is closed—she was able to continue working without taking much time off.
“It was really, really valuable to me,” says Katie, who asked to use a pseudonym to speak freely. “If you were to have a conversation with my employer and really get down to it, it was valuable to them, too. I really didn’t miss any work, even though we were technically without regular childcare for a month.”
This is precisely the selling point that Bright Horizons offers employers, as the preferred purveyor of childcare benefits for more than 1,450 companies worldwide. Through Bright Horizons, more than 220 of the largest U.S. companies by revenue, including AT&T and JPMorgan Chase, provide subsidized childcare to their workforces—most notably, access to backup care via a vast network of day cares and in-home caregivers. Some employers invest in on-site facilities, like the one Katie used, while others grant their employees access to subsidized care at one of the 1,000+ facilities Bright Horizons operates across five countries.
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Stop managing your time. Instead, manage your energy
It’s a familiar scene: After a day of work meetings, calls to extinguish spontaneous fires, and inbox navigation, it’s finally time to sit down and think creatively for a big project.
Unfortunately, your brain is still swirling from other tasks, and out of the corner of your eye, you can see another alert from your Teams app. All the while, you know in order to do successful creative work, you need breathing room and mental clarity to reach that great idea.
In the complex and interconnected environment of today’s professional world, workdays are more prone to distraction than not. An employee only has85 minutes each dayof undisturbed focus time, according to the time-management tool RescueTime. This sort of personal time is essential to creative work that thrives off a lack of constraints.
Growing workloads also squash creativity. In arecent Gallup survey on worker engagement, respondents reported waning enthusiasm and involvement because of confusing expectations and blurred team authority. With companies frequently downsizing and subsequently leaving posts unfilled, workers easily see their plates brimming with tasks—frequently including duties outside their original job.Burnoutfollows easily.
To wit: When workers are expected to be creative, the need for boundaries is even more pronounced. Getting to a place of open-minded creativity starts with identifying the obstacles—whether external disruptions or personal biology—that sap your energy for precious brainstorming time.
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