FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORKPLACE
LINDA MASON
While working for Save the Children in the Sudan in the mid-1980's, Linda Mason raised $15 million and served over 400,000 famine and war victims. Upon returning to the U.S., Mason saw that the United States had its own crisis — poor-quality childcare. The number of mothers in the workforce was rapidly increasing, and the supply and quality of existing child-care was inadequate.
In 1986 Mason and her husband Roger Brown formed Bright Horizons Family Solutions, which is now the world’s leading provider of employer-sponsored child-care, early education and work/life solutions. "Our goals were to create an organization that would simultaneously honor and respect early childhood educators, be a great place to work, and be an environment that would allow employees to flourish," Mason says.
Bright Horizons now manages more than 600 child-care centers for many of the world's leading corporations, hospitals, universities, and government agencies. "When Bright Horizons started, it was difficult to get major corporations involved," says Mason. "But now most corporations realize their bottom line is tied to being family-friendly and respectful of families."
Mason's company lives its values by working with homeless children through two nonprofits, offering profit sharing within the company, and providing a family-friendly work environment for its own employees. Mason joined SVN when starting Bright Horizons and sees it as an essential factor in the company's success. "
"Our goals were to create an organization that would simultaneously honor and respect early childhood educators, be a great place to work, and be an environment that would allow employees to flourish."
LINDA MASON |
The friendships developed and discussions with other entrepreneurs dramatically influenced the way I developed Bright Horizons," Mason says. "SVN was a great source of friendship, support, ideas, and a great place to really explore challenges and find tremendous community."
Mason and Brown's innovative business followed the path set by Arnold Hiatt at Stride Rite, who pioneered child-care at the work place. In response to families encountering problems finding both child and elder care, Hiatt opened Stride Rite's first company-run day care center in the U.S. in 1971 and then opened its Intergenerational Day-Care Center in 1990.
Idea 10: LOCAL LIVING ECONOMIES →
