Nanny in flight: private equity firm to offer travelling childcare for staff

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/14/kkr-firm-travelling-childcare

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Flying nannies are joining the ranks of the 1%.

KKR & Co – the New York private equity firm once dubbed “the barbarians at the gate” for its tough guy tactics – has rolled out a new perk for its employees: travelling childcare for its staff.

New parents will be allowed to bring their child and a caregiver on any work trip they take between returning from maternity or paternity leave and the child’s first birthday. The firm will foot the bill for airfare, hotel and meals, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.

KKR’s travel policy could be a way for the firm to attract women. Private equity has long come under scrutiny for being a male-dominated field.

“Too many same people means too much same thinking,” George Roberts, 71, one of the firm’s co-founders, told Bloomberg. “We found that people were hiring people like themselves. If you want to stifle innovation, if you want to stifle diverse thinking, if you want to stifle creativity, then just keep hiring people like yourself.”

Of KKR’s 93 senior staff, just 12 are women.

One of the first people to take advantage of KKR’s new policy was Brittany Bagley. The 32-year-old mother went on a business trip along with her four-month-old son and his “caretaker”.

“Do I do a good job at work, or do I spend time with my child? One of those questions is now off the table,” said Bagley.

The news of this perk comes just days after three US companies made adjustments to their paid leave policies. Last week, Netflix announced that it would offer paid leave to both men and women for the entire first year of their child’s life. Within 24 hours, Microsoft announced that new mothers could take up to 20 weeks of paid leave after their pregnancy. That’s up from 12 weeks. And finally on Monday, Adobe announced that primary caregivers can get 16 weeks of paid leave after birth or adoption. New mothers can take additional 10 weeks of paid medical leave.

The topic of working mothers has been receiving increased attention recently, and it’s not just because of the never-ending barrage of “can women have it all” articles. The gender wage gap – women making 78 cents for every dollar that man makes – has long been attributed to women being mommy-tracked. Under that theory, the reason women earn less is because they need to take time off to care for their children. Offering paid leave and perks like the ability to bring new children along for a work trip could potentially help mitigate that.

Related: In their own words: women who faced demotions after maternity leave

The majority of women who are eligible for paid leave from their jobs take advantage of it. Many of them work further into their pregnancy and often return to work quickly after their pregnancy. Being able to travel for work and resume their everyday duties could help these working moms avoid being mommy-tracked.

Just a handful of US states actually offer paid maternity leave and “only 12% of US private sector workers have access to paid family leave through their employer”, according to the US Department of Labor. US workers can technically take three months worth of unpaid leave, but many of them cannot afford to do that.

As the Guardian reported in January:

In 2014, more than 15 million children under six years old potentially needed [child] care, according to the 2014 Child Care Aware of America report. About 8.6 million came from families with two working parents; the remaining 6.4 million were from single-parent families, where parents were also working. In the US, there are 20 million children under four years old. A quarter live in poverty.

In private equity, which pays some of the highest salaries on Wall Street, KKR’s plan might seem like a great perk. For many low income Americans, it’s as out of the realm of possibilities as a nanny with a flying umbrella.