TODSTWD 2011

April 28^th 2011 was National Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day 2011.  At my Agency we host a huge day-long event for 60 of our employee’s children between 6 and 12 years old.  The entire day is sponsored by our Working Parents Network, and being one of the leaders of the network I played a big part in not only planning the day but making sure the day itself ran smoothly.  We start planning in late Feb/early March and it takes a lot of effort to plan all the details of the day.  This year the kids did some pretty cool activities including shooting a TV commercial, designing a toy, creating a print ad featuring themselves and designing their dream room!  The older kids also wrote a press release about the day with the help of our Public Relations group that all the children took back to share with their schools.  The day was a huge success and I am so proud of my team and all the people who helped us pull off this event.

Even though A didn’t qualify for the day’s activities I brought him in to be my sidekick for the day and to help me run things.  He was thrilled to ride on a real train and we even took a taxi as a special treat.  He did a great job helping me and was a big hit around the office.  After about a 15 minute warm up he was throwing out orders and acting like he owned the place. I think I have a future CEO on my hands. LOL

Here are a few highlights from the day:

Riding a real Choo-Choo Train for the 1st Time!!

Taxi cab confessions anyone??

my future CEO

putting him to work on some emails

lunchtime at the event

Really into the move that was shown during lunch

A Friday Field Trip

Shhhhhh…..this morning I took a little ‘field trip’ from work.  Actually, it was work related so it’s not a secret.  We are in the midst of planning Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, which is rapidly approaching (April 28^th…EEEK!) and we needed to buy some soft toys from IKEA for one of the activities we are doing.  Since you can’t order them online from their website, off to IKEA we went.

 

Trying not to browse for ourselves, my coworker and I headed straight to the toy section for what we needed.  Both being mothers, it proved hard to not shop for our own little ones.  My co-worker was smart enough to not bring her wallet, but since one of us had to pay for the supplies I brought mine.  BIG mistake.  They have such cute things it was hard to resist.

We looked around for a while and finally narrowed it down to these two items as the give-a-way for the kids.  

The moose was just so stinkin adorable but we ultimately chose the soccer ball since we thought it would fit best for both boys and girls and for all ages between 6 & 12.  I think they are going to love them!  We then made our way through the remaining maze of the store and to checkout.  But not before picking up some chocolate bars for the kids too.  Now did you really expect us to go to IKEA and not leave without chocolate?? 

We have so much more left to get done in preparation for the event but we can now cross this one off the to-do list.  Plus it was a nice 2 hr break from the normal work grind., especially on a Friday. 

The Leader of the Pack

For the last few years I have been very much involved in the Working Parents Network (WPN) at my job.  I have sort of unofficially taken on a leadership role so it kind of made sense for me to take over as one of the official leaders as the torch was passed on from the current leaders.  My responsibilities as being one of the co-leaders of the WPN will include attending the monthly meeting that covers all of the professional networks at my company and leading the WPN monthly meeting.  I already attend 1 of the 2 monthly meetings, so what’s one more meeting in my packed calendar, right?! 

The current problem we are facing is that we have a very small core group that attend meetings & plan all the events we run.  When I say small, I mean small…literally 4-6 people.  In total there are about 60 people who are signed up to be a part of the WPN, but none of them come to meetings or get involved.  It is extremely challenging to plan “Take Your Sons & Daughters to Work Day” for 60 children with only 6 people!!   If we don’t get more involvement soon, management could eventually kill our network.   

So one of my goals as the new ‘co-president’, so to speak, is to not drive up membership (that we have) but to drive involvement of the members we have.  I’m wracking my brain for idea on how to get people more engaged.  I realize everyone is very busy at work (I am a perfect example), but if people signed up for this network they must have on some level wanted to get involved in Working Parent Initiatives/Events.

I was thinking of doing a raffle (of what I have no idea yet) at our next WPN meeting to try and get people to show up…but would love to hear your creative ideas/gimmicks to get people more involved. 

So let’s hear ‘em!

Winter Wishes

As part of the Working Parents Network (WPN), which I help lead at my job, we host an event every year called “Winter Wishes”.  I’m proud of all the programs we do as part of the WPN, but this one in particular is special.  For this event we partner with the NY Cares Winter Wishes Program to fulfill holiday wish letters from disadvantaged kids in NYC.  It’s very sweet to read what these children write and it breaks my heart every year to see how many children are in need.  Last year we obtained 100 letters and they were in picked up by our employees in record time.  So this year we upped the number to 125 letters.  To our surprise all 125 letters were picked up in 34 minutes!!! 

On Monday we held a gift drop off party for those who participated – we even had Santa drop by!  All I can say is WOW!!  Everyone was so incredibly generous this year.  These 125 kids are going to have such a special holiday.  A few of the participants even attached letters from Santa back to their child that they had written.  I couldn’t believe how thoughtful everyone was.

Next year I think we can handle 200 letters and make even more kids’ dreams come true!

Working Mother Media Worklife Congress

The other week I attended a 2 day conference in NYC with two of my coworers for the Working Mother Media WorkLife Congress.  I was selected to attend due to my roles at work as a leader of our “Working Parents Network”.  It is an organization of employees who are driven to improve the work/life balance of all employees at my company through policy changes & programs.  I’ve been a part of this network for a few years now and it’s something I am very proud to be involved in. 

The conference itself was quite eye opening (and a little depressing) to see what other companies are offering for working mothers (and dads too) that my own company does not.  It showcased the “Top 100 Best Companies to Work for as a Working Mom” and held workshops about what they are doing to make the work/life balance a little easier. 

At the Gala dinner they even announced women from each of the top 100 Best Companies that were named “Working Mother of the Year”.  As I sat there and watched the awards I thought to myself, how cool would it be to win that award someday?!

One of the goals of our Working Parents Network is to get my company onto this list of Top 100 Best Companies.  We were the first Advertising Agency to ever attend this conference (we were a sponsor too) and the President of Working Mother Media personally came up to our table and expressed how excited she was to see us there. 

I am more motivated than ever to convince management that we need to implement a flexible working arrangement and better maternity leave policy.  Maybe if we offered more flexibility we wouldn’t see so many people quitting……. My colleagues and I have already started drafting up a business plan for a flexible working policy that we plan to take to Management in a month or so.

I think I’m going to need some luck for this one!!