Time Management
Employee meal service plan helps busy workersMeals to go takes a bite out of stressIt's always refreshing to hear about new initiatives in the workplace that are designed to make workers' lives easier and healthier. |
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 [ 2007-06-20 ] |
Kids & Company has taken that one step further, offering employers who use their child care services the opportunity to pass along a healthy eating initiative to their employees.
Earlier this week, Kids & Company launched a meals-to-go program at its Toronto-area locations. "Now, when parents pick up their little ones, they can also pick up healthy, delicious, prepared meals that they can pop in the microwave and serve to their families at home," the company said in a news release.
Kids & Company chief executive, Victoria Sopik, is a mother of eight and knows what it's like to try to squeeze meal preparation into the busy work day.
"As the concept of work/life balance has taken hold in corporate Canada, stressed out workers are looking to their employers to help them juggle all of their responsibilities," Sopik says. "Picking up dinner when they pick up their kids means frazzled working parents have one less thing to worry about."
The meals are prepared by Basil Fresh, a Toronto food company that works with companies that offer meal services to their employees through an online ordering system. The meals are made ahead of time with all natural ingredients and then are freshly frozen, taking just minutes to re-heat the meal in the oven or microwave.
Proctor and Gamble is one Kids & Company client ready to embrace the meals-to-go program. It is offering the program to all of its 900-plus employees at the Toronto head office -- even those who don't use the child-care service.
"Providing a supportive workplace and helping employees balance their professional and personal lives is a pillar of our HR philosophy at P&G Canada," says Jane Lewis, the company's director of human resources. "When Kids & Company came to us with this program, we saw it as a practical way to demonstrate this commitment to our employees."
While the meals-to-go program is Kids & Company's latest initiative, it's not the company's first progressive undertaking. Last year it designated one of its Toronto locations as a 24-7 facility and earlier this year it added an elder care pilot project to its Calgary clients.
"It just doesn't make sense to have a rigid approach to child care," Sopik says. "When you have toddlers and you're working, things come up no matter how organized you are. We adapt to the changing needs of parents rather than forcing them into a structure that's convenient for us."
Kids & Company is a child-care company that works directly with family-oriented corporations to develop progressive childcare options for their employees. It has centres in the GTA, London, Waterloo, Ottawa and Calgary.
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