At a glance
- Client: carsales, Richmond, Melbourne. WGEA Employer of Choice since 2015 and a certified Family Friendly Workplace
- Challenge: parents taking bulk leave every school holidays, leaving heavier workloads and lower morale for everyone else
- Solution: an onsite KidsCo school holiday program since 2018, 30 places a day for children aged 5–12, subsidised 60% by carsales
- Results: 100% of participating parents took less childcare-related sick leave, 100% felt workplace culture improved, and productivity grew 80% during the holidays
The challenge
carsales found that many staff with primary school-aged children were taking leave to cover caring responsibilities over the school holidays. With few alternatives available, colleagues without children picked up the extra workload. The business saw three problems:
- More sick leave taken during the school holidays
- Lower morale and culture as workloads increased
- Reduced productivity and engagement during an already stressful period
carsales wanted to reduce the bulk leave taken each school holidays, and the pressure it put on the rest of the team.
The solution: onsite school holiday care
carsales has partnered with KidsCo since 2018 to run school holiday programs onsite at its Richmond office in Melbourne, and virtually when needed. KidsCo offers 30 places a day for children aged 5–12, with a program designed around carsales’ culture and values.
carsales subsidises the program by 60%, so parents pay only the remaining placement fee. Demand has been strong enough for carsales to increase the number of program days it runs each year.
“Our teams look forward to when KidsCo is onsite and we are often being asked when it will be back. The program brings such great energy to our offices and we love seeing what fun our team members’ children have during the day. KidsCo make the whole process so easy and are a pleasure to work with.”
– Anthea Corridon, Senior People & Culture Business Partner, carsales
The results
Over the school holiday program period, carsales saw:
- 100% of participating employees took less sick leave for childcare reasons
- 100% felt an improvement in workplace culture
- 80% growth in productivity during the school holidays
- 92% of employees rated carsales’ flexibility and work/life balance positively in its employee opinion survey
“KidsCo holiday program has been a great benefit of working at carsales and has taken some of the pressure off my family during the school holidays. As a full-time working mother, it is great that I can bring my son to work and there is a fun and engaging program he can get involved in.”
– Sharon Koh, Head of Tax and Treasury, carsales
Why it matters: family-friendly and gender equality goals
carsales is a certified Family Friendly Workplace under the National Work + Family Standards developed by Parents At Work and UNICEF Australia. As a digital business, it is focused on improving the representation of women in technology roles, and it sees practical support for parents, like school holiday care, as key to helping mothers grow their careers alongside raising children.
Read carsales’ full story on the Family Friendly Workplaces website.
Want to support your working parents the same way? Talk to the KidsCo team.
