Sodexo Motivation Solutions has turned its boardroom at the head office in Camberley into a play area for the day, complete with entertainers and magicians.
Around 70 employees are at the office and around a dozen children aged four to 14 are taking part.
Managing director Iain McMath told Nursery World, ‘The strike is a big issue for a number of our employees and some weren’t able to get their children into local nurseries, so we came up with this solution.’
‘It’s about supporting our workforce.’
Children have been playing ‘princess and the pirate’, putting on a play about what they would like to do when they grow up, what they would do if they ran the country and what their parents do at work.
Children are also designing a poster to promote the company's childcare voucher scheme. The winning entry will be printed as a poster and the winner will be given the poster to keep.
Mr McMath said, ‘We wanted to make it a positive experience for the children. The idea was to make it a magical event for them.’
‘We knew that for children it would be breaking their routine and we wanted to make them feel like it was a special day out and a one-off.’
Unison has said that up to 30,000 nursery staff working in council-run nurseries and nursery classes in schools were expected to take industrial action today.
