Work-life balance at Brighton Zoo
As a production company producing a range of exciting entertainment for children, we’re passionate about creating a flexible work environment to offer our staff members a healthier work-life balance and to ease the juggle of bringing up a family. As a result, we provide remote and flexible working hours, putting an end to the mad dash from the office to pick the kids up or the overwhelming guilt of missing another school play.
In light of #InternationalFamiliesDay we asked Brighton Zoo staff for their experiences of balancing family life and work:
Juliet: ‘I could never have done this without a flexible attitude to work and life. My kids are much older now, but I do sometimes wonder if I founded a kids production company on the basis that I found myself spending an awfully lot of time watching kids's tv, when my eldest was born’.
‘In the early days having small kids made things really convenient when we wanted to user test our games, and if you look at some videos of early Plug-in Media AR projects on Youtube, you'll see my kids and their friends jumping around on the webcam: (Plug-in Media, Augmented Reality Games: 2011): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96C6Zr-jVG8
We also set up a few workshops for families based around our award-winning Tee and Mo music. These workshops included a range of playful activities from arts and craft to games with a musical twist:
Juliet: 'The pandemic has changed things enormously for the better - when I think back on the stress I put myself through to dash back from work in time for the nursery/school pick-up, it was crazy. It just wasn't as acceptable to work from home - even when you were the boss!'
And of course, running a production company and bringing up small children wouldn't be without a slightly chaotic anecdote or two:
Dom’s unexpected Zoom guest
Dom: “Cosmo, the boy, who is absolutely the target demographic of Supertato, would often bowl in straight from school, into story meetings with me (director) the head exec at BBC, head exec at BBC Studios, head writer, lead creative producer and the script editor. Then, without pause or hello, launch straight into his vision for whatever story was being discussed. If not tackled sensitively yet immediately, this involved a play by play of each scene and could last for 20 plus minutes of enthusiastic description with sound effects and key improv dialogue. I would also add that sadly his ideas had zero regard for any kind of scheduling, staffing or budgetary constraints, and therefore only 80% of them actually made it into the show. Ha. Joke. It was more like 40%.”
Bring your kid into work day…gone wrong
Juliet: “I remember once having to take my son into work when he was off nursery. He got to the top of the stairs of our old studio and immediately vomited onto the floor”
The first and last time Sally teaches her daughter how to use spreadsheets
Sally: "In the dreaded homeschooling of lockdown, I thought it would be a great idea to teach my daughter how to use Excel spreadsheets, as I am such a fun Mum. After showing her some fabulous summing and tabling tools, I left her to 'play with it', so off she went with my laptop and filled a spreadsheet with the words 'poo' 'bum' 'bum' 'poo' 'fart' 'bum' 'bum' 'poo' 'fart' 'bum' 'bum'. When I managed to get my laptop back I had to rush on to a work Zoom call, and ARGH the cringe when I had to share screen and forgot that my daughter had created this Excel spreadsheet of filth!"
Flexible and hybrid working styles aren’t the only way we support our staff bringing up their families, we also have a number of family policies in place to assist our staff at whatever stage of parenthood they’re at; whether that’s arranging a smooth sailing maternity leave, offering location breaks for mothers who are breastfeeding or paid bereavement leave for those suffering with the loss of a pregnancy.