Gillian describes herself as a social entrepreneur.
She’s also a human resourses professional and the founder of My Kids Village.
Gillian’s passion project is to fix the disconnect between full-time working parents and the traditional 9-5 workplace.
My Kids Village is an online platform for parents to easily find local childcare options.
Gillian fondly calls My Kids Village a sticky plaster. Put in place while she educates New Zealand’s companies on the benefits for a flexible work environment.
What was your vision when you first started your venture?
To make parents' lives easier, particularly working parents. There’s a big disconnect between school and work life. Those systems were never designed to co-exist. I kept hearing from parents with older kids, “Enjoy the last year of daycare, it's all about to get really hard." School for working parents is a logistical nightmare. You need to figure out before- and after-school care. Then there’s the school holidays. I wondered why it's left to the parents to solve this problem. It impacts so many Kiwi families. Everybody is dealing with exactly the same challenge and yet we treat it like it's a private problem. That annoys me.
We're not going to change the education or the employment system overnight. That's the bigger game. In the meantime, My Kids Village helps parents by showing them the local childcare options available. Parents can just literally go to My Kids Village, click search, select the area they live in, and then type of provider that they need.
My Kids Village is a social enterprise. A business with a social goal at our core. Not a profit motive. Social enterprise is similar to a charity in that it's mission driven. My Kids Village wasn’t set up as a charity to avoid lengthy legislation and constraints. I wanted to just to get going and solve the problem. I personally funded the initial build of the website. One of the unique things about My Kids Village is that we don't charge for prominent profiles. This levels the playing field between the community based not-for-profits and the large providers with huge marketing budgets. Sam and I are motivated to give visibility to those providers that wouldn't otherwise have it.
Sam is my partner at My Kids Village. She found the site as she approached the end of her parental leave and was searching for childcare. With a background in sales and marketing, she has really helped improve My Kids Village. We've now launched across the whole country and started blogging. The blog has been very important for increasing our traffic. Posting useful content means that parents keep returning to the site. We have amazing support from Nettl, our web provider. They understand we’re a community project.
How did you deal with early setbacks?
When parents or providers don’t have much interest in what we are doing, it's disappointing.
Some providers have waiting lists for their childcare centres. Even though there's no cost to join My Kids Village, there's no point in them even investing the time.
I realise that I shouldn’t be going for one hundred percent coverage here. If I can get to a tipping point with enough providers to become a really valuable hub, with high visibility, then they will sign up anyway. I'm not at that tipping point yet. There are now providers on My Kids Village who have signed up that we never contacted. That is great.
One of the core problems that needs solving is irregular child care. Think holiday programs. They’re not constant. It doesn't become part of your day to day routine like after school clubs or an early learning childcare. With these, once set up, they stay in place for a long time. You don’t have to think about them. Holiday programs can be a bit of a logistical nightmare.
So, setbacks are mainly from expectations not being met. There are loads of those. For example, you write a blog, and you think, "I really like this one." Sometimes the post gets lots of traction. Other times it doesn’t. I'm learning to hold it a bit lighter, not to take everything personally. The experimental mindset really helps. When something doesn’t happen as expected I just tell myself, "Oh, that was an interesting lesson.”
Another big thing, don't say, "should." Try and ban the word "should." Either say "I could," or "what if." That kind of language is much more helpful. “Should" just makes me feel bad about the things I'm not doing, adding to guilt. No parent with small children needs more guilt in their life.
Was there a time that you wanted to give up?
Yes, but never for very long. Just five-minute frustrations such as, ‘’Damn, why is this so hard?’’. Particularly when this isn't the only thing that I'm doing. That's the biggest challenge. If I didn't need an income and I could just spend all my time on My Kids Village. That would be amazing. But that's not my reality. I work and I’m a parent. So I practice resetting my expectations and just being a bit kinder to myself.
Were there any traps that you fell into?
My Kids Village is my passion project. While discussing with friends what I've learned from running a social enterprise, I described it as a cycle of traction, slump, repeat. The trick for me is learning how to get out the slump and back to traction faster. Being an extrovert, I find having a good old chat helps me tune back into my motivation. Then identifying just one task and focusing on it. That's really important. I’m now better at asking for help or discussing my ideas with other people.
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What inspires and motivates you?
My Kids Village is my passion project. While discussing with friends what I've learned from running a social enterprise, I described it as a cycle of traction, slump, repeat. The trick for me is learning how to get out the slump and back to traction faster. Being an extrovert, I find having a good old chat helps me tune back into my motivation. Then identifying just one task and focusing on it. That's really important. I’m now better at asking for help or discussing my ideas with other people.
Can you describe a breakthrough that you're particularly proud of?
There are two.
The first was launching My Kids Village and having it transform from an idea to reality. Within the first week I had providers signing up. That was such an amazing experience.
The second breakthrough was building a partnership with Playcentre. They really understand the challenges parents have today. Our values really are in alignment. Forming partnerships are important for building shared understanding of the problems that we are solving.
I have no delusions that it's going to be solved by a single person or organisation. I often describe My Kids Village as a sticking plaster over the bigger problem. I ultimately want it to shift gears from finding providers for daycare, to "Here are all your options for your kids” - in a much more positive context.
By a long stretch we are not there yet. I gave up my job a few months ago for exactly that reason. I'm now working with organisations to design and build flexible workplaces. That's part of the solution. How do we encourage more employers to recognise the value they’re losing by being too rigid in the way they expect people to engage with delivering their job. Because employment is very input focused, the transaction is based on hours served for money. Actually, that's part of the bigger problem too. That's not a situation unique to New Zealand. I can’t change the legislation overnight. I can use my skills as an HR professional, supporting businesses to be more flexible in how they engage with their workforce.
There are some high profile companies with the four-day working week. The Perpetual Guardian pioneered it in New Zealand. Then Microsoft Japan, trialed it for a month and saw a 40% productivity increase. Who isn’t interested in that?! That's the conversation I'm having with my clients. The four-day working week came from New Zealand and we're not doing anything with it. I'd love it if we did. When talking to clients about the flexible work place, I say "Standing still on this is actually moving backwards". Employee’s expectations are shifting. It’s not as if we’re shutting up shop on Fridays. Instead of 40 hours of contracted weekly hours, it's 32. The idea is that to get that extra eight hours away from the workplace, you've got to find ways of delivering and being more productive.
In my experience, people know their jobs really well. They can see what’s getting in the way. Give them permission to rip it out and design it in the way that they know will work better, they will do that for you. Especially if it means that they get a day off. That's the incentive. So it's brilliant, and the results are stunning and not just in productivity, but it reduces stress also.
So if I can build My Kids Village as well as building a more flexible working practice, then it gives me a cohesive story.
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS BEING YOUR BIGGEST LESSON?
Progress, not perfection. I think anyone who knows me will probably laugh. They’ll say, ‘’She's not a perfectionist.’’ And they're right. I'm not. But letting go and focusing on what I can do, the contribution I want to make, just doing something. That's my biggest lesson.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY IF YOU HAD TO START AGAIN FROM SCRATCH?
I'd have not held it too tightly. I was a bit too earnest in the early days. Telling myself, ‘’Right, you started this, crack on, it's no one else's problem.’’
Asking for help and having someone to talk this stuff through with has made the biggest difference for sure. It seems that successful start-up founders have someone to kick their ass. Partnering with Sam has held me more accountable, providing more motivation and support.
HAS YOUR VISION ALWAYS BEEN CLEAR AND HOW IS IT EVOLVED?
The vision for My Kids Village has always been constant. What's evolved is thinking broadly about how I can contribute to that vision. Giving up my job, for example, so that I can focus on building flexible workplaces, is really important.
I’d love My Kids Village to be a known brand. A go-to place for parents and childcare providers to find each other. Then use what I've learned on the way to advocate for a bigger change. Create a legislative environment where parents aren't solving this on their own.
Connect with Gillian
If you have enjoyed this article and want to start a conversation with Gillian, you can reach out by:
Websites: gillianbrookes.co.nz | mykidsvillage.co.nz
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gillian-brookes-88928aa2
Facebook: facebook.com/mykidsvillagenz/
Please don’t forget to tell Gillian that I sent you.
Interview and photography by Wellington Headshots, Tim Morrison (all rights reserved)